Becoming WhiteAs a European immigrant to the United States, over the past 4_ years I have encountered many new cultural phenomena that have challenged me to perceive who I am differently. This experience was even more polarized by the fact that I lived most of the time in Los Angeles, a melting pot not to be underestimated. Coming to America, I expected these adjustments to my Irish self, but the intensity of becoming aware of my “white” label mocked the limits of my expectations. This realization really came when I started working as an educational therapist in a residential setting for adolescents with serious emotional disorders. Being in such an arbitrary position of power was hard enough with people having control issues and disrespect from elders, but I also happened to be the only male in this position in the facility and a "white guy" what's more. Ninety percent of my clients were Latino or African American. This ethnic tipping point did not initially bother me due to my lack of awareness of its existence and my naive determination that it was not important to my therapeutic and educational goals. However, of course, at that time I hadn't really considered what being "white" in this society actually entailed. Consideration of one's identity is obviously key to the success of educational and therapeutic interventions, but it took the concrete experience of being what I call "whitened" to make me understand that skin color can actually have something important to do with it. what to do with one's perceived identity. it actually happened in my house during a mundane, everyday interaction with a plumber who was fixing our shower. First, the Caucasian plumber continually bombarded his young Latino assistant with racial slurs, mostly to the tune of “stupid Mexican.” When he realized we were staring at his comments he explained that his assistant "takes it from his mother's side." This young man was actually the plumber's son! Then he went on to talk about what America is like today and how, being an American, I should understand that. Of course I immediately replied, "I'm not American," to which he retorted, "Oh! I thought you were white!...I mean American." I think this plumber's mistake reveals something of great importance about attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs about ethnic identity that is very open to semiotic analysis.