Are some Latinx guilty of using white privilege while claiming minority status?

My wife is from Argentina and thus Latinx. She is pale as a ghost with blue/green eyes.

Yes, she gets the best of both worlds.

She doesn’t feel guilty because she spoke zero English as a child. Learned it through Sesame Street. Busted her ass all through school and paid her own way through college and law school by working multiple jobs. And she’s given back by working with underserved populations her whole career.

She looks white but can check off Latinx on applications. She’s not going to correct people in person if they assume she’s white.

I am Latino with light skin and blue eyes. I do not speak Spanish. I have always identified as “white” and marked my race as such on college applications and other instances where the question was asked. It’s only recently that I’ve even started using the words Latino/Hispanic to refer to myself (really, they refer to half of my heritage, since my mom is non-Hispanic white). I think it exposes some of the silliness of racial and ethnic terminology. Is the recognition of Latino as a minority a matter of skin color or geographic origin (or some combination of both)? Latino simply means someone with cultural or geographic ties to Latin America, regardless of their skin color or ethnic heritage. There are plenty of people from Latin America who are of European heritage and have no Native American or African blood. They are as European genealogically as someone from Italy or Germany (or a white American of similar descent). Because they were born in South America, they’re “brown” and an oppressed minority now? Who gets to claim minority status?

My father is from Mexico but his origins are from Spain, so he’s white. I tell people my father is Mexican and they think of indiginous Mexicans who are brown and usually short. My eyes are green. My skin is very white.

Sometimes I check off Hispanic and sometimes I check off White. It all depends on my mood. I don’t get any type of benefit from it and I don’t think anybody even cares, in my case.

People tell me all the time “you don’t look Mexican” and I’ve had people say derogatory things about Mexicans and then I tell them “my father is from Mexico” and then they shut up.

@jca2 People tell me all the time “you don’t look Mexican”

I’ve heard that all my life.

I’m a similar situation as you. My dad was born in Mexico, but he is the descendant of Portuguese and Italian immigrants to Mexico, so he is white. Assuming that all Latin Americans are brown is no different than assuming everyone from the U.S. is white.

How much is it worth in dollars?? It was never worth anything to me…

You people are really special, Latinx is not about skin color. ¿And what does a person who marks white as their race really look like anyway?

I claimed my brown skinned, sloe eyed kids as minorities to get them into the school I wanted.

As an aside, my wife has had some fun over the years when people are talking about her in Spanish (negatively or inappropriately) nearby and she walks over and launches into a full reply in rapid-fire Spanish mode.