Just over fifteen years ago, I got a job at a gas station slash convenience store. This was a place where you could not pay for your gas at the pump. Instead, you had to enter a small store chockfull of salt, sugar, caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, gambling machines and other addictive items. The business model revolved around selling gasoline at cost and making money from the in-store purchases.
I landed this job on the spot after walking in to inquire about the Help Wanted sign while wearing a t-shirt with a wolf on it. Holly was the manager, and she was really into dogs. The opening was for minimum wage, working four ten-hour overnight shifts. I figured it would allow me to take summer classes at the university during the day without altering my general routine too much. I’d just turned 21, and was still invincible. Besides, it was the only available job around not requiring a vehicle or experience.
I had spent the previous three summers working as a cook at the Saylorville Marina near Polk City, but when the spring semester of 1997 ended, coinciding with the expiration of the last of my college scholarships, I moved out of the dorms and into a two bedroom apartment in downtown Cedar Falls that I was to share with four other roommates. Splitting the rent five ways meant my portion was somewhere around $70 per month. I'd never paid rent before, so I was concerned whether that was cheap enough to allow me to save to pay for my next school semester, which I’d calculated was all I needed to graduate with a double major if I took three summer classes.
Third shift at Petro-N-Provisions (known by everyone as PNP) consisted of eating day-old donuts, drinking pot after pot of coffee, confiscating the fake IDs of underage drunk college kids, stocking the shelves of a walk-in cooler that you had to climb around in like a monkey, jumping off the roof of the building into stacks of empty boxes and setting powdered creamer ablaze- all while blasting hard-core rap out of a boom box. Basically, this job was freaking awesome.
At 8am on the mornings when I didn’t have class, I’d ride DJ's bike (which I had on long-term loan) home from work, eat a bowl of cereal and sleep until 2pm. Then, I’d practice drums non-stop until 8pm, take a bath (the apartment didn’t have a shower) and either head back to work or, if it was a day off, spend the night reading from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov. On school days, instead of riding home, I’d sleep for two hours on the couch at the house inhabited by my friends Amy, Tausha, Risa and Brad, which was conveniently located a few doors down from PNP and closer to campus. After classes, I’d eat a slice of pizza, a stuffed baked potato or a veggie bagel with shmear from the Union and read from Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman before heading to the Library, where I’d checked out a locker to store books, toiletries and a changes of clothes, to work on homework and read old Downbeat magazine articles before heading either back to work or to Stebs, the live music venue slash bar in Cedar Falls.
One of my roommates was only there two nights a week, and then she traveled back to Des Moines (presumably with a supply of toilet paper as it was constantly disappearing). The others were my closest friends at the time, so I had spent plenty of time in the apartment even before I'd lived there. But it wasn't long before Eric and Annie moved away, and since Erin and I worked opposite shifts, I amused myself by creating morbid vignettes with her Tickle-Me-Elmo doll before I left for work for her to come home to.
I didn’t really end up saving much money that summer, and my parents paid for the final 21 hour credit load that would finish up my college life. It also eliminated sleep entirely, which quickly became unbearable, but luckily around about the time I’d resolved to never eat another donut, a second shift position opened up.
My university barely had three years worth of information to dispel, so that last semester mostly consisted of editing papers I’d already written about books I’d already read. I started working during the day, still forty hours a week but shorter shifts, often alongside Holly, who was generous enough to buy us both lunch every day and let me drive her car to pick it up. Her salary was $200 a week, which I thought at the time was a lot, and still recognize it as enough to be able to buy another’s lunch when they need it.
Most of my usual haunts were also frequented by this girl named Buffy, and she introduced me to some interesting contemporary music and literature. On the day of my graduation, she and I drove to Dubuque so I could play drums as part of a pop trio named Circus Fun. The head of the psychology department had attempted to entice me to attend the graduation ceremony by pointing out I’d get to wear special badges or sashes or whatever for being valedictorian, Magna Cum Laude and whatnot, which acted to make it sound even less appealing than a total waste of time. The head of the philosophy department laughed about not going to his graduation either. Dubuque proved noteworthy in that it was the last of my dates with Buffy and gigs with Circus Fun.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Monday, December 17, 2012
Ethnicity (Please Check)
I will forever be confused by forms asking for ethnicity. There’s never enough room to put ½ German, ¼ Castilian and ¼ Scotch/Irish/English (roughly). Further, they want to know whether I’m Hispanic/Latino, which, as you can see, is yes- my maternal grandfather’s family immigrated from the Basque region on the Iberian Peninsula, which is the textbook definition of Hispanic.
