I'm Brazilian. Although I'm of mixed European and African ancestry, I phenotypically pass as what Brazilians consider white (which is a bit more elastic than whiteness in the US). Perhaps I could pass in the US as well if they don't know where I'm from and I avoid the sun for a few months.
I also work at a very well respected industry. One of the very bad ones.
So, here in Brazil if I just trim my hair and beard and put on a suit and walk through the financial core of the city I can easily pass for one of them. That's not how I usually present though. I'm usually wearing a shaggy hair, and shorts with visible tattoos. And I'm pretty annoyingly political all the time. So they usually treat me as a "one of those dumb, drug addict leftists who don't bathe" (even though I actually never took drugs and bathe at least twice a day because this place is hot as fuck).
If I step a foot in the US I'm immediately branded as "Hispanic" or "Latino" with all the connotations that will imply, with a pinch of Brazilian stereotypes on top:
So, they'll probably think I'm:
lazy (yeah, I am kind of lazy... can't deny that one. But who isn't?),
a womanizer who just hits on all women all the time (I'm super shy and respectful when talking to women, only had two long term relationships my whole life),
ultra machoman, misogynistic and homophobic (I'm bisexual, dude...)
a super incredibly amazing lover (well, I'm not going to comment that, curious people would have to find by themselves)
amazing soccer player (lol... no...)
amazing dancer (lol, double no)
a jungle dwelling savage (I live in a 25 million people metropolis),
uneducated and dumb (I have a PhD, I speak two languages more than you, and I know where China is on a map, you racist)
violent and prone to raging and fist fighting (I never got into a physical fight in my life, I'm kind of a nerd, you know?)
a suffering little guy who knew abject poverty and needs help (although we aren't rich and there were some periods of relative scarcity when I was a kid, I'm mostly ok, don't worry),
Also, "oh wow, Brazil, Pelé, Samba!!" is not a nice thing to say to a Brazilian when you first meet them. First of all, you sound condescending and stupid. I speak English. You don't need to shout random words at me. Second... This ain't the 70s, folks. Learn some updated stereotypes. Pelé retired before I was born.
Also don't do a little faux-samba dance. Please. You don't know how to, and the music playing here is not samba (it's salsa, maybe rumba — totally different rhythm, completely different country, not even the same language).
And speaking of that... Latin America is a huge place, you know? Full of different cultures. The global north seems to treat Brazilians, Mexicans, Colombians, Bolivians, Chileans, Argentinians, etc, as pretty much the same thing and that is infuriating for us.
And like... It's already super insensitive and offensive to deny individuality to the different countries of Spanish-speaking Latin America and treating them as a blob of indistinct "Hispanic" culture. But... Do you realize how clueless it is to bundle Brazil together in that blob? It's so fucking dumb!!!
Like, yeah we have some of things in common culturally, sure. And I fucking love my Latin American brothers and feel a shared sense of belonging to a bigger thing. I'd easily pick the side of another Latin American most of the time... Like... there's a sense of camaraderie difficult to explain.
But!!!! Dude... we don't even speak the same language. Brazil is a really odd puppy in the Latin American litter. Colombia has a lot more shared culture with far away Mexico than with neighboring Brazil. They share music on the radio, they share TV shows by Televisa, they share literature in Spanish, etc. And imagine this: if Colombia and Mexico, with all that cultural dialogue are so different and distinct, imagine how much more distinct they are from Brazil, who participates a lot less in this shared Spanish-speaking Latin American identity.
(Although we all share the most important cultural product of all times, which is El Chavo del Ocho, and no imperialist will ever take that away from us)
That's so fucking annoying dude. It looks like the world look at us with fucking inverted binoculars, you know? Like... 3000 different music genres? It's all Latin music. Just play some stock salsa from the 50s, give some maracas to a scantily clad oversexualized tanned girl to shake while she dances and that's it, a whole fucking continent summarized. FUCK YOU.
My people were killed in the Holocaust. Hitler despised them so much there are chapters of Mien Kamf dedicated to how my people deserve extermination for being on the same level if not worse then Jews.
There’s your answer.
I get looks of disgust if I tell anyone where my family is from; if I speak my language; or say anything remotely positive about my people. This comes from Libs, the right, fascists, the whole lot.
To Americans I’m a rat commie bastard (ironically correct), who is probably a traitor (also correct), and deserves death because my people are a sworn enemy of the “free world”.
My family also got wonderful comments when they first came here, such as “Where’s your antennas? Don’t they install those on all the commies so the government can control them”? They weren’t being satirically racist. They were actually that moronic.
Which would make my ethnic group Slavic, and we know how much the Nazis loved Slavs. Plus, Belarus was part of the USSR, so they are automatic commies.
I actually have no idea. I live in communist Canada but my family and heritage is from the original top G of imperialism and colonialism. The empire that created the slave trade. The one country that took forever to let go of their colonies and had their corporatist regime overthrown by communists. The same regime whose leader claimed fascism was too Pagan for him to subscribe to. The current ruling party is Socialist in name only but that still scares people anyway. A NATO doormat that doesn’t seem to be talked about much.
Not sure what the gringos think, but in my own country my people are taken to be both very lazy and hot-tempered, and also both illiterate and communist. They can't keep their racism consistent, though they call it "xenophobia" because they're historically illiterate themselves.
Well, you see, true literate people read gringo/English-language newscorps and philosophise about the economy, while the poors just look at reality itself and think about that, like the silly marxists we are. It's that thing where people are forced into poverty then turn to socialism, and then are derided as stupid by the very same imperialist farces that forced them into poverty in the first place because we don't understand the marvels of The Economy ®
Sim, mas moro a muito tempo no sudeste. Já tive muitas experiências peculiares onde a pessoa não percebeu que estava falando de nordestinos para um nordestino.
To them we're idiotic sheep shaggers, whose language is at once not real and/or dead while at the same time being something we use to gossip about them while they're still in the room. Welsh language on the signs isn't because we have people who speak the language but rather a trap designed to confuse and befuddle the saes. The Welsh alphabet isn't real and Welsh is functionally inseparable from dyslexia.
Without England's paternal leadership we'd still be living in "wattle and daub"ed roundhouses.
No one in Wales genuinely wants to work and the sky-high unemployment comes from a lack of work ethic by "benefit sponges". The fact that the majority of the population lives in former industrial strongholds that were gutted of all industry by Thatcherism doesn't factor into it at all.
According to that "far right" guest on fox, these 'alpha white men' want to sit on a throne made of our skulls.
As for the regular right wing libs, this is extremely discriminatory against women and the LGBTQ+ community, because they also want to sit on a throne made of our skulls.
I am what my people by definition would call a "tschusch". But since my skin is very light and my family is christian I'm good.
Ppl in my village actually went up to me, saying they wish their culture/country would be as ruthless towards immigrants as mine.
They are not fond of my physical attributes and make many assumptions about what that means for my mental abilities, and have not been shy throughout my existence of letting me know that. Even the more “liberal” ones.
I thought I passed pretty seamlessly but (perhaps because of some style choices) I've been called out by cac dads as Arabic or Latino (not Latino) a few times in the past few months.
I think for now most people clock me as a degenerate more than a threat but that's usually relative to the person in question...either way I do sense some hatred and distance.