Plymouth Magazine-Summer24-DIGITAL - Flipbook - Page 12
A Veil of Brown Skin
By Lorenzo Sandoval
I am a Latino.
Like each of you, I have studied self. I
have wanted to know: Who am I? What
is the purpose of my life?
In my particular case, as I experienced the
early phases of my life—as a boy, a college
student, a young man—as I experienced
these phases I found that much of my
reflection on identity was grounded
heavily in seeking the approval of other
people: white people.
Why? Because I concluded early on that
being a Latino in the United States was a
problem. By virtue of being alive in this
country, I was a problem.
The origin of this perception was mostly
my own doing with a little help from my
parents. Among the non-material gifts
my parents gave me when I was young
boy was a second pair of eyes, the eyes of
white people.
You see, my parents—especially my dear
mother—would warn me every time I
ventured outside the home that I was not
to be too loud, not to disrespect teachers
or authority figures, not to ask for second
helpings in someone else’s house, not to
be presumptuous, not to appear dirty or
disheveled, etc.
So, what is unusual about that? Parents
commonly conveyed—and still convey—
those admonitions to their children.
True. But, to the long list of
admonitions, my mother would
unfailingly add this coda: we don’t want
people saying anything bad about us
because we’re Mexican.
Consequently, I reached conclusions
about my identity and formed a
somewhat limiting worldview. I
internalized a set of restrictive behaviors.
No need for the parents to be around to
scold me. I handled that job myself.
I now had a second pair of eyes, crafted
from the raw material of the constant
repetition of those warnings, warnings,
warnings. I peered at myself through
those eyes and saw very clearly that I had
a veil of brown skin.
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I concluded that I was a Mexican, despite
the fact I was born in the United States,
despite the fact that I used an Anglicized
name—Larry Sandoval—and despite
the fact that I could not speak Spanish (I
could say only a few words and phrases,
but with an American accent).
For a person of color, this awareness,
according to W.E.B. Du Bois (the great
sociologist and civil rights activist)
is the first of two major life-altering
experiences.
The second one arises when a person is
actually scorned and rejected by a society
to which that person so strongly wanted
to belong.
So, my second life-altering experience…
well, before I share that story let me
say that as a teen-ager, despite my low
self-esteem, I possessed a measure of
self-confidence that propelled me toward
and supported me in the world of high
school theatre. I played all kinds of white
men. No brown veils in my little world
of theatre.
they were a breathtaking sight: tanned,
beautiful teenagers, communicating with
confident body language that they knew
their power and relished their privileges.
Of course, I thought! It stands to reason
that these popular kids from my high
school would be members of this private
club.
My friend, whose family were members
of the club, addressed the pool manager
and introduced the rest of us as his
guests. As we began making our way in,
the manager said,
“You all can go on in.” Then, indicating
me with his thumb, he said, “Except
him.”
My friend wanted to know ‘why.’ He
repeated his question several times.
Each time, the manager would only say,
“Because he just can’t.”
Away from stage activities, I would go to
football and basketball games and movies
and pizza parlors with my friends—none
of them were Latinos.
It was an awkward moment. There was
silence. We had made such a long trek,
and we all really wanted to swim. I told
the rest of them that I could sit on a
bench outside of the fence and watch
them swim. To this day I am so glad they
resisted the idea. But, I saw the confusion
and disappointment in their faces. I
persisted.
Now we come to my second, Du Boisian
life-altering experience.
“It’s OK,” I said. “Go on in. I’ll just watch
you guys.”
I was a teenager during the hot summer
of 1967. Four friends and I decided
one sunny day that we would go for a
swim. Our group leader, my best friend,
suggested that we all go to the swimming
pool at the new private club to which his
family belonged. None of us drove, so we
all walked there. It was no short distance,
and the sun was blazing but we didn’t care.
After a bit of back-and-forth, convinced
that I was going to be all right, they
slowly entered the club.
What a sight we were, with snorkels,
swimming goggles, rolled up towels and
a teenaged, outsized load of pent-up
energy. I remember lots of boasting about
the fancy dives we would attempt.
When we arrived at the club, which
was a distance from the main highway
and hidden by woods, we walked by
the busy pool which was enclosed by a
high chain-link fence. I saw a number of
the in-crowd kids there. In retrospect,
I did watch my friends for what seemed
an eternity. I was literally on the outside
looking in. My best friend dedicated his
dives to me. Standing at the edge of the
diving board he cried out to me, “This
one’s for you, Larry.”
Life-altering experience number two.
What happened to me is exactly what
happened to DuBois in his youth. He
wrote, “Then it dawned upon me with a
certain suddenness that I was different
from the others; or like [them perhaps]
in heart and life and longing but shut out
from their world by a vast veil.”
