I knew this mentality had been passed down by my parents’ own parents, who’d likely learned it from their parents, and so on. And it made sense—when you are of a race of people that has been systematically disenfranchised by the country your ancestors had been brought to against their will, and hundreds of years later you are still struggling to free yourself from the shackles that limit your access to property, opportunity, and earning potential, your family’s hard-won good name might be all you have.
