Fuck Coconuts Intra Racial Discrimination - 2216 Words

Fucking coconuts: Intra-racial discrimination â€Å"Oh my god you are such a fucking coconut;† that is a phrase I hear sometimes being by one Mexican to another. The word â€Å"fucking† is important in that sentence as it is inserted to emphasize the disapproval felt by the person doing the name calling. When someone is called a coconut, the person is being called out as to being white, whether it is acting white, dressing white, or speaking white. This person is brown on the outside, white on the inside. So then by that logic, it is a bad thing to be too assimilated to the American way of life. Then there is the word â€Å"paisa:† this word, in a nutshell, means too Mexican. Used to refer to those so weren’t born in the U.S. or those who weren’t brought over a young age so they speak English with an accent and remain primarily close to their Mexican heritage. Paisa is taken from Spanish word paisano and a paisano is someone who shares the same coun try of origin, usually from the parent’s country of birth as the child would be first generation American. Ideally I suppose then that there would be a middle ground, not too â€Å"white† and not too â€Å"paisa† but that ground does not exist. The line is too fine for it to not ever be crossed and worse yet, those who are called â€Å"paisa† by first generations see those first generations a disgrace to their heritage because they reject where they come from. Intra-racial discrimination happens, but isn’t just associated to Mexicans, it happens in every