As a kid, I was told to checkmark “Caucasian.” The Caucasus is the region between the Black and Caspian Seas in which several ethnicities reside, but none of them are called Caucasian. A cursory glance at the origin of this term is horrifying. It seems some 18th Century German “philosopher” proposed the human race could be divided into two categories, based on the inherent beauty of their skin. Shortly thereafter, a colleague added the criteria of skull structure, and I assume that either inspired or was inspired by the sham science of phrenology. The “beautiful” races were labeled Caucasian and the “ugly” ones Mongolian. Yikes! This made-up racist term should never be used by anyone, let alone an official document.
I suspect these forms are most interested in my skin tone, but it seems obvious to me that “White” is not an ethnicity. Where would Whites come from- Whitelandia? That’s what makes American racism so dumb- what the hell does skin tone have to do with ANYTHING? Maybe they should have a color chart; although probably it’d be more accurate if the choices were just on a spectrum between Privileged and SOL.
Many years ago my grandpa stated, “The great thing about America is that you can choose your ethnicity.” Thinking this an odd statement but willing to explore what he meant, I replied by asking, “Have you read Anti-Semite and Jew, by Simone DeBeviour?” He apparently hadn’t because he sort of stared at me befuddled before continuing: “In America, all you have to do to be American is act American. If you embrace the ideas of capitalism, you can have everything you want in this country.” Ever the contrarian, I observed, “But that creates a conundrum if you don’t want to be a capitalist,” which led my grandpa into a rant about that being exactly the problem with so many foreigners- that they refused to accept the American dream.
The irony of this conversation is my grandpa was the same person who’d boasted to me that in all his years as a banker he’d never given a home loan to a minority.
In retrospect, I think perhaps he meant “your” in “choosing your ethnicity” to be singular instead of plural. He might not have been saying everyone can choose their ethnicity, but that I could. As his family had moved to California from Mexico when he was a boy, he knew this firsthand. I guess because his ethnic roots were Castilian and not Mexican, he looked “white.” He went by Joseph, not José, and was an eloquent English speaker. He was well-read in classic Western literature; interestingly his favorite writer seemed to be the Transcendental essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who declares in his most famous work, entitled Self-Reliance: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
A few years ago, in circumstances I do not recall, I casually mentioned to a friend from Great Britain that I was part Castilian. “That explains so much about you!” she exclaimed, “Castilians are fiery!” As this was coming from a redhead, I knew it was a compliment. I had no idea that Castilians possessed any stereotypical traits, but the revelation especially excited me because, after discovering Ronaldinho around 2005, I had begun following Spanish soccer. Also, possibly because of the awareness that I’m a Taurus, I’ve long been fond of illustrations depicting bull fighting.
Since that moment, I’ve been taking my grandpa’s advice, and choosing to identify as Castilian. Poor Grandpa Vasquez must be rolling in his grave. Honestly, I know nothing about Basque culture and I’ve never been to Spain, but I have done some cursory reading on Spanish history and try to keep up on Spanish politics. Because of my bias toward Futbol Club Barcelona, I’d admittedly rather be Catalan, but at least it's in the vicinity (I looked on a map).
Lest my point be lost, it is not that I have forgotten the absurdity of racism, but that I have chosen to embrace that absurdity to an extent. It allows me to think to myself, I’m German, Scotch/Irish/English and Basque: of course I love soccer! I’m fully aware the assertion is ridiculous, as I could make the same claim if I were Brazilian, Argentine and Dutch. But it seems to me that’s precisely the fun, curse and irony of ethnicity: we pick and choose which of our traits are genetic and do the same in others. This deceptive cloud of racial identity gives us power to place blame, embrace interests and eschew responsibility at our discretion. We can use race as a tool to infuse or incite pride or shame. Maybe it’s not the concept that’s defective so much as how we choose to use it.
In any other country, I’d be considered an American, but when I think of Americans, nothing much resembling me comes to mind. Perhaps that’s why I tend to be critical of American nationalism. Honestly, I’ve never trusted Americans or its government, precisely because I’ve always been fascinated by American history, and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a Native American when I grew up….
