During this semester of race, class, and gender, I was able to learn about anti-essentialism. After learning about this term, I found that it actually held quite a lot of significance in my own life. Anti-essentialism states a person's identity is not decided by any one factor. This idea directly correlates with the term intersectionality. As stated in the article linked, Intersectionality is the belief that many factors go into creating an individual’s identity. Race, gender, class, and sexual orientation are just a few of the factors which contribute to making a person’s identity. Anti-essentialist ideals claim that a person can not be solely identified by their race, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc. In fact, anti-essentialism supports the idea that these factors overlap and correlate with each other in unique ways to make a person’s identity. In terms of race, class, and gender, anti-essentialism and intersectionality are key in understanding how oppression and discrimination function. A significant example I can use to explain this would be through my personal experience living as a person of mixed Mexican heritage.
America generally has a skewed essentialist (as opposed to anti-essentialist) view of anyone who has ancestry that can be traced back to any country South of the border. Generalizations that all Hispanics are dark-skinned is a common misconception here in America. These essentialist ideals have directly affected how I identified as a person of Hispanic descent. From first glance, many people would assume that I would not be Hispanic. I outwardly appear very white and look as if I have no difference from any other white American of European descent. However, people are usually shocked to find out that the majority of my heritage comes from Mexico as I am only a quarter white American. Both sides of my family are Mexican and growing up I would commonly find myself being the whitest person in the room at family reunions. Since I grew up in America, essentialist generalizations about Hispanics shaped the way I thought about my identity. The fact that I noticed differences in my appearance from the rest of my family combined with essentialist notions that all Hispanics are supposed to look a certain way made me feel as if I was neither truly Hispanic nor truly white. I was able to overcome living this false reality when I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Mexico and meet my family living there. As I was able to experience the reality of Mexico, I realized that America had provided me with a very backwards view of myself and people of Hispanic ancestry. The truth is that there is no “real Hispanic look” as I was led to believe. I found that Mexico is an extremely diverse country and I was able to see that Mexicans existed in every shade of color. In truth, this notion can be applied to most if not all Hispanic countries. Even while interacting with my family, I noticed that some appeared more European while others appeared more Indigenous. This provided me with an anti-essentialist revelation which allowed me to be comfortable in my own skin as a person of Mexican descent. Looking back on this experience, I can confidently say that it truly lifted the false veil of reality that essentialism within America caused. If there is one major takeaway that my personal experience has provided, I would say that it is important to realize that each individual person is unique and should not be solely identified by one aspect of themselves. In my case, I was caused to believe being Hispanic was something based on appearance and skin color. When in truth, what I was able to learn is that one should never identify someone based on a single characteristic because there is surely more to them than meets the eye.