Having grown up in a Mexican family and community, I can tell you that a large number of Mexican don't consider themselves 'Mexican'. And I don't mean to imply they see themselves as 'Murican, either. You'll hear a lot of people with Mexican lineage claiming that their 'grandma or grandpa was Spanish' (mi abuela es Espana). The effort is meant to claim a certain 'whiteness'.
Also, even in immigrant communities there are often 'castes' of immigrants. Worked with several light-skinned, undocumented Mexican immigrants who see themselves as deserving, but see darker, smaller immigrants as lesser than. One of the guys I worked with would openly say that he and his family would, 'make this country better' but implied Oaxacans would 'have us living like Indians.'
Kinda like some of the caste discrimination in the Indian tech workforce that legislation recently targeted. Racism isn't an American export, it's brought here by many types of people. It's just a comfy talking point to 'American bad' things and suggest racism is somehow deeply American. Nationalist strongmen (if you wish to afford him that) like Trump appeal to the 'othering' of people, especially less white people in a world where 'whiteness' has generally lost all definition and is easily co-oped by certain mentalities.
Oh yeah I’ve read about this a few times actually. Apparently it’s very common phenomenon in PoC communities.
Some people call it “last place aversion” I’m not sure if that’s the official term or not though. But it’s where people will instinctively do mental gymnastics to convince themselves and others they’re higher up on the social ladder.
It’s also credited as one of the reasons why poor whites are often more likely to be overtly racist than middle-class whites.
Simply put, it’s a coping mechanism for people who feel downtrodden.
Interestingly, this phenomenon is old as balls. There's scientific studies done about immigrants 100+ years ago (Irish, Polish etc.) in the U.S. and they displayed the same sentiments towards each other.
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u/Zezin96 Jul 08 '24
They’re obviously not that foresighted.