Scan barcode
A review by jessicaleza
My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet
5.0
As a first generation American, a daughter of Cuban refugees, this book gave me all the feels.
_________________
"The American Dream, commonly told: .... When they are born, you give your kids white American names so that their teachers can't tell what they are before meeting them, so that your kids don't suffer the way you suffered in school, and so that they won't eventually be 'inexplicably' denied apartments and jobs despite their abundant qualifications." (p28-29)
"Be safe, hide yourself in plain site; live up to the gift - the promise - of your white-girl name." (p. 37)
"I've come to see the American Dream for what it really is: a lie my parents had little choice but to buy into and sell to me, a lie that conflated working hard with passing for, becoming, and being white." (p. 40)
"Many white people I've met often think of themselves as culture-less, as vanilla: plain, boring, American white. What they are revealing when they say this, which they often do in jest, is how little race impacts their lives, how whiteness is ubiquitous to them, and they mistake the ubiquitousness as a kind of neutrality or regularness that renders their race and culture invisible to themselves." (p. 80)
"I never danced, knowing whatever I did with my body on a dance floor would make me stand out among the white folks." (p. 90)
"...as a light-skinned Latinx woman, I often accidentally trespass into moments that are essentially displays of white power intended only for other whites. ... White people who misread me as also white sometimes display the kind of pervasive racism usually reserved for whites-only spaces. They inadvertently include me in these white power moments, ones that we aren't supposed to witness, which are perpetrated by the kind of well-meaning white folks - people who genuinely don't consider themselves racists - when they're sure we aren't around to hear them." (p. 110).
Spotlighting (p. 166)
Masking (p. 171)
Somatic expressions of stress (p 177)
Cubans and mental health (p. 187)
_________________
"The American Dream, commonly told: .... When they are born, you give your kids white American names so that their teachers can't tell what they are before meeting them, so that your kids don't suffer the way you suffered in school, and so that they won't eventually be 'inexplicably' denied apartments and jobs despite their abundant qualifications." (p28-29)
"Be safe, hide yourself in plain site; live up to the gift - the promise - of your white-girl name." (p. 37)
"I've come to see the American Dream for what it really is: a lie my parents had little choice but to buy into and sell to me, a lie that conflated working hard with passing for, becoming, and being white." (p. 40)
"Many white people I've met often think of themselves as culture-less, as vanilla: plain, boring, American white. What they are revealing when they say this, which they often do in jest, is how little race impacts their lives, how whiteness is ubiquitous to them, and they mistake the ubiquitousness as a kind of neutrality or regularness that renders their race and culture invisible to themselves." (p. 80)
"I never danced, knowing whatever I did with my body on a dance floor would make me stand out among the white folks." (p. 90)
"...as a light-skinned Latinx woman, I often accidentally trespass into moments that are essentially displays of white power intended only for other whites. ... White people who misread me as also white sometimes display the kind of pervasive racism usually reserved for whites-only spaces. They inadvertently include me in these white power moments, ones that we aren't supposed to witness, which are perpetrated by the kind of well-meaning white folks - people who genuinely don't consider themselves racists - when they're sure we aren't around to hear them." (p. 110).
Spotlighting (p. 166)
Masking (p. 171)
Somatic expressions of stress (p 177)
Cubans and mental health (p. 187)