We Didn’t Call Them Mary Janes…
During the 1970’s, I spent part of my childhood living in Garden City Park, a then predominantly White, working-class suburb in Long Island, New York. A few summers ago, my older sister and I were reminiscing about the fads of that era. We were basking in the joy of nostalgia, taking turns blurting out the names of our favorite things: “Oh, the Magnetic Gyro Wheel—I could play with that thing for hours! What about Shrinky Dinks? Remember the puffy ones? And Underoos! I always wanted the Wonder Woman ones! Oh, and the…” Just as I was about to say the name of the next item that I loved, I paused, horrified: “Wait, we used to call those black cloth Mary Janes ‘c**nk’ shoes? My sister slowly responded “Yeah, I guess so. Everybody did…”
After this jarring realization, we spent some time trying to recall why we referred to them as“c**nk” shoes. The black cloth Mary Janes were reminiscent of martial arts slippers, also known as Kung Fu shoes or Tai Chi shoes (Painter, 2019). We didn’t buy them at Two Guys, the local department store where we bought all of our other shoes. At the time, these shoes were usually sold in Asian owned stores and there were none in our neighborhood. Instead, my father, who worked in New York City, brought them home for us from a Asian shop near his office. Given that black cloth Mary Janes were associated with martial art slippers and commonly purchased in Asian owned businesses, it was reasonable to conclude that “c**nk” shoes was a reference to Asian-ness. So normalized was the othering (hooks, 1992 ) and dehumanization of the marginalized, in this case the Asian community, that “c**nk” shoes was not a questionable or problematic term in our family and social circles.
There seems to be a lack of consensus over the origins of the word “c**nk” used as a racial slur towards a person of Asian descent. Some speculate it was initially coined during the Westward Expansion Movement of the 1800’s. They argue that “c**nk” mimics the sound Chinese laborers produced hammering railroad ties while building the Transcontinental Railroad (Hsu, 2012). Others suggest that it is derived from the word “China”, or that it is in reference to “narrow, slanted eyes” attributed to Asian features (Liang, 2011). Regardless of its history, this derogatory term is insidiously embedded in our society’s lexicon.
Words have histories, connotations, and legacies ingrained in American life. On the one hand, race and language are important to the preservation of my Puerto Rican identity. On the other hand, race and language are also used as a tool to dehumanize. And none of us, including those of us whose language has also been marginalized, are exempt from it. I still carry the weight of the realization of how normalized the use of a racial slur was in my childhood and have been hesitant to share it with others. My first feelings were of shame, shame that I used this language as a little girl, and shame that my parents allowed it. These feelings prompted a deeper excavation of the intersection of race and language in my relatively traditional Puerto Rican upbring. To understand why this word was a part of my younger self’s vocabulary, I had to first explore my family’s sensibilities towards race and language. I found myself processing dozens upon dozens of memories where family or community members promulgated colorism or participated in dehumanizing discourses, often thought of as playful banter.
Although members of my family embodied the various hues of the skin color spectrum, they concurred that White skin was most desirable. My abuela, a light-skinned woman, reinforced these assertions with “well intentioned” advice. Whenever she heard one of her grandchildren speaking of a potential love interest or crush, she would say “Acuérdate, hay que mejorar la raza.” and encourage us to find fair-skinned mates with pelo bueno and blue eyes. By abuela’s standards, coming from a buena familia meant your family was gente blanca with financial stability. Whenever she was fond of or had profound respect for a dark-skinned person she would comment “Es negro, pero tiene el alma blanca.” My father self identifies as a White man, is an avid subscriber to the myth of meritocracy and a devout Republican. My siblings and I refer to him as the Puerto Rican Archie Bunker. He defends and/or rationalizes racist propaganda and sees no harm in jokes at the expense of the dehumanization of others. After all, “it’s only a joke” and “it’s all in good fun”. My mother passively abhors such ways of being, her silence and grim expression the only indicators of her repulsion. She is a woman of tez trigueña, with pronounced indigenous features. Growing up, her brown skin was often dwelled upon by family members and she was relentlessly teased for being prieta by her older siblings. To this day, she goes to great lengths to avoid exposure to the sun, as she is already demasiado prieta.
