Me [24F] with my husband [25M] together 3 years and married one month, racism is bringing us down :(

Vermont can be weird.

My mother is hispanic and my father is white. I live in Vermont.

People assume I am either a Mexican or a terrorist. They say, hey o08 the Mexican terrorist, how's it going? I feign a smile for cordiality then a drink will come my way from the bartender. He refers to me as gay Dominican o08 the terrorist. Gay, because the music I play trends towards the '80's.

Often, folks I've never met will ask me where I am from. I tell them America. "No, where are you really from?" "Connecticut but I grew up summering in Vermont. My grandparents are buried in town and they started coming here in 1912." Then they get really confused because now I am no longer an outsider but very much an insider of higher stock. Since they are not in the know then they become the outsider. It's a quick reversal.

More often, I feel there is racism towards rich folks. This one is harder to combat since there are many rich dickheads that come for vacation. But I am not of the rich clueless flatlander/joey set their mind immediately conjures. I am a blue-blood from a long line of extremely successful New Englanders who can be traced from Mayflower ancestry to Harvard presidency. We live frugally, chopping our own wood, digging our own gardens, wearing regular clothing. We are extremely kind to the underclasses. We give them permission to hunt and fish on our lands. My family used private funds to build low income housing in highly desirable areas for elderly and poor folks in town. They set up the towns first zoning laws, and are a bulwark against private ski industry overreach. We treat everyone with compassion and fairness; equals of equal footing.

So while I will occasionally get a contractor come and quote a price for work on the home, if they don't know my family, they will quote an outrageous price just based on the location/look of the house. If they know I know, then they quote the fair price.

Vermont can be very rural and there is a deep mistrust for out of staters, hispanics, blacks, chinese, etc. As well, they hate flatlanders, richers, and cone-heads. If you come from New York City, you will never be accepted. They see them as temporary residents that are slowly building homes that take away from their old hunting haunts. They see outsiders as threats to their way of life that may change their gun laws. Many are small minded, overly proud, and indeed jealous of your happiness. Some are hooked on heroin and are just generally scumbags. Sometimes they struggle to eat or feed their children. They often will run out of wood in March and live in 40 degree homes for months on end because they have no money.

What I do know is that they mean no harm and they know no better. Many are extremely poor and they do have resentment towards anybody foreign or rich but it is just because they have so little exposure to the former and their exposure to the latter can be negative. Many of their opinions are formed from their uneducated neighbors. It's rural out here and parts are no different from what people think when the deep south is mentioned.

Don't let it get you down. You just need to rise above it and treat your townspeople with kindness. Eventually they'll come around. The ones that don't can go fuck themselves and they deserve nothing but contempt. In the meantime, there really is nothing your husband can do but go with it and keep a thick skin. Keep as private as possible but make friendships with the few you meet that are more enlightened.

/r/relationships Thread