To be fair, though, there are non-white Jews. The majority of Jews are of European descent, but not all of them are.
Not a single dictionary I consulted gives that definition (Collins, Cassel’s, University of Chicago, American Heritage, several on-line dictionaries). All give the definition (as a noun) as simply being “mulatto,” without indicating that it refers to trihybrids. In fact, even the reference cited in the Wiki article doesn’t support that definition; it refers to "esoteric terms [during the colonial period] for mixtures of races: mestizo (Indian and white), mulato (black and white), and "en cierta medida pardo y coyote (mezclas de indio y negro) [“to some extent pardo and coyote (mixture of Indian and black”). Therefore “pardo” would seem to historically have been equivalent to “zambo.”
Some references give pardo as “old-fashioned,” or say it is restricted to particular regions like the Caribbean or southern South America. If the word ever specifically meant a trihybrid (and I don’t see any evidence of that), that usage would seem to be largely obsolete. (The usual meaning of pardo is as an adjective meaning grayish brown or dark colored.)
Pardo as a racial classification is more common in Brazil, but even there it doesn’t refer specifically to trihybrids, but to anyone with an intermediate dark skin tone, including mulattos, cafuzos (zambos), and even unmixed but assimilated Indians.
No, of course there are other angles. My specific examples of non-whiteness have been those that I’ve observed, in media or in personal experience. For example, being questioned on “what” my date “is.” The answer they want isn’t “theater major,” or “veterinarian.”
It is old-fashioned; all of these terms are, really. My acquaintance with it is in Cuban history, but I was given to understand that it was understood through much of the Hispanophone Caribbean and South America.
If a person ever doesn’t get asked that question, does that mean they are white?
As a specifically trihybrid cross, not just a mulatto or other mixture? I’d like to see a cite for that (certainly one better than the Wiki one.) Pardos might include trihybrids, but are not restricted to them.
Um… not sure if there is misunderstanding here.
I would say that people who are never interrogated about the classification of their associations either: aren’t associating with anyone not readily identifiable to a simplistic racist codification (the question is not asked about people who are “obviously” either white or black, in American terms); or, aren’t associating with, or perceived to be approachable by, people who follow such a code. For example, a black Louisianian I worked with has been asked to explain his light-skinned Brazilian cafuzo girlfriend. Nobody asks him “what” he is.
I have a friend who is undeniably white by parentage. But she tans very easily and very darkly. When she hangs out with me out in public, I’m pretty certain there are those mistakenly believe she’s “not white” (like when we went to the Motown musical the other night). But when she’s by herself, I’m guessing she is perceived as just another white lady.
A long time ago I had lunch with another white friend (who is old enough to be my mother). We both have short wiry hairdos. The person who served us was a bit of the fawning type and told us we looked just alike, like sisters. Is this a sign that my white friend is “non white”? Or is it a sign that I’m white?
I mean, I agree with you that being interrogated about one’s racial appearance marks you as “other”. But plenty of undeniably white people can look non-white just by virtue of the company they keep and the person who is doing the perceiving. Put them in a different context and the picture changes.
My aunt told me a story once that may or may not be relevant. One day she asked a coworker if she was Hispanic, and the coworker practically threw a fit because it offended her than her Italianness could be mistaken for something as gauche as Puerto Rican or Mexican. Her reaction underscores the fact that there are many folks who would discriminate against a Hispanic, but embrace an Italian. So asking a person “what are you?” might be a way of determining if a person is indeed “white”. The response a person gives then dictates how they are treated, not how they appear initially.
This sort of thing was commented on in an episode of Seinfeld in which Elaine was dating a guy with curly hair and ambiguous facial features. The others complimented her on being cool for dating a guy they assumed was black. Elaine was intrigued but couldn’t figure out how to ask him what his race was without giving offense. As it turned out, he was white but was dating Elaine because he thought she was Latina.
Some drunk lady at a football game thought my girlfriend was “lightskinned” (drunk lady actually asked my mom that) just because she was with us. Of course, she also assumed she was my brother’s wife/niece’s mother. She and I found it highly amusing. She’s mostly indigenous Colombian and Salvadorean, but culturally Colombian.
Coming at it the other way around, the #1 TV show in 1950s America centered around a guy from Cuba who spanked his white wife and put a baby in her.
Can you imagine pitching that with a black husband? Go ahead, I’ll wait.
My Salvadoran ex girlfriend’s best friend back home was a redheaded ginger with freckles.
The racial classifications got real complicated real quick,
Lots of those names never seem to have gotten much traction outside of people who just liked inventing little boxes, though. That same page was pictured in one of my history books: there’s words I’d heard before but never with that meaning, others I’d never heard before, and the notion of separating “white father and black mother” from “white mother and black father” makes my ears try to cross.
Example: castizo. To me, “someone whose family has lived in a specific place, most notably Madrid, for a long time” (rae’s 2). Rae’s fourth definition is racial: cuarterón, which I learned as “someone with one black grandparent and three white ones”. The definition in the picture is “someone with an Amerindian paternal grandparent and a Spanish mother”… and that mother may not even be “white” as in “100% caucasian” because of the next picture (now, if the child of a castizo and a Spanish woman is Spanish and we’re differentiating paternomaternal lines so much, are the children of a castiza and a Spanish man Spanish, or are they pineapples?).
I think your criteria for determining “non-whiteness” is complete nonsense. I get asked “what” I am, which is german, all the time.
Are you an American of German ancestry, or an actual German? Everything I’ve said, unless otherwise specified, has been about the American idea of and approach to race.
A good black friend of mine brought colour into respective for me. We were having a conversation and I referred to him as coloured, his reply was, I am not coloured I am black, you are coloured with your pink skin yellow hair blue eyes and red lips you are not just coloured you clash and he was perfectly correct. Now many years later my fading beauty is becoming a neutral grey.
When I lived in northern NJ, a common introduction query among white colleagues was “What are you?” That’s because many NJ dwellers have a hyphenated identity. Irish-American. Italian-American. Portuguese-American. Polish-American.
I don’t think this kind of conversation happens everywhere in the States, though. I definitely don’t remember cats pegging themselves as “Italian” back in my days in Georgia.
Happens in NY , too. It probably only happens in places with a recent history of ethnic neighborhoods ( this neighborhood for the German butcher, that one for the Polish bakery, a third for the Italian pastry shop) , which would not include the entire US.
Nor in Cali except amongst Latinos…Mexican, Salvi, Guatemalan etc.