There is an enduring legacy of colorism embedded in Puerto Rican culture through our use of language. We have an array of words to describe hues of skin color, and often use them as nouns: negra, mulata, cana, blanquita, jabá, india, mestiza, trigueña, morena, prieta… Growing up, it was not uncommon to know people with nicknames such as Negro or Chino. This practice was and still is notable in the media and everyday life. For instance, salsa singer Carlos Enrique Estremera is known as Cano Estremera and Puerto Rican pop artist Linda Viera Caballero is billed as India. One of the late Celia Cruz’s biggest hits was titled “La Negra Tiene Tumbao”, a reference to her Afro-Caribbean heritage. School was another site for racial nicknaming. In the fourth grade I had two classmates that were named Carlos, one was referred to as “Carlos el Negro”, and the other—a light-skinned boy—was simply known as Carlos. To this day, all of his childhood friends refer to him as “Carlos el Negro”. This custom even trickled down to our pets. We had a cat with black and white fur named Blackie, and my cousin had a white poodle called Whitey.
A traditional Puerto Rican children’s circle game “Cheki Morena”
(Herrera-Sobek, 2012, pp. 288-289):
El juez le dijo al cura, ¡curita!
El cura le dijo al juez,
¿Qué fue?
Que a dónde está ese ritmo, caramba
Del merecumbe, ¡Jue!
Cheki, morena, cheki,
Cheki, morena, ¡jue!
¿Que a dónde está
Ese ritmo caramba
Del merecumbé?
Un pasito alante
Y otro para atrás
Y dando la vuelta
Y dando la vuelta¿
Quién se quedará? ¡Jue!
The judge said to the priest, "Little priest!"
The priest said to the judge,
"What happened?
Where is that rhythm
Of the merecumbe?"
Shake it, brown girl, shake it,
Shake it, brown girl, hey!
Where is that rhythm
Of the merecumbe?
One small step forward
And another to the back
And turn around
And turn around
Who will be next? Hey!
Racial nicknames are often embraced as terms of endearment in Puerto Rican culture. However, this seemingly innocuous practice is arguably rooted in the normalization of Whiteness and internalized racism prevalent in colonized societies (Asher, 2009). While affectionately referring to someone as Negro or Chino does not equate to calling them the N word or “c**nk”, it does give pause. There is a fine line between showing your gente cariño and dehumanizing them. At risk is becoming desensitized to language that is racially charged and pejorative.
My Puerto Rican ancestors were raised on an island that was first colonized by Spain and later seized by the United States. Eurocentric influence centered Whiteness and propelled colorism (Asher, 2009). Under the guise of cariño—deep affection—we slide down the slippery slope of perpetuating White supremacy every time we refer to someone by a racial nickname.
Unfortunately, the time to ask my parents about their thoughts on the complexities of race and language in our culture, our family, and my upbringing has come and gone. After reflecting on the ways of knowing that were privileged in their upbringing, I have come to understand or chosen to believe that their indifference to my referencing “c**nk shoes” —assuming they even knew I called them “c**nk shoes” and called them that themselves—was rooted in cultural practices that undergird colorism and a misguided notion that dehumanizing the other is acceptable if no offense or harm is intended.
References:
Asher, N. (2009). Decolonization and education: Locating pedagogy and self at the interstices in global times. In R. S. Coloma (Ed.), Postcolonial challenges in education (pp. 67–77). Peter Lang.
bell, h. (1992). Eating the other. In Black looks: Race and representation (pp. 366-388). Boston, MA: South End Press.
Herrera-Sobek, M. (Ed.). (2012). Celebrating Latino folklore: An encyclopedia of cultural traditions (Vol. 1). ABC-CLIO.
Hsu, H. (2012, February). No more chinks in the armor. Slate. Retrieved from https://slate.com/culture/2012/02/chink-in-the-armor-jeremy-lin-why-its-time-to-retire-the-phrase-for-good.html
Liang, K. (2011, September). Racial slurs (chink). Northwest Asian Weekly. Retrieved from http://nwasianweekly.com/2011/09/racial-slurs-chink/
Painter, J. (2019, December). Origins of Chinese traditional martial arts clothing. Internal Arts Magazine. Retrieved from https://internalartsmagazine.com/origins-of-chinese-traditional-martial-arts-clothing/
Carmen Lugo Llerena is an early childhood educator at Central Park East II in East Harlem and a doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is committed to providing her students spaces to learn through exploration and play, while nurturing a sense of civic responsibility. Carmen’s research focuses on childhood culture, and the ways young children develop emotional literacy and make meaning of the world through play and the appropriation of popular culture. She is a Marvel enthusiast and loves to help little humans discover their superpowers. Carmen lives in New Jersey with her husband John, sons Nico and Lucas, and their dog Howie.
