I know it might sound kind of cranky, but here's the thing:
I always complain about how brown people are invisible in this country (north of the Rio Bravo, south of the mapple trees' country), about how we pretty much don't exist for the rest of the population, especially when that population is white, about how those whites never seem to notice us when we happen to walk next to them or when we happen to be in the same place, about how for most whites we are all either cooks or maids, or salsa lovers (which in my specific case I have to admit that it happens to be true), etc. and I hate this, I totally hate it!
We are not fucking invisible you guys!!! We are human beings with flesh and bones and red blood just like you, so stop fucking pretending we don't exist!! Only because some of us happen to be your maids or your gardeners doesn't give you any right to ignore us. We DO exist. Period.
This being said (and I think I really needed to say it) I also have to say that I'm not comfortable (maybe because I'm not used to this anymore) when men -no matter their color- look at me. And they don't look at me because they recognize that I'm a member of an indigenous group and thus they recognize and value my ethnicity, no, they look at me because they are attracted to me ... they are physically attracted to me.
I have been married for more than eight years and I have been with my partner for more than ten years now, so I guess I forgot how it feels when men looked at me because they were attracted to me. I remember that was nice and cool, and I liked it, I really did. But now, you know, it just feels weird. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
I know I'm attractive, I know some men could be attracted to me, but this is not the kind of thing that I want or like for me at this moment of my life. I'm also fully aware that in my native México men are much more expressive about this when they see a woman they like, so much so that many times they completely indulge themselves in blatant sexual harrassment, and we defend ourselves the best we can but sometimes we can't resist much longer to their attacks and fall prey to them (this is topic for another posting).
But white men north of the Rio Bravo are different than brown men south. White northern men are colder, less expressive, not to say they are free from harrassing women because I've read and heard they do it too, but they do it in different ways, maybe not as blatant as men south of the border do.
So the other day I was coming home from work when I spotted a group of white men outside of a music shop. As usual I just walked thinking about my own stuff minding my own business, and when I was almost next to them I noticed one of those guys stopped doing what he was doing to look at me. He didn't look at my body, as men in México would immediately do, rather he looked at my face, with that well known look in his eyes that was saying something like "I'd like to know more about you". At the same time he said "Hi, how's it going?". Men here usually don't say anythig. In fact, nobody says anything here (well, sometimes very few people say "hi", but this is it), so when this guy said "Hi, how's it going?" and was giving me that look, I just thought "Ok this is not what I was expecting and I don't like it". So I just replied "hi" while walking and didn't turn my head to get a better glance of the guy. Of course the guy didn't even try to talk to me again, which would have most likely happen in México had this incident occurred there. I appreciated this. However, I couldn't avoid feeling uncomfortable. Maybe because I'm so used to the fact that white men just don't look at me at all. Or because I'm so used to the fact that "I'm invisible". Whatever the reason, I hadn't experienced that uneasiness in a long time, and hope don't experience any time soon.
