By Gabrielle. Portraits by Martin Schoeller for National Geographic.
Last year, I was at the Mom 2.0 conference, and Karen Walrond (you might know her as Chookooloonks), and I had a discussion about how she felt about the term “black”. She said she prefers it, because she’s not from Africa and doesn’t identify as an African-American. She would be fine being called Caribbean-American because she grew up in Trinidad, but Caribbean-American doesn’t seem to be a common usage term.
I was thinking of that conversation as I filled out a survey from our school district this week. The survey asked what race or ethnicity my children identified as. And since we live in Oakland, and since Oakland is unusually diverse, there were like 20 options to choose from, or you could fill in your own. I checked the “white” box.
Checking that box reminded me of a conversation my high schoolers had with me not long after we moved here. When we registered, we learned the high school was 10% white, and wondered if our kids would stand out for their whiteness. After a few weeks, our kids said their classmates were curious, but it wasn’t about our kids’ whiteness, it was because they aren’t some sort of combo. Apparently, much of the student body at the high school identifies as multi-cultural or dual-race. Their friends and classmates are Chinese+German, or Filipino+Mexican, or Vietnamese+Arabic, or African-American+Balinese. Our kids felt boring being white+white.
My kids asked if we were really just white and I felt apologetic. Hah! I told them my dad’s side is Jewish, and reminded them my older brother is a Navajo. I asked them if that helped, but no, that didn’t really change things. So I went back further. I told them their ancestors came from Scotland and Sweden, from England and Germany. But no, that didn’t help either. At the end of the day, they still felt like white+white.
Something about it feels like progress to me — I mean them feeling out of the ordinary being white+white. It hints at a future where everyone is so mixed together that we get to choose what culture we want to identify with, which culture we want to celebrate, instead of having it, and all of its baggage, assigned to us at birth. It also aligns with what my kids have been taught in their high school biology classes: there is no such thing as race at a biological level. It doesn’t exist except in our heads. It reminds me of the National Geographic article about the changing faces of America.
Thinking about this also reminds me of how much America really is a melting pot. When I lived in Normandy, my local friends simply identified as French. But here, almost anyone I talk to identifies as an American, plus also as some additional ancestry.
And now I’m curious. Do you identify with a particular culture or race or ethnicity? What box do you mark when you’re surveyed? Or, if you don’t live in America, are you ever asked to mark a race/ethnicity box? Do you ever get mistaken for being a race or nationality that you are not? How about your kids? Do they identify differently than you do? And if you’re black and live here in the U.S., but grew up in a non-African country, how often are you called African-American by mistake? Or do you not read it as a mistake and think of the term African-American in another way?
P.S. — I’m unclear on how to make it happen, but I would LOVE to have more diversity among the Call It A Day and Growing A Family and Living With Kids series here on Design Mom. Whatever your race or ethnicity or nationality, I hope you will feel welcome to share your stories here! We want to hear your voices! It would be amazing if this blog reflected the very diverse community I see around me every day.
Another “white” person-but I do have some Native American ancestry-my grandmother was half Menominee, and my dad was born on the reservation in Wisconsin. Many of my grandmother’s siblings were really dark-but she ended up with the Czech and French Canadians looks and was blonde and blue eyed. She got teased at her Indian boarding school in the 1920s for being a “white” girl amidst all the other Indians. My kids are also a mix of European and Eastern European Jewish (from my husband.) We always tease our teenage daughter about the time during a delicious lunch in Little Saigon (Orange County), she was gazing wistfully out the window and sighed, “It would be so cool to be Asian.” I love how ethnically mixed it is here in Southern California.
This conversation is SO interesting! I personally identify as Mexican-American; my mother was born in Mexico and came her when she was 10. My father was born in the states, but his parents moved here from Mexico. My siblings and I all have light-ish skin, dark hair, and light eyes, so I often get the “what are you?” question. Until recently, it was always easy to say “Mexican!” – plain and simple. However, when I moved to France after college, it didn’t quite make sense to answer with “Mexican”, and I found myself saying “American” for the first time! Isn’t that bizarre? My European friends thought it was hilarious that I would answer with Mexican in the first place, considering I speak little Spanish and wasn’t born in Mexico. We also had friends that were from Mexico, so they were the Mexicans and I was the American. It was a very odd experience.
I think about this a lot in relation to my boyfriend. His dad moved from Australia as a kid, but my boyfriend has never identified as “Australian”. If you ask him, he just says “white”, and doesn’t think twice about it.
Anyway, thank you for the interesting post!
We have a variety of boxes in Canada too. I don’t generally read the whole thing (because I’m white on all sides), but we do have the addition of French-Canadian as a second white option.
Interestingly, I just filled out my daughter’s first school registration forms, and aside from languages spoken to only reference to race on the forms was whether she identified at all as Native.
