Think ‘American’ instead of ‘white’

So what’s all this fuss about “white culture?”

Are “white” Americans really losing their culture?

What is “white” culture?

I’m a fifth generation Iowan and I know “white” like I know my own extended Midwestern family. My maternal ancestors were the product of multicultural marriages between German, French and English immigrants who moved to Dubuque, Iowa, before the Civil War. My Grandpa Elmer and Grandma Virginia were the epitome of Middle American “white” folks. My experience of “white culture” came from 26 years as a native Iowan.

This was my culture until I moved to Snohomish County 28 years ago. What changed? Why couldn’t I still be an Iowan living in Snohomish County? Because I don’t look like what many people think an Iowan is supposed to look like. The stereotypical Iowan is fair-skinned, etc., etc. And “skin color” was the dominant and defining difference for many “white” folks here in judging how Iowan (white) I was. Since I don’t have the skin complexion of my maternal Northern European ancestors I wasn’t considered “white” or even an Iowan. “You’re from Iowa? But where were you born?”

The so-called “white culture” I acquired in Iowa, a culture I mastered socially and professionally, was of little use to me in Snohomish County. I was too brown and didn’t have a “white” name. I had to develop a new identity. One based on my “brown” skin and Latino name. Funny though, many first generation Hispanics and other “people of color” I met out here picked me for a Hickspanic right away. For some of them, I was even “too white!” Too American. Too Iowan. You see, I couldn’t change my culture. I was OK with who I was. But I had to be different for you.

I just can’t win. So who am I? I’m the face of what America has already become. I don’t have to look back on my mother’s or father’s ancestors to define who I am or what I want to be. Because some people can only accept either my “white” or “brown” heritage I have been asked to choose between them. But I can’t and won’t. Like millions of Americans today I am the blended result of several nationalities and ethnic groups. I like me and my children being the new faces of America.

The cultural values I live by I learned growing up in Iowa. They are the iconic moral values that are so prized in America today. Obviously, I didn’t have to be “white” to understand and value them too. And just as obviously they will live on through me because they are my American values. “Whiteness” has nothing to do with it.

The American culture I’m a product of values “open-mindedness” and “curiosity” about the wonderful variety of people and cultures in the United States. Like my fellow Iowans Buffalo Bill Cody and John Wayne, I went West as a young man. You can’t get more “American” than that! Now America’s and Iowa’s “values” must live on in me – a “brown” man.

Luis Moscoso lives in Mountlake Terrace and is active in Snohomish County human rights and political issues.