I’d love to see more riders of color in the ring because the equestrian world is a world where we all belong. You can only get so far when you’re the lone Samoan using hashtags to try to connect with the equestrian world. All these companies are ones I’m a repeat customer of and, while getting ‘free’ stuff (which the company can write off towards marketing budget) would be awesome, my communication with them had more to do with the fact that they have more reach within the equestrian community. “I’ve reached out to a few companies myself, offering to promote their push towards diversity, but I often think they think I just want free things. “I think that especially during this recent move towards diversity in the equestrian world, with companies run by people who are more ‘privileged,’ they see we minorities as looking for handouts,” she said. It almost seems like people check a box and then miss the entire point. "Diversity" doesn't mean providing a voice to more than one social or ethnic group, and then calling it "good " it refers to providing a voice for many people of different backgrounds. With the recent increase in diversity awareness, Maria has reached out about promoting more diversity in the equestrian world as well, but many of those requests have fallen on deaf ears thus far. There are very few BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) in equestrian sports. Maria isn’t just a minority in the United States she’s a minority in her chosen sport, as well. I was the brown girl with an Asian last name, an American accent, and a thing for horses. I actually had more traffic infractions in NZ than I do in the U.S.! Apparently brown people driving luxury cars isn’t as common there having an American accent made me even more of an oddity, so I was a bit of an easy target. I had in my mind that I had to have a BMW in NZ and that is what we bought it wasn’t the newest model, but I did have a vision of what I wanted life to be like there. I feel as though my treatment there may be similar to how black people are treated in America. “When I first really remember having memories of racism it was during my time in New Zealand. If there was racism at the time, I was oblivious, because we were blessed to be around very kind people, so I didn’t realize I was any different. I grew up surrounded by a very white society. Growing up in the early 90s in Ohio, there was no diversity that I can remember. Even though I live in a world surrounded by generally accepting people, meeting people who are prejudiced is often a little reality check that there are ignorant people in the world, but I think it’s because they live with a certain stereotype in their minds. “Everyone has their own version and perception of certain people. “I often forget to realize that people are living in their own little realities,” she said. In the United States, people misclassified her race, frequently speaking to her in Spanish, a language she’d never learned. But everywhere that she has been, she has been perceived as the “other.” When she returned to New Zealand for school, she was othered because she had an “American” accent. Maria was born in New Zealand, grew up in Ohio, and now lives in southern Washington. But as a woman of Samoan, German, and Chinese descent, she herself was often unseen and othered. Part of what made her such an inspirational trainer was her ability to simultaneously see all of the motions of horse and rider during a lesson and then help her students learn how to transform this to perfect their craft. She was an observer, a lifelong horse lover, and an accomplished trainer in her own right, having been accepted into the prestigious Retired Racehorse Project in 2018. Her long, brown-black hair swept down her back and her contemplative brown eyes took everything in before she spoke. I’d never thought of her as “invisible.” Quiet, yes. But appearing that way gives you the same body language that ‘the help’ usually has. “One good way of not drawing attention is making yourself meek, dressing down, being unintimidating… invisible. “When you enter a sport and feel like you don’t belong because you appear different, and you don’t have all of the fancy gear, and you’re developing your own horses and showing them in public, you don’t want to draw attention to yourself,” she explained. She assisted the rider, but the experience still stung. And then she realized: This rider didn’t really see her she perceived her as the help. As a rider and trainer, she’d helped many students get onto their mounts, but not complete strangers. Maria stared back at the rider who had asked the question. She ran her forefinger and thumb across the browband of her worn bridle and glanced over at her horse, who was standing quietly, waiting to get saddled. Her collar was pulled up, obscuring her cascade of hair. Maria Lacasse slowly zipped up her old tall boots and adjusted her oversized jacket.
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