What a lovely discussion. I watched a performance this past December that was the best Nutcracker I had seen in many, many years. It was called “Nutcracker on the Rocks” and it is a retelling of the Nutcracker with a southwestern/New Mexican twist. The different story, while fun, was not what made it such a good performance. The inclusive cast was what brought tears to my eyes and had me wishing that I had not waited for the last show, so that I could have attended more than one night to take it all in again. The stage was filled with dancers of all shapes, sizes and abilities. There were dancers who were past their youth, dancers in walkers and wheelchairs, dancers who were young and talented, dancers with limited control of their limbs. Each performer was an integral part of the show. You can bet that I will return as an audience member year after year, now that I know how wonderful an experience it is.
Hi! I emailed but completely neglected to mention specifics about my family. We would love to participate in the call-it-a-day or growing our family. My husband and I have 3 biracial children through adoption. My husband and I are white and my children are all African American and Caucasian from different birth families. It’s been an amazing journey and we are actually working on a book to summarize our thoughts and feelings.
We live just outside of DC and I want our children to have a strong sense of self and identity. We do have some friends of color who happen by our home. We want our children to understand the beauty of living in a world with so many different ideas and people.
I keep forgetting info! My son, is Autistic and we are just finishing our 3rd adoption. While we love the Living with Kids series, I fear that my home is not “design mom worthy”. My husband and I have a small business selling letterpress posters. He’s also a forensic document examiner and I work with children with special needs and at Ronald McDonald House Charities.
Serendipity often strikes… this ticking of the box can come with unforeseen consequences. In Singapore I ticked what I felt was an accurate ethnic description of my race ( In Australia I often ticked “Other”). And then I found that as a consequence I was donating directly to a fund to support the education of that particular community in Singapore. I was a very small sum but as I’m not a Singaporean citizen, and I had not given consent for a direct deduction from my salary…I put a stop to it and have been a little more careful since. That being said I spent yesterday with a friend with a “rainbow” family, to find some suitable reading material for my twins daughter who have lived their entire lives in the US, but who identify (without any connection other than we parents) as Australian, and whose ethnic make up is half greek, a quarter Chinese and the rest “white Australian”. They are third culture kids. The conundrum for my kids is that they look white and have blue eyes. My friend’s situation is even more complicated. So on top of this my eldest is involved in a production of “Anything Goes”. Being the sensitive girl she is , the stereotypical portrayal of speech challenged chinamen in this old hit made her uncomfortable enough to raise it with me. She fear that they are going to wear queues and dismiss any reality of 1930s life as being a very trivial concern. The is a very good school but not culturally diverse but it does have a significant group of students from chinese/tawainese/japanese and korean backgrounds. I’m alerted by my daughter and we have considered it as objectively as we can but I can’t help but feel a little sick at how some of the other older parents might feel at the fact that this portrayal is going ahead without any apparent acknowledgement of a rather glaringly obvious concern and no opportunity for the students to examine the history, attitudes, of yellowface . My head hurts because I don’t think that the school would touch a play that had blackface despite the fact that there are virtually no black students and yet not a thought to “yellowface”?
I check the other box and fill in: human
I only see a point of race boxes for medical purposes, sickle cell, etc…
I’m Canadian and just plain ol’ “white + white” too. I’m living in Beijing now though, and always get mistaken for American—not a big deal.
My fiancé is Chinese and I’m excited to have White+Chinese kids! There will be challenges for sure (making sure they learn English and Mandarin, learn about both cultures, visiting family on both sides of the world, etc.), but it’s also really exciting! I guess it’s all how you look at it.
I’m always surprised at just how often the question of race/ethnicity comes up on forms here in America. Back home in Australia this is never asked. In fact, in many situations (eg. applying for jobs or school) it’s outright illegal to require an applicant to provide this information. The only question about race/ethnicity that ever appears on government issued forms in Australia asks if the person identifies as being Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander but it very clearly states that this can be left blank if preferred.
The first time I was asked about my race/ethnicity here in America it took me by complete surprise. I had no idea what the correct response would be. Do I say white? Caucasian? European descent? Australian? And why does the receptionist at the dentist’s clinic need to know this information in order to book me in for a check up?
When it came time to sign my daughter up for school I was surprised by the questions again. The school district says that the questions are asked in order to create diverse schools. This got me wondering many things. If it’s ok to ask about race and ethnicity why not religion? There’s an awful lot of diversity when it comes to religion. Why not ask about culture. I ticked the white box for my daughter but as an Australian she’s culturally quite different from her Swedish classmate who would’ve also ticked the white box. And what box do people from the Middle East tick? I discovered the answer was white. What about people from northern parts of Africa like Egypt? Surely ticking the African American box would suggest that they are black. What does my Jamaican friend tick for her daughter? She’s black but not African American. And then there my white South African American friends who very much identify as being African. So many questions but my biggest was always “Why should any of this matter for a school application?”. Surely just letting kids go to their neighborhood school is much more beneficial to everyone rather than sending them to the other side of the district where a school needs more kids of a particular ethnicity. Anyway, that’s a whole other story and I’m getting side tracked here!
I love your comment. Why should any of this matter is exactly right
Great conversation, Gabby!
To be clear — I don’t have a problem if people call me “African-American” — I mean, I’m certainly not insulted by it — but yes, it doesn’t feel accurate, and I *never* refer to myself as African-American. I am absolutely black, West Indian, Trinidadian — all three of those