NOTES ON WHITE PEOPLE AND THE PUERTO RICANS

When referring to “white people”, the USA born and raised Puerto Rican meant “white gringos”. My own experience in Puerto Rico did not limit “whiteness” to the USA population, since I grew up surrounded by “puertorriqueños blancos” and its elites, “los blanquitos.” There were few “Americans” in my town, and they only socialized with the Puerto Rican “blanquito” elites. Culture and its related consciousness determine how “race” is defined. Race is a social construct and white is a relative term.

A German acquaintance of mine used to say that he was an old “mestizo”, given the possibilities that his ancestors had sexually mixed with the Mongols who invaded parts of Europe a few centuries before he was born. After studying why some Swiss people followed funeral practices similar to the ones found in Mongolia, a team of anthropologists created the concept of the “Mongolian spot”. My white Southern USA roommate was aware of the fact that a lot of his ancestors had sex and babies with the “American Indians”, Elizabeth Warren included. Quite a few “USA white people” have those “marks” demonstrating that their “whiteness’ is tainted. In that sense Puerto Ricans in the island know that their “whiteness” is also tainted. 

In the USA colony, Puerto Rico, the perception of the USA population is formulated around the political relationship of both countries: the “Americans” and the “Puerto Ricans”; “gringos” (be “Black, White, Latino, Indians”) and us . Puerto Ricans know about the racial situation in the USA and how it impacts them, but they are also aware of how racial relationships are played in the Puerto Rican archipelago (there is an extensive body of literature on the topic published in the islands; in Spanish, of course). To limit the talk to the relationship of USA’s “white people” and “us” would not deal with the larger issue: the colonial status. Race "es otra variable más."