How to Date a Brown Girl (Black Girl, White Girl, or Halfie)

This potentially offensive term is given to the girl who has a white mother and a Latinx father. The multiracial girl who is identified with this term has the most consistent characterization in the text. Yet, she is also a character who seems just as ambivalent about her racial identity as the narrator.

The Spanish term malcriado translates to spoiled in English, and it is a term that the narrator’s mother applies to him when he feigns illness to stay home for his date. The connection between the protagonist and this term is an example of irony. The narrator does everything in his power to hide the fact that he is underprivileged: His family lacks the resources to spoil him materially. This irony is further deepened by the speaker’s willingness to put on his class façade when other people besides his dates are concerned. It could be in jest, but it is also an extension of the tense relationship that the narrator seems to have with his family.

This term alludes to the Mexican American movement for equality that ran through the 1950s to the 1970s, similar in ideological approach to the Black Power movement around the same time. The Movement is notable for separatism and an adherence to Indigenous pride. This fits into the larger narrative by offering an example of pride as opposed to simple assimilation. In other words, the narrator has other options for his stance toward his own culture.

Viejas is a Spanish term meaning “elderly women.” The narrator uses it to describe the women who now cannot cross the street safely due to increasing commuter traffic. It is a small detail but one that connects the idea of change and a clash of culture between the new and the old. The description of the older women is also notable because it shows a sense of nostalgia on the part of the narrator.