What’s it like being white in a mostly Hispanic school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We're at a 60%+ Latino school with high FARMS and are not Latino but of another cultural background and really like it. DC is no longer bullied for being brown like they were incessantly in ES. People are respectful to one another and I am so thankful DC is out of the W feeder ES environment.

Oh boy, wish I could talk to you. We are having that experience now in a ‘W’ feeder. A lot of the problem is the parents, especially moms who are in little cliques and because you, as the parent, don’t fit in with that clique, your kid isn’t invited to the random meetups, play dates and snow day fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is heading to SSIMS and probably Northwood after that.

What is it like being white in a mostly Hispanic school? Are there any cultural differences to be aware of?

I am Latina and grew up in almost entirely Latino public schools. I'll be honest, I perceived the few white kids as economically privileged (they usually were) and sometimes there were cultural things they didn't understand but they often caught on to those quickly and were quick to joke about them. No other significant differences and most of the time we never thought about it.

Like? What kind of cultural things?

I don’t even remember. Minor things imo.

But some things I know I experienced as a child that might seem odd to white families include not celebrating Halloween, no sleepovers, no summer camps, no money or time for extracurriculars, more emphasis on family time (like family doing most things together). Also maybe a different sense of humor, it’s hard to describe, no tiptoeing around things and less passive aggression, more direct language for better or worse. How much of this impacted my white classmates, idk. I think this stuff also varies among Latinos so these are huge generalizations.

All this plus the blatant sexism my parents had. My younger brother had so much more freedom. My mom worried I’d be molested and told me from a very young age. She would also make mountains out of mole hills - go from zero to irrational in 0.2 seconds and it was always loud. She would also sing and dance in public all the time which I was always embarrassed about. Maybe my mom was just over the top. I was the only Hispanic kid in an all white school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is one of two white kids in her class. Yeah it does make the difference being the odd one out. But there are also plenty of Hispanic kids in all white schools so I suppose those kids feel the same. I don’t think they are teaching racism broadly though because people can also be racist against white people it isn’t only against other races. That is something to think about. Any minority in any situation faces racism.

As a white euro-decent Latina in an all white school- yeah so much racism. People asked me if my mom was the housekeeper all the time. When they learned I was Puerto Rican they would call me racist slang and say things about tacos and burritos- we don’t even eat tacos and burritos!

[Anonymous]

My kids have been to multiple schools and it hasn't been a problem at all. Kids are kind. The only issue we've had is in Spanish classes, they tend to go faster because there are more native speakers and we don't speak it at home. Have them learn spanish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd is at an 80% Hispanic school 65% farms. No big issues but there are some different cultural issues. No hispanic kids will come to her birthday parties and she’s never invited to theirs. I even asked one of the friend’s moms and she told me weekends were for family. The only other girls who we have playdates with and go to birthday parties for are other white, Asian and one AA girl. Kind of stung for a while and I felt like we weren’t being inclusive but it is what it is. We did invite them.

About 1/4 of her K class spoke little to no English so that was challenging friends wise too.

My dd has no idea that many of the kids are lower income. Most have better clothes than her and definitely better shoes. Teacher buys extra snacks for kids who are hungry and I told her not to take food she doesn’t need. I sent some boxes of snacks in too and any supplies the teachers need. We often have brand new teachers and there’s a high burnout.

My kids are at a school with very similar stats (in DC proper), and this has been our experience.

The social side of it has been a problem, to be honest. Most of the Latino kids are living in multi-generational housing, and have a ton of family in the area. Their social lives revolve around family and cousins. There is not a culture of going over to play at a school friend's house or going to or throwing birthday parties with unrelated kids. The parents are friendly and kind at drop off and pick up, and school events (like assemblies), and the kids play together and have a great time at school and recess, but we have had absolutely zero success on out of school socializing, after three years of trying. Our kid being limited to 20% of his class for playing on weekends has been a problem - we (like many DC white families) have no family in the area.

This isn't said with judgment, and I don't begrudge these families (I would love it if my kid had a slew of cousins his age around!) There have been no issues around the economic differences, and I've also been really, really impressed at the teacher's ability to differentiate in class, so academic concerns have actually been less than I anticipated. Even the language barriers have been manageable (between Google Translate and the kids learning English quickly and well) though that is also a challenge. But we're seriously considering changing schools for social reasons. It makes me so sad, but that might be where we land.

We never had an issue with kids coming to our parties, but we invited the entire family. It wasn't a big deal and we just made sure to have tons of food. They come if the entire family is welcome. We've have school parties that had 40-80 people. I don't want to drop off my kids at a party I don't know so I wouldn't expect someone else to.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine's daughter went to a majority-Hispanic school and two upsides she saw were:
- less materialism. Her daughter didn't come home whining about needing the latest activewear or Uggs or anything like that
- less emphasis on thinness. Her daughter is large chested and self-conscious about it but became less so over time. And, she was overall very comfortable in her body.

[Anonymous]

Skin color isn’t the problem. The problem is that kids in heavily Hispanic schools speak Spanish at recess well into upper grades, and kids with no Spanish are excluded, sometimes even teased for not knowing it.
Also, forget about birthday party invites for your kid, or even playdates for that matter. This is what family is for in Hispanic culture.
In short, don’t do this to your kid.
Signed,
Someone working at an 85% Hispanic school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Skin color isn’t the problem. The problem is that kids in heavily Hispanic schools speak Spanish at recess well into upper grades, and kids with no Spanish are excluded, sometimes even teased for not knowing it.
Also, forget about birthday party invites for your kid, or even playdates for that matter. This is what family is for in Hispanic culture.
In short, don’t do this to your kid.
Signed,
Someone working at an 85% Hispanic school

My kid was never teased and invited to parties. The Hispanic families were kinder than many of the white families. We put our kid in Spanish in 6th grade so they'd learn.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is heading to SSIMS and probably Northwood after that.

What is it like being white in a mostly Hispanic school? Are there any cultural differences to be aware of?

I am Latina and grew up in almost entirely Latino public schools. I'll be honest, I perceived the few white kids as economically privileged (they usually were) and sometimes there were cultural things they didn't understand but they often caught on to those quickly and were quick to joke about them. No other significant differences and most of the time we never thought about it.

Like? What kind of cultural things?

I don’t even remember. Minor things imo.

But some things I know I experienced as a child that might seem odd to white families include not celebrating Halloween, no sleepovers, no summer camps, no money or time for extracurriculars, more emphasis on family time (like family doing most things together). Also maybe a different sense of humor, it’s hard to describe, no tiptoeing around things and less passive aggression, more direct language for better or worse. How much of this impacted my white classmates, idk. I think this stuff also varies among Latinos so these are huge generalizations.

These are not Latino things. These are things common in many immigrant communities. Many white European immigrant families do these things, for example.

“United States” is increasingly secular

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're at a 60%+ Latino school with high FARMS and are not Latino but of another cultural background and really like it. DC is no longer bullied for being brown like they were incessantly in ES. People are respectful to one another and I am so thankful DC is out of the W feeder ES environment.

Oh boy, wish I could talk to you. We are having that experience now in a ‘W’ feeder. A lot of the problem is the parents, especially moms who are in little cliques and because you, as the parent, don’t fit in with that clique, your kid isn’t invited to the random meetups, play dates and snow day fun.

Maybe its you, no one owes you a seat at the table

[Anonymous]

My son goes to a majority Hispanic elem school and instead of saying "six seven" incessantly he was saying "seis siete". Small perk!

Overall we have had no issues so far!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, this was the whitest thing you could have done.

I have secondhand embarrassment for you.

You are so ignorant. What's worse is that you're totally clueless and think you're cute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dd is at an 80% Hispanic school 65% farms. No big issues but there are some different cultural issues. No hispanic kids will come to her birthday parties and she’s never invited to theirs. I even asked one of the friend’s moms and she told me weekends were for family. The only other girls who we have playdates with and go to birthday parties for are other white, Asian and one AA girl. Kind of stung for a while and I felt like we weren’t being inclusive but it is what it is. We did invite them.

About 1/4 of her K class spoke little to no English so that was challenging friends wise too.

My dd has no idea that many of the kids are lower income. Most have better clothes than her and definitely better shoes. Teacher buys extra snacks for kids who are hungry and I told her not to take food she doesn’t need. I sent some boxes of snacks in too and any supplies the teachers need. We often have brand new teachers and there’s a high burnout.

My kids are at a school with very similar stats (in DC proper), and this has been our experience.

The social side of it has been a problem, to be honest. Most of the Latino kids are living in multi-generational housing, and have a ton of family in the area. Their social lives revolve around family and cousins. There is not a culture of going over to play at a school friend's house or going to or throwing birthday parties with unrelated kids. The parents are friendly and kind at drop off and pick up, and school events (like assemblies), and the kids play together and have a great time at school and recess, but we have had absolutely zero success on out of school socializing, after three years of trying. Our kid being limited to 20% of his class for playing on weekends has been a problem - we (like many DC white families) have no family in the area.

This isn't said with judgment, and I don't begrudge these families (I would love it if my kid had a slew of cousins his age around!) There have been no issues around the economic differences, and I've also been really, really impressed at the teacher's ability to differentiate in class, so academic concerns have actually been less than I anticipated. Even the language barriers have been manageable (between Google Translate and the kids learning English quickly and well) though that is also a challenge. But we're seriously considering changing schools for social reasons. It makes me so sad, but that might be where we land.

We never had an issue with kids coming to our parties, but we invited the entire family. It wasn't a big deal and we just made sure to have tons of food. They come if the entire family is welcome. We've have school parties that had 40-80 people. I don't want to drop off my kids at a party I don't know so I wouldn't expect someone else to.

+100

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're at a 60%+ Latino school with high FARMS and are not Latino but of another cultural background and really like it. DC is no longer bullied for being brown like they were incessantly in ES. People are respectful to one another and I am so thankful DC is out of the W feeder ES environment.

Oh boy, wish I could talk to you. We are having that experience now in a ‘W’ feeder. A lot of the problem is the parents, especially moms who are in little cliques and because you, as the parent, don’t fit in with that clique, your kid isn’t invited to the random meetups, play dates and snow day fun.

This is why diversity is a school boundary factor.

When we moved last, we specifically made diversity one of the factors in choosing the area to live and schools. Night and Day difference is how my kids experience schools, friends, and culture.

[Anonymous]

Most Hispanics are white.