As a kid, I was told to checkmark “Caucasian.” The Caucasus is the region between the Black and Caspian Seas in which several ethnicities reside, but none of them are called Caucasian. A cursory glance at the origin of this term is horrifying. It seems some 18th Century German “philosopher” proposed the human race could be divided into two categories, based on the inherent beauty of their skin. Shortly thereafter, a colleague added the criteria of skull structure, and I assume that either inspired or was inspired by the sham science of phrenology. The “beautiful” races were labeled Caucasian and the “ugly” ones Mongolian. Yikes! This made-up racist term should never be used by anyone, let alone an official document.
I suspect these forms are most interested in my skin tone, but it seems obvious to me that “White” is not an ethnicity. Where would Whites come from- Whitelandia? That’s what makes American racism so dumb- what the hell does skin tone have to do with ANYTHING? Maybe they should have a color chart; although probably it’d be more accurate if the choices were just on a spectrum between Privileged and SOL.
Many years ago my grandpa stated, “The great thing about America is that you can choose your ethnicity.” Thinking this an odd statement but willing to explore what he meant, I replied by asking, “Have you read Anti-Semite and Jew, by Simone DeBeviour?” He apparently hadn’t because he sort of stared at me befuddled before continuing: “In America, all you have to do to be American is act American. If you embrace the ideas of capitalism, you can have everything you want in this country.” Ever the contrarian, I observed, “But that creates a conundrum if you don’t want to be a capitalist,” which led my grandpa into a rant about that being exactly the problem with so many foreigners- that they refused to accept the American dream.
The irony of this conversation is my grandpa was the same person who’d boasted to me that in all his years as a banker he’d never given a home loan to a minority.
In retrospect, I think perhaps he meant “your” in “choosing your ethnicity” to be singular instead of plural. He might not have been saying everyone can choose their ethnicity, but that I could. As his family had moved to California from Mexico when he was a boy, he knew this firsthand. I guess because his ethnic roots were Castilian and not Mexican, he looked “white.” He went by Joseph, not José, and was an eloquent English speaker. He was well-read in classic Western literature; interestingly his favorite writer seemed to be the Transcendental essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who declares in his most famous work, entitled Self-Reliance: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
A few years ago, in circumstances I do not recall, I casually mentioned to a friend from Great Britain that I was part Castilian. “That explains so much about you!” she exclaimed, “Castilians are fiery!” As this was coming from a redhead, I knew it was a compliment. I had no idea that Castilians possessed any stereotypical traits, but the revelation especially excited me because, after discovering Ronaldinho around 2005, I had begun following Spanish soccer. Also, possibly because of the awareness that I’m a Taurus, I’ve long been fond of illustrations depicting bull fighting.
Since that moment, I’ve been taking my grandpa’s advice, and choosing to identify as Castilian. Poor Grandpa Vasquez must be rolling in his grave. Honestly, I know nothing about Basque culture and I’ve never been to Spain, but I have done some cursory reading on Spanish history and try to keep up on Spanish politics. Because of my bias toward Futbol Club Barcelona, I’d admittedly rather be Catalan, but at least it's in the vicinity (I looked on a map).
Lest my point be lost, it is not that I have forgotten the absurdity of racism, but that I have chosen to embrace that absurdity to an extent. It allows me to think to myself, I’m German, Scotch/Irish/English and Basque: of course I love soccer! I’m fully aware the assertion is ridiculous, as I could make the same claim if I were Brazilian, Argentine and Dutch. But it seems to me that’s precisely the fun, curse and irony of ethnicity: we pick and choose which of our traits are genetic and do the same in others. This deceptive cloud of racial identity gives us power to place blame, embrace interests and eschew responsibility at our discretion. We can use race as a tool to infuse or incite pride or shame. Maybe it’s not the concept that’s defective so much as how we choose to use it.
In any other country, I’d be considered an American, but when I think of Americans, nothing much resembling me comes to mind. Perhaps that’s why I tend to be critical of American nationalism. Honestly, I’ve never trusted Americans or its government, precisely because I’ve always been fascinated by American history, and when I was a kid, I wanted to be a Native American when I grew up….
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