White

We are all a composite of our genetics and our experiences, the result of where we have lived, what we have seen, what we have been told, what we believed, what we learned, what we felt, what we tasted. We are a little of our friends, a little of our parents, a little of our teachers, and, at least in the Westernized world, a fair amount of the media. And perhaps a little bit of self-determination, because there's something passive aggressive about just blaming everyone else.

I am 30 years as a Canadian, nuanced by 2 years in Britain, 4 in Sweden, and 5 months (tomorrow!) and counting here in Mexico. I am half Swedish and half British, but possess neither citizenship nor particular filial loyalty to either. I believe fervently in the leftist philosophies but find myself slowly but surely sliding to a lefty-middle as the years pass. I dropped a reasonably successful career in theatre administration to move to Mexico because, for reasons I’m not sure I could put words to, I am better, happier, more whole, when I am traveling. I landed in this city near paralyzed by fear and excitement.

Here I am usually American. “Estadosunidos?” they ask me. “Americana?”

“Pinche gringa,” some mutter on the Metro.

I sometimes challenge this assumption. “Why,” I ask, “do you assume? I could be Swedish, British, German, Australian… Canadian.” The reply usually has to do with the number of gringos versus non-gringos, comparatively. The assumption is usually correct, they say.

Touché, I admit grudgingly. But stop it. I’m not American.

I am presuppositions and illusions shattering with such speed and force that the falling shards are often hazardous to myself and those around me

Here I am, more than anything, white.

A young man stopped me last week to ask if I was an English teacher. He’s desperate to learn English, he explained to me, because he has a real thing for white girls. My skin, he tells me, is beautiful. Can he touch it?

No.

(He's also another penis story, for those of you who want to wallow in the baser side of my interactions with some of the men of this city. I mean, REALLY. I'm sure a ride on the Metro during rush hour could result in an unplanned pregnancy.)

I have always been white in that the pigmentation of my skin has not changed, but perhaps I never actually internalized that colour comes with political associations (ah, the luxurious naïveté of the dominant group). To be assessed purely on the basis of my skin – whether it means being revered or reviled – is utterly foreign and deeply repugnant to me. Multicultural Canada works very hard to maintain the illusion that our Crayola world of miraculous diversity is the same utopia for everyone in it, save those assholes who beat their own horrible and racist and ignorant drums and try to spoil it for everyone.

Here I am "guera": "blonde," despite not being blonde. Here, where you can show respect to someone by calling them "blonde." Here, where sometimes, at least in my increasing hyper-sensitivity to my foreignness, my "blonde"-ness is the most defining thing about me.

Wah wah wah, listen to her complaining about being white in a world where colonialism has bred a fondness for paleness.

But here's my issue: white, black – these are misnomers of a shocking level. Race has no political singularity; I am uncomfortable with the power given to me because I resemble distant colonizers. My particular breed of white is Swedish – a country where polite is never assuming you deserve anything – and Scottish – a country whose language and culture has been reduced to tourist shop kitsch by hundreds of years of English oppression. Scotland has more in common with Mexico than it does with England, at least in terms of the struggle for identity and culture, yet Rule Britannia determines how I am to be received globally.

Here the nuances of whiteness don’t exist: white means American means power means appeal means resentment. I am not Canadian, Scottish/Swedish, nor a citizen of the global community. I am not Erika, prodigal daughter on an adventure of learning. Here I represent a physical ideal and centuries of colonial damage.

Did you know that my generation's grandparents have been known to encourage intermarriage with whites because it "improves the race"?

Did you realize how big a market there is for skin creams that promise to lighten the skin of Mexican women - swarthiness caused, the marketers assert, by sun and aging, and which is deeply, offensively, horrifically unattractive.

My first attempt at a relationship here startled to crumble when he wouldn't stop going on about how I would be his first "white girlfriend" and how exciting that was to him. I never told him that he'd be my third vaguely cinnamon-coloured boyfriend and that that didn't matter a whit to me, although I did envy his ability to withstand direct sunlight.

But perhaps the biggest revelation for me has been in the emergence of a hyper-sensitivity about this issue. Again, nestled warmly in the bosom of my inadvertant domination, I used to prickle - indeed, I believe I even wrote a somewhat lengthy blogpost about it! - about minority groups of any nature who insisted at length about the constant harrassment and discrimination they face. I thought them to be reactionary, blowing a significant problem into incalculable proportions, and, perhaps, clinging onto their victimization as a means to preserve the value of their identity. Move on, I'd say, and maybe we'd get somewhere. Sheesh.

But whether it's based on fact or not, it really is difficult to be an other without becoming an Other, if you know what I mean. A handful of people comment on my skin colour, and suddenly I'm a floating island of political foreigness struggling against a tidal wave of outside opinions. If someone here thinks I'm beautiful, the thought does cross my mind that it is about my colouring, not me. If the woman at the post office steadfastly ignores my request for just three stamps please, I do walk away grumbling about discrimination. If I am not being defined externally based on the colour of my skin, then I am beginning to define myself as such.

I have nothing profound to say to answer these issues, other than they make me acutely uncomfortable on a fundamental level. I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have to face this, though.