White-Passing Privilege: I Lived In A Bubble As A Pale Hispanic Girl

I'm learning to become more educated about my privilege.

By Unwritten — Written on Jul 11, 2020

Photo: Getty

White Passing Privilege: I Lived In A Bubble As A Pale Hispanic Girl

By Nyssa Berlanga

White-passing privilege is when someone of a certain racial group “passes” as white because of their skin tone. The world has been discussing this experience a lot, especially recently.

However, looking at what’s happening these days, I wanted to make sure that I tell my story as well.

Hispanic people predominantly make up the city — or maybe the region — where I live, and it makes sense.

It’s located about 3 hours north of Mexico and I even have family that still lives there. However, I know that this has given me a lot of sheltered thoughts over the years.

Some of the sheltered thoughts included only really seeing people who had similar upbringings as I did. However, I was also able to do certain things without a second worry.

I honestly grew up thinking that everyone was safe and happy in their homes. I know now that, in so many communities, people are worried about their own circumstances that might feel life-threatening.

Even though I’m Hispanic, I’m a pretty pale girl and I’ve always been that way. What’s more, I usually burn more than actually tan. I didn’t know it, but the fact that my skin was lighter than others’ gave me certain privileges.

For instance, others didn’t heavily target and bully me. Maybe I’m just generalizing, but I did notice that my classmates with darker skin were more often targets in school.

Even while traveling — thanks to my lighter complexion — I never got any weird looks or comments. I know others have received these.

Looking back, I did wish that I could have done something to help my bullied classmates in grade school. But I know why I didn’t. I was a person who truly cared about being liked. Moreover, I didn’t like confrontation.

Furthermore, I grew up in a large bubble. I probably would have stayed in it, had I not gone off to the University of Texas at Austin.

Honestly, I was someone who just wanted to keep to herself and my own, “problems,” because I was too afraid to confront people. I figured they would immediately shut me down if I tried.

One illustration of my sheltered life occurred during my second semester at UT in my rhetoric class. We were talking about a book, Controversies, and our professor asked us to choose a controversial topic on college campuses.

I remember my friend had chosen to write about Affirmative Action on college campuses. After hearing this, I just asked him what that was — I truly had no idea that affirmative action existed. Immediately, I realized that it was because of where I grew up.

Similarly, my first semester of college was during the 2016 presidential election and I wasn’t exactly sure what was happening politically. My freshman year dormitory often had watch parties for the presidential debates.

However, I was always confused about the topics that they discussed. I didn’t know what was truly going on around me, because of my naïveté.

All through grade school, I would often turn a blind eye to my mom’s morning routine of watching Good Morning America. I always had this attitude that there was always something going wrong in the world, so why should I care. I’m only a teenager.