Biases?! We all have it.

My first contact with the concept of race and ethnicity was when I started attending college here as I was asked to name my ancestors. After listening to several students describe their ethnic background, mostly from German, Irish, Italian, Greek… I was surprised, I think more like embarrassed, that my answer to the professor was “I have no idea”. Then came the categorization of being “Latina” that is also associated with Spanish speakers, but I don’t speak Spanish, even though some students started speaking Spanish with me at the time…Phew! You might be able to imagine where this is going.

I had been raised in the majority, dominant, privilege white culture where I was shield from or perhaps oblivious to racism and discrimination. My privileged upbringing led me and still does, to “learn” history through the eyes of those who shared the dominant role and “interpret” situations through similar lenses.

This book draws my attention as I explore conflicting perspectives of wearing all my hats in two different cultures. An enlightening reading discussing biases in different sectors including through the author's family experiences. The numerous researches exploring automatic reaction corroborated through the neuroscience in brain image explore the preconceived ideas that catches our attention. It discusses the impact of spreading of the “Color blind”, “I don’t see color” approaches to racism.

Contrary to what we might be mostly inclined to think, it might be liberating when we understand that we are not the problem. What makes this relevant if we all have biases?! Well.. We have all acted and reacted based on our biases. These experiences also shape the way our children see the world. Therefore, we can only change what we become aware of.