When Omar Rodriguez-Lopez of the Mars Volta moved to the mainland US with his parents from their native Puerto Rico at age 10, he was thrilled when the white kids called him a word he’d never heard before. “They called me ‘spic’,’ he said. “I thought it was so cool that they’d given me this nickname! I only found out what it really meant when I told some Black kids at school and they said, ‘Yo, what are you talking about?’”
Meanwhile, several states away, his later bandmate, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, was experiencing his own brand of racism as a kid. Like his Mexican-born father, he has blue eyes and light skin, which drew suspicion from both the Latino and the white communities. “You have to prove yourself to each side,” Bixler-Zavala said. “It’s like being a double agent. You’re always on the outside.”
