On March 10, in association with Chellis House’s programming for Women’s History Month and Women of Color’s “What is Color?” event series, Writer-in-Residence in English and American Literatures Julia Alvarez ’71 spoke to a lively audience in the Chateau Grand Salon, highlighting the distinctions between racial and cultural notions of “heritage” — between the color of one’s skin, which is “biologically determined,” and the color of one’s politics and behavior, which is a “moral choice.”
Alvarez, who was born in the Dominican Republic, began by reading an essay titled “A White Woman of Color” — originally written in 1996 for Latina magazine and featured in the bicultural-themed anthology “Half and Half” — which chronicles the mixed responses she faced after her work first gained success several decades ago. Despite the fact that her “heart skips to a meringue beat,” as she quipped, she often sensed that her relatively light skin made her “the wrong type of Latina” and somehow lessened her claim to being a woman of color.
In truth, coming of age in the ’60s and early ’70s, Alvarez admitted that she had often identified more as a woman than a woman of color — “I was more aware of my gender as a mark against me, knowing that I would be seen first as a woman,” she explained — and ultimately transitioned back into a discussion of the still prevalent machismo and marianismo (that is, the encouragement of purity and other traditionally feminine virtues) boundaries in Latin culture to show that the gender struggle has yet to be eradicated. Alvarez read a passage from her book “Once Upon a Quinceñara,” which delves into those issues as they relate to the traditional female rite of passage. The gender handicap, explained Alvarez, is often perpetuated by mothers who never experienced the prosperous childhoods of their daughters, and ultimately carry with them the gender biases of their native countries.
After reading her essay, Alvarez shared the results of an informal survey she had conducted pertaining to racial attitudes in her own homeland, where there are at least 22 different ways to refer to race in the popular parlance and 75 percent of the country claims mixed racial heritage. Alvarez asked friends who work at the coffee farm she owns with her husband to describe their coloring and heard a different answer from almost every employee, ranging from “cinnamon Indian” to “burnt Indian” to “dark Indian.” Alvarez maintained that there is still racial discrimination, but that the unique level of diversity in the Dominican Republic necessitates that discussion of race at least be more open, particularly because most families are made up of members with a range of colorings.
In Alvarez’s view, the solution does not involve “quilting [experience] into one whole” — i.e., an approach of colorblindness — but rather requires “developing a new type of consciousness that makes room for all that we are.”
“If we could just look at [these varieties] in the way we might look at people’s different talents, instead of using [them] to create a paradigm that decides who is ‘better’ … If we can look at [that element of difference] and name it and get comfortable talking about it, [then] there might come a day where we get off [our current] grid” — a grid that we absorb even if we do not intend to — “altogether,” she explained.
Ultimately, Alvarez’s presentation ended on an auspicious note, evolving into an honest exploration of race among the faculty and students in attendance. At times the discussion became heated and “uncomfortable,” but the general openness of the atmosphere was undoubtedly encouraging, particularly in light of one of Alvarez’ concluding statements about the importance of engaging in a genuine dialogue about “color”: “If it can’t happen at a college like Middlebury, where is it going to happen?”
Alvarez 'colors' gender discussion
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