I had a friend from college who said he was very popular in his banking job because he was white (blond, fair) and Puerto Rican, so they could count him as POC while still having another white guy in the room.

Until I went to college, I though all Hispanics/Latina were white because they started out in Spain and Portugal. To be fair to me, there were only 2 families in my school who were not white, but a lot of darker Italians, who were consdered white. But, I watched Chico and the Man, so I am not sure what I was thinking.

There were a few Cuban and Puerto Rican kids in my high school, but I never really thought of them as anything other than white -- if the Italian kids were white, then it seemed to me that the Puerto Rican and Cuban ones were, too -- until we were taking the SATs and one girl raised her hand to get the form to apply for a Hispanic scholarship thing. I guess that, in my mind (not having really analyzed it at that point), "Hispanic" meant people who have accents, and these kids were all at least second-generation American.

I am old enough to remember seeing "Hispanic" as a racial/ethnic category suddenly appear on school forms. And now "mixed" is offered as an option, but they only allow you to select one other category, so you can be "mixed black" or "mixed Asian" but not "mixed black/Asian."

OK, creepy solicitor moment: someone voting canvasser just knocked on my door and addressed me BY NAME. Freaked me out so much I just shut the door. Do NOT want strangers WHO KNOW WHERE I LIVE addressing me by name.

And that train of thought led me to this Sopranos quote:

Tony Soprano: My wife thinks I need to meet new people.

Dr. Jennifer Melfi: So?

Tony Soprano: C'mon, you're Italian, you understand. Guys like me we're brought up to think that Merigan are fuckin' bores. The truth is the average white man is no more boring than the millionth conversation over who should have won, Marciano or Ali.

Dr. Jennifer Melfi: So am I to understand that you don't consider yourself white?

Tony Soprano: I don't mean white like Caucasian. I mean a white man like our friend Cusamano. Now he's Italian, but he's Merigan. It's what my old man would have called a Wonder Bread wop. He eats his Sunday gravy out of a jar.

Huh. Having gone to public schools first in NYC and then in Milwaukee, it wasn't until I went to university that I was in a majority white school. I sometimes forget that that's not the norm. My world now is a lot whiter than it was growing up, actually.

The overlap between race and ethnicity gets confusing. Like, a lot of the reaction to stuff like "Jersey Shore," I can't call it racist, because Italians aren't a race, but "prejudiced" seems like too general a term -- talking about how much you hate those fucking Guidos seems more specific than prejudice.

I was momentarily puzzled when I was talking to someone from Germany and she used the word racism to refer to bias against Jews, but since then, I've noticed that usage a few times in things from a few different European countries.

I definitely read a thing in college about how Italians became white -- southern Mediterraneans were definitely not considered the same as northern Europeans.

Older immigration papers have separate sections for "race" and "color." Most of my ancestors are listed as Hebrew for race and white for color. Some of them also have a space for "complexion," but that seems like it was pretty subjective, since I've found the same person, who went in and out of the country multiple times before becoming a citizen and thus had to fill out immigration forms each time, listed as nearly all of the available options at least once.

Some of them also have a space for "complexion," but that seems like it was pretty subjective

Given that I am trying to buy foundation, I'd say yes. Rassenfrassen.

OK, creepy solicitor moment: someone voting canvasser just knocked on my door and addressed me BY NAME. Freaked me out so much I just shut the door. Do NOT want strangers WHO KNOW WHERE I LIVE addressing me by name.

ACK! DO NOT WANT! KILL THEM WITH FIRE! Um, I have issues. And shutting the door on them is probably better than the fire thing.

My nephew has to keep a journal for school and write one thing every day. Today's entry:

When I am 100 years old I will be all wrinkley. I will live at the Take Care Center and everybody will have to take care of me. I won't be able to take the dog for a walk because I will have a cane.