It’s 2020 and yet another fair skinned, dark haired, “Latina” is under fire for…a bunch of s*”t.

Free AI web copilot to create summaries, insights and extended knowledge, download it at here

1547

Abstract

ing people.In case you haven’t heard, Jessica Krug, formerly known as “Jess LaBambera,” was a “Bronx-born, Afro-Puerto Rican” History Professor at George Washington University who outed herself this week (here in Medium) for not even being Puerto Rican, or from The Bronx.As I actually am from The Bronx, every time I see this puta’s photo, or read someone else’s furious reaction to her identity crime, I want to scream, and then hide under my desk.The urge to scream should be obvious. She conned a lot of trusting people in a particularly slimy way. The desire to hide is more complicated…My mom’s from Puerto Rico, my dad’s a New York Jew. Like Jeanine and Jessica, not only does my name begin with a “J,” but I’ve got dark curly hair and a complexion that suggests I could be from anywhere. Growing up, it was crystal clear that my proximity to whiteness, by way of both my dad and my skin color, made things a LOT easier for me than for the other, darker-skinned, students of color around me.My proximity to, and approximation of, whiteness meant I got more easily tracked into gifted programs (where I was often the only Latina) and more easily accepted in predominantly white environments.However, rather than making me psyched about my ability to “pass,” and using it to win at capitalism and White Supremacy, my privelege eventually congealed into an accumulation of guilt and despair so great, it threatened my sanity a

Options

nd possibly my life.So learning that actual White girls like Cummins and Krug use backgrounds like mine as the Unique Value Propositions for their literary and academic brands makes me feel physically ill.On the one hand, it makes me cringe, thinking people might suspect me of using my own life story as a hook or gimmick. But even worse, it reveals the profound ignorance that these White women have about the actual complexity and, often, the deep trauma that accompanies the lived experiences of actual Latinas, and specifically the ones who can or do “pass for white.”In college, a friend incorporated stories I’d told about my mother’s childhood into her own writing. She probably thought they were colorful and exotic, like scenes from a magical realism novel, and I was too stunned and confused to even realize how wrong it was for her to have done that. But I get it now.Taking the history of another person, appropriating and profiting from it is obviously wrong — it’s a form of lying. But, less obvious, is the damage it does to those who have had their own stories stolen. Yes, it takes money and jobs we could have potentially had. But it also makes it that much harder for us to have our own experiences heard and celebrated because, being real, they are so much more complicated — and profoundly damning of whiteness — than the comfortable cartoons of Cummins and Krug could ever be.</article></body>

It’s 2020 and yet another fair skinned, dark haired, “Latina” is under fire for…a bunch of s*”t.

Earlier this year, it was Jeanine Cummins, the author whose Puerto Rican heritage apparently made her the perfect person to write Flatiron Book’s heavily promoted “American Dirt” — even though, despite all her research, she still turned in a novel that was widely derided as painfully inauthentic and stereotypical in its portrayal of “the” Mexican Immigrant experience.

That story stung on a personal level because, as a fairly fair skinned, dark haired, Latina with a Puerto Rican abuela, I often feel sensitive about my White Privilege and not being Latina “enough.”

Still, I know better than to think that my heritage would naturally make me an expert on “the Mexican immigrant experience” and that I would deserve a $7 million book deal because of it. In fact, I know very well that there are actual Mexican writers out there who would have done incredible work with that advance, and (I hope) I would have been quick to point that out to any publisher clueless enough to offer me big money while confusing Boriken with Mexico.

Then, this week, it was like deja vu all over again, when Kansas City native, Jessica Krug, appeared all over my social media feed like a bad dream — yet another phony, white passing, Latina, using her White Privilege to take book deals, fellowships, and teaching positions away from more deserving people.

In case you haven’t heard, Jessica Krug, formerly known as “Jess LaBambera,” was a “Bronx-born, Afro-Puerto Rican” History Professor at George Washington University who outed herself this week (here in Medium) for not even being Puerto Rican, or from The Bronx.

As I actually am from The Bronx, every time I see this puta’s photo, or read someone else’s furious reaction to her identity crime, I want to scream, and then hide under my desk.

The urge to scream should be obvious. She conned a lot of trusting people in a particularly slimy way. The desire to hide is more complicated…

My mom’s from Puerto Rico, my dad’s a New York Jew. Like Jeanine and Jessica, not only does my name begin with a “J,” but I’ve got dark curly hair and a complexion that suggests I could be from anywhere. Growing up, it was crystal clear that my proximity to whiteness, by way of both my dad and my skin color, made things a LOT easier for me than for the other, darker-skinned, students of color around me.

My proximity to, and approximation of, whiteness meant I got more easily tracked into gifted programs (where I was often the only Latina) and more easily accepted in predominantly white environments.

However, rather than making me psyched about my ability to “pass,” and using it to win at capitalism and White Supremacy, my privelege eventually congealed into an accumulation of guilt and despair so great, it threatened my sanity and possibly my life.

So learning that actual White girls like Cummins and Krug use backgrounds like mine as the Unique Value Propositions for their literary and academic brands makes me feel physically ill.

On the one hand, it makes me cringe, thinking people might suspect me of using my own life story as a hook or gimmick. But even worse, it reveals the profound ignorance that these White women have about the actual complexity and, often, the deep trauma that accompanies the lived experiences of actual Latinas, and specifically the ones who can or do “pass for white.”

In college, a friend incorporated stories I’d told about my mother’s childhood into her own writing. She probably thought they were colorful and exotic, like scenes from a magical realism novel, and I was too stunned and confused to even realize how wrong it was for her to have done that. But I get it now.

Taking the history of another person, appropriating and profiting from it is obviously wrong — it’s a form of lying. But, less obvious, is the damage it does to those who have had their own stories stolen. Yes, it takes money and jobs we could have potentially had. But it also makes it that much harder for us to have our own experiences heard and celebrated because, being real, they are so much more complicated — and profoundly damning of whiteness — than the comfortable cartoons of Cummins and Krug could ever be.