In a recent Washington Post article, the Post reported on a study conducted by Vanderbilt economist Joni Hersch where she found a correlation between skin color and income earnings among immigrants. Hersch found that Hispanic, Asian, and white immigrants with darker skin color earned less money than their fair-skinned counterparts.
Immigrants with the lightest complexions earned, on average, about 8 to 15 percent more than those with the darkest skin tone after controlling for race and country of origin as well as for other factors related to earnings, including occupation, education, language skills, work history, type of visa and whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.
This information is not new, it was already understood among African-Americans that preferential treatment is given to those with lighter skin, which is referred to as “colorism.”
Some people are under the impression that Hispanics do not encounter color-based racism, but this idea is very wrong. Most are either uninformed or perhaps harbor some personal agenda that limits their perception of reality. The sad thing is, the issue has only been addressed by a few scholars, and for the most part, it has been neglected. When it comes to discussion about skin-color, it has generally been discussed in terms of a Black/White dichotomy. However, similar issues concerning skin color also exist within the Native American and Asian-American communities.
Despite all the adulation of having an indigenous past, the sad reality, color-based racism has been lodged firmly in the subconscious mind of too many Hispanics due to it’s Spanish-colonialization heritage. In different regions of Latin America, color-based racism continues to have an impact in the way people interact with each other. In fact, if anyone were to examin any US-based Spanish language media networks, such as Telemundo and Univisión, one would definitely find a large presence of blondes than their English-language media counterparts.
As a Xicano, I do have to accept, perhaps there are no other ethnic group so self-conscious and irresolute about its self-worth. To get a firm grasp of this madness, one must understand the historical impact and the psychological effects of Spanish colonization it had on the indigenous population. In Guillermo Bonfil Batalla’s book, Mexico Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization, Batalla notes:
A basic characteristic of every colonial society is that invading group, with a different culture from the dominated, ideologically affirms its immanent superiority on all areas of life and denies and excludes the culture of those colonized.
According to Batalla, even though Mexico achieved Independence from Spain, Mexico never completed the decolonization process. The internal colonial structure was never eliminated since groups, who continued to hold power, even after the Mexico’s Independence, never abandoned the distorted view where “whiteness” was rewarded and “Indianness” was stigmatized.
The desire to shed one’s native identity was one of the most devastating consequences regarding Mexico’s colonization. Batalla calls this type of transformation “de-Indianization.”
De-Indianization is a historical process through which populations that originally possessed a particular and distinctive identity, based upon their own culture, are forced to renounce that identity with all the consequent changes in their social organization and culture.
This process of shedding one’s indigenous identity is coupled with the desire to improve one’s socio-economic condition, which ultimately meant, the indigenous remained the poorest, most subjugated group in Mexico – a process that started in 1492.
Interestingly enough, it appears, African-Americans were also subjugated to the same process during and after the end of slavery. According to Hersch:
Within the South, the likely causal link of preferred treatment of light skinned blacks was through kinship, as slave owners bore children with their slaves. These advantages persisted after the end of slavery, with mixed-race individuals holding leadership positions in the black community and establishing segregated societies within the black community.
Discrimination within black communities on the basis of skin tone was generally not subtle and was apparently widely practiced. It influenced residential housing, membership of social clubs and churches, entrance into historically black colleges and universities, and membership of fraternities and sororities.
In Hersch’s paper, she also found a direct link between wage earnings and skin-color for “non-Hispanic white immigrants, and for Asian immigrants.” In our minds, we often equate race to skin color, so, one would wonder how is it possible for white folks to discriminate other white folks based on skin color. But in the late 19th century and early 20th century, it wasn’t so, there was a distinct belief that people who came from Northern Europe were far superior than those from Southern and Eastern Europe.
During the 1920s, the US passed several restrictive immigration laws. In 1921, the Emergency Quota Act, which discriminated against immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe, and in 1924 the National Origins Act, which completely excluded Japanese and other Asian immigrants and further reduced those admitted from Southern and Eastern Europe. It was at this time, there was a large interest in eugenics.
U.S. eugenicists also supported restriction on immigration from nations with “inferior” stock, such as Italy, Greece, and countries of eastern Europe, and argued for the sterilization of insane, retarded, and epileptic citizens.
Unfortunately, Hersch did not identify what countries the non-Hispanic whites originated. She does make an interesting finding. She notes:
There is also considerable support for the possibility that darker-skinned respondents may have likewise faced discrimination in their originating countries, and for that reason may have ended up with inferior market-related characteristics … A preference for lighter skin occurs not only among blacks in the U.S., but in India, Asia, Africa, and Central and South America. What appears to be skin color discrimination affecting immigrants to the U.S. may instead be a continuation of discrimination already experienced in their home countries. On the other hand, positive self-selection among immigrants would offset negative effects of skin color discrimination experienced in their home countries.
For those who persist in claiming discrimination is a thing of the past, why is there a large number of people in the US who have the desire to appear as white as possible?
(Hat tip to JV for pointing out Belle Waring’s post at Crooked Timber)
Amina Mire’s article in CounterPunch (your white as possible link, is interesting and mostly on target about the push for lighter skin tones as signifying the more desired way that people – especially women – should look. Certainly racism has a significant role in judgments that are made about people based on skin color. It is sad, too, to hear people put themselves down because of their skin color – what a terrible thing to teach a child!
However, there are a couple of other parts of the historical issue about desiring whiter skin. Women with whiter skin were deemed to be refined, as not having to do menial labor, particularly outside in the sun, where the darkening and wrinkling effects of exposure quickly aged light-colored women’s skins. So women who did not have servants wore sunbonnets or other head coverings while working, not simply while out socially. I have my great-grandmonther’s sunbonnet, a thing of pioneering style and shape (indeed, it is quite old). She admonished my mother for allowing my sister and I outside without deeply shaded head coverings, in order to keep our skin as light as possible.
The second factor is sun tans. Currently, and indeed for many decades, it has been fashionable for lighter skinned women to get a sun tan, with darker tans being more desirable. It began with Coco Chanel’s proud showing of her tanned skin in the 20s and 30s – something of a scandal at the time. She stood out with her dark tanned face when almost all wealthy, fashionable women tried to preserve as light a skin tone as possible. Although this movement abated somewhat in the 1990s with warnings about skin cancer, tanning has come back. I don’t think that wanting to remove age spots, some of which are precancerous, is the same as wanting lighter skin in general, however.
So, though I definitely believe that prejudice within and across ethnic/cultural groups stills maps onto skin color in many cases, I don’t think it is generally the case that a desire for the lightest possible skin is pervasive and almost always racist. Nor does it address the resurgence of suntanned skin as denoting fashionable skin tone among white women.
It is sort of a love/hate relationship when it comes to skin color. Very very strange.
As a woman born in 1940, I know just a little about how discrimination (gender based, in this case)can affect one from, the inside out, after years and years of being affected by being seen as inferior.
It took me years, as an adult, to first deprogram myself from all the negative self worth messages instilled in me by the church and society, then to resonstruct a reality based self image.
Back when I still saw myself, on some levels as sonehow “inferior”, my behavior and manner of interacting with others was based on a lot of defensive coping mechanisms.I was angry so much of the time, although this of course was supressed because good women are never angry. At the same time I tended to be lots more subservient, in my attempts to be accepted by my “superiors”.
Now, my behavior is much much different. I feel much safer and self confident, now that I understand who I really am and that I am as “worthy” as anyone else.
I have no idea if this is anything like what people of color experience in a white culture and do not claim the discrimination I experienced as a white woman is anything near what minorities experience. But I don’t have any problem understanding why people of color often choose to stay with each other in smaller communities, where they CAN be all of who they are and ARE totally accepted as “equal”.
Also, as I’ve said more than once here, my experiences living for extended periods within the Native American and Mexican American communities proved to me without a doubt that I truly do feel more “belongingness” and sense of shared values, in non white cultures than I have ever felt in my own all white culture.
There are stories told about me as a young child, asking how I could make my skin brown like the real Indians, which got me into no end of trouble!! I have always been happy that the tiny amount of Native American blood I do carry has given me a little bit of a natural “tan”.
That paragraph, sums it up perfectly. Just like good women are never angry, minorities are not allow to be confrontational, if not we are pegged the “angry minority” who is oversensitive, unreasonable, and quick to anger.
I see racism as a false issue, used by the ruling elite to create division and conflict. If we are divided, we cannot address the issue of class, and that capitalism is destroying the earth and the quality of life for all living beings on the planet, in the name of profit.
You are absolutely correct. I don’t know if you read it, but that is something I wrote about in my last diary, The Race-Class Taboo
If you have the opportunity to be with a group of 5 year olds, ask them if they can sing. And then seek out a group of 12 year olds and ask them if they can sing.
We are taught what is beautiful, good, right, and valuable. Who are our teachers?
L’Oreal’s labs create a product. Studies are done to see what the stuff might do. “Oh look – it bleaches skin.” Marketing department gets busy. Create a “problem,” in this case, uneven skin tone. How many women have skin tones that vary? Duh – all most all of them. Create a standard of “beauty,” in this case “flawless” even skin tones. Offer “solution” to “problem” – L’Oreal’s product. Ka-ching$$ – measure success of marketing campaign.
Are the people at L’Oreal racist? Probably no more or less than anywhere. They are just doing their jobs.
Our market-driven culture distorts everything in the mindless and heartless and soulless drive to acquire more profits. And the messages of the sales pitches bleed into the culture. Notice the language of the requests for financial support of candidates – send them some “love.”
“Us vs. them” may be innate to human beings. But the criteria for “us” and “them” are shaped by people and can be changed. Who benefits from the status quo? Who gives up position and power willingly?
You bring up great points about looks and profits. When corporations get involve issues like these get blurred, which is something I should have made clearer in my last paragragh. The desire for some white folks to lighten their skin further shouldn’t be viewed as some type of racist motives, which excellently Kidspeak pointed out.
When you asked “Who are our teachers?” That is a very important point, especially in a society that tends to cut out and gloss over our ugly history in our schools. We tend to not really care about it, sure we talk about, bring it up in a conversation, but really care or realize how history can influence our thinking and our behavior, especially political behavior.
Take the Bush family. Prescott Bush had his business was declared enemy of the United States and seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, yet, Connecticut elected him to the US Senate.
George Orwell had it right when he said “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”