Rejecting assimilation in 'You Sound Like a White Girl'

It's Been a Minute

NPR

News Commentary, Society & Culture, News, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 8.8K Ratings

🗓️ 22 March 2022

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A school crush once told Julissa Arce that she sounded "like a white girl." At the time, Arce believed that was exactly what she wanted. But over the years, even after perfecting "accent-less" English, graduating from college, getting a job at Goldman Sachs, and becoming an American citizen, Arce still felt like she didn't belong. Instead of just trying to fit in as the solution, Arce began to question whether that was the very problem to begin with. Elise Hu talks to Arce about her new book — You Sound Like a White Girl — and the case for rejecting assimilation in favor of embracing yourself, your history, and your culture.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey y'all, you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR.
0:02.9	I'm Elise Hugh.
0:04.8	I was born in Tascoguerreto, Mexico,
0:07.7	which is three-hour south of Mexico City.
0:10.3	It's this beautiful town, said on a lush green mountain.
0:15.6	And I moved to the US when I was 11.
0:19.6	This is Julisa Arce.
0:21.8	And when I was 14, my visa expired.
0:26.2	And that's when I became one of the 11 million undocumented
0:29.0	people in this country.
0:30.8	I remained undocumented for many years until I married.
0:40.7	And because my husband was an American citizen,
0:44.0	I was able to become an American citizen.
0:47.3	Julisa spent most of her young adult life trying to assimilate.
0:51.3	She learned English, went to college, got a job on Wall Street.
0:55.3	But despite everything, there were always moments
0:57.5	where she felt like she didn't belong in school, at work,
1:02.4	in everyday life.
1:04.7	That is, until Julisa realized, as she writes about in her new book,
1:08.3	she was really running a race without a finish line.
1:11.0	And she argues the idea of assimilation
1:13.3	is actually designed to keep people of color and immigrants
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.