Cimorene

That's very true. One of my classmates that I was quite friendly with was from Mexico City and we used to talk a lot. She told me about this issue - she was not that white, but also not dark enough to be seen as black or indigenous at home, where she was an ordinary middle class professional, a graphic designer with a degree and experience from an agency. She was strongly anti racist, but she still noticed the difference very obviously here where she is seen as brown. She was married to a Finnish man so she was a Finnish citizen, but even after finishing the Finnish course she struggled for YEARS trying to get a job in her field, despite living in the third biggest urban area in Finland, and despite being fluent in English. Almost certainly because she is perceived as a brown refugee because of coming from a "poor" country.