This morning, while driving the kids to school, my husband and I start talking about Sammy Sosa. I mentioned to him how I saw these pictures where his skin looks significantly whiter. Then, we start a semi argument on criticizing people for changing their appearance. My husband, who sometimes likes to argue for the sake of it, asks me  who are we to criticize someone for changing their skin color.

--I wouldn't do it, of course-- he says -- but it is his skin. How is that different from coloring your hair?

I have thick chunks of colored hair around my crown and the back of my head. They range from beach blond, to dirty blond, somewhat red, shocking red and pink. Some may look orange, at times, depending on what I am wearing. My natural dark brown (almost black) hair serves as their background.

--I dye my hair like this, you see, but I do not pretend, nor can people assume, that this is my real hair color. It is evident what my real color is, I am not trying to pass for something I am not, like him. Someone who bleaches his skin is trying to pass as white, when they are not. 

I say.

You see, I hate passing, it bothers me. I don't like people who try to pretend they are not what they are, whatever that is. Then again, I could, if I wanted to, up to a certain point, pass. My appearance is Mediterranean, which is non specific enough to allow me a wide range of possible identities if I wanted to indulge in passing. My husband, on the other hand, could not pass for anything else but what he is: a Honduran with strong Native American ancestry. He sticks out like a sore thumb in Puerto Rico; he is 6'2", lean, copper skin and with a very mesoamerican profile, big nose included.  Here, in a land of mulattos and 101 shades between black and white, no one knows what the fuck to do with him, racially speaking. Not a day goes by without someone pointing out he is a foreigner. Something, as he reminds me almost daily too, which never happened to him in Michigan, where we met.

While we were having this argument my son declared, very firmly, his whiteness.

--¡Yo soy blanco!

--What?

--I'm white mom!

My daughter very quickly corrected him, "No", she said " you are brown, like me", she being a couple of shades lighter, she having learned her racial markers in Michigan and not in Puero Rico.

My son is the spitting image of my husband, except for the hair. His is like mine at his age, brown, wavy, abundant yet fine in texture. And that is it, the rest is exactly like his father. He is four years old, and he has already identified that his life in Puerto Rico is that of a white person. He goes to a private school, a Montessori. Among his other brown classmates, who also think themselves white, he feels equal. 

Now, I know that race is relative. Here, I am white. In Michigan, were we lived for almost 9 years, I was not. Yet, the problem is that my son, my dear, beloved son is not, cannot, be white here either. He does not look Puerto Rican. I have even been asked if he is adopted, when I am alone with him. Something, mind you, that no one ever asked me in Michigan, where both my children were borned. 

So, my son says he is white, and it breaks my heart.