Trump era colors life for Latinos
speak. We were called these words, and oftentimes they would say, ‘Oh, it’s just out of love.’ But it really didn’t feel that way,” Lacayo said.
In addition to praise within families, being a light-skinned minority also translates to material benefits, including a higher income and greater educational attainment, data show. Latinos and black people deemed to have lighter skin tones are significantly more likely to be seen as intelligent by white interviewers than their darkskinned counterparts, according to a 2015 study published in the journal Social Currents.
The colonization of the Americas and spread of slavery played a large role in the denigration of dark skin and ethnic features, Hunter said.
In the same way that some Indian Sikhs have been attacked for wearing turbans, darker-skinned Latinos can become targets simply because they fit some stereotype of what a Mexican looks like.
“When you’re in an era of Euro and white nationalism, color or skin tone can often be a proxy for a variety of distinctions,” said Brian Levin, director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino. “Oftentimes, darker complexion is exploited as visual proof of a parasitic invasion of the country, that is not just evidence of changing demographics, but a proxy for a sinister attack on our values, culture, economy and safety by outsiders.”
Growing up, Gloria Calderon Kellett recognized that she and her brother, both Cuban-American, were bound to have different experiences because her skin is light and his is dark.
“We would go out places together, and he would be treated so differently than me,” Calderon Kellett, a TV writer and producer, said.
But last year, as her brother walked with his two children on a San Diego beach, someone told him to go back to Mexico.
“He was just so stunned,” Calderon Kellett said. “We’ve never experienced that in San Diego.”
Calderon Kellett decided to reference the incident in her Netflix show “One Day at a Time,” which focuses on a Cuban-American family living in Los Angeles.
In the first episode of the second season, the character played by actor Marcel Ruiz is told to “go back to Mexico” after he is overheard speaking Spanish with a friend. He tells his mother that, in another incident, the opposing baseball team saw him and yelled, “Build the wall!”
“Ever since somebody decided to call an entire group of Latinos rapists and criminals, everyone thinks they can say whatever racist thought occurs to them,” his sister, played by Isabella Gomez, says in the episode.
“It’s amazing how lucky I’ve been,” she adds. “Even these days in this openly racist world, I’ve managed to never have an incident.”
“You and your brother are of different shades,” their mother, portrayed by Justina Machado, says.