How to make a white woman from scratch — By Emma Schmitz
artwork by Ciara Duffy
Start with any grain base from whatever cuisine you prefer. For this recipe, I've chosen masa, a corn-based dough commonly used throughout Mexico by the people who've inhabited that land for centuries – of both indigenous and colonizer descent.
You could also simply start with one part Latina and one part white. Mix ingredients in the brightly-colored melting pot that was the Mission District of San Francisco in the 1960s, blending Spanish and English together with a whisk. Stir in babysitting by a Guatemalan woman named Flory and your Mexican grandmother, Elva, who makes tamales dulces for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Let sit for seven years.
After seven years, break up anything that has solidified with a wooden spoon. Toss out abusive white father and move across the Golden Gate Bridge to one of the wealthiest counties in California. Fold in a few other father figures, some not-so-casual racism at school, and forbid your mother to ever speak Spanish to you again. (Piñatas on birthdays still OK).
Let simmer a few years until, when you're 14, Grandma Elva dies. Don't cry at her well-attended funeral procession in front of the oldest surviving structure in San Francisco: Mission Dolores Church. Secretly say goodbye to everyone there. Take with you her love for God and the Christian way.
With a pair of clean, sharpened kitchen shears, cut the last ties to your family by legally emancipating yourself from your mother. Move in with a nice white family to finish out high school. Wait a few years, then, with a pastry cutter, cut in a toxic relationship with a young man and the decision not to be a teen mother until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Wash your hands before the next step.
Pour batter into an oven-safe container and let bake at 180*F for a couple of years while you settle into a white-collar job. Try to work your way up the ranks, despite depression and misogyny. Finally, in a separate, small bowl, mix a kind white suitor with the prospect of owning a business together. Coat entire bake with mixture.
Enjoy for the next five years until you'll need this recipe again in 1991. Don't worry – even if loosely followed, making a white woman from scratch gets easier every time.
Emma Schmitz is a business owner and homesteader living on the north coast of California. She studied creative writing at UC Santa Cruz, and her work has been published in The Tiny Journal, Beyond Words Magazine, and The Good Life Review. These days, she's either riding her bike or tending to animals, including a mastiff puppy and way too many chickens.