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Originally posted by dtb
Interesting. I am Hispanic (father only) and Jewish (both parents); however, I don't think I identified more with one than the other.
What is interesting is that my husband (who is from Puerto Rico -- i.e., he lived and went to school there -- he's not a JLo Newyorican)
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I never really felt that different than the kids around me either, but I knew I was Hispanic. I remember, though, one time in elementary school that we went to a field trip in San Antonio, and some of the other kids started yelling "La migra! La migra!" out the bus window every time they saw someone who looked Hispanic (which is a LOT in San Antonio). It's possible that Cheech Marin had a bit about that sort of thing around that time, but I didn't understand it at all. My parents were pissed when they heard about it.
I think the "work harder to overcome the Man" thing may be generational. My grandfather was fourth in his class in his med school (in the 30s), and he always claimed that he would have been higher if it hadn't been for the Jews in his class. He told his kids that they had to work extra hard if they wanted to succeed, and my dad and uncle became doctors and another uncle was a vet. (My dad says the vet is the smartest of the three.) My grandfather really didn't care about his daughter's academic and/or professional success, so it was ok that she just went to the local junior college and became a teacher. By the time of my generation, we were ordered to work hard, but there was never any suggestion that we'd have ethnicity-based difficulties that we needed to overcome. And sex wasn't an excuse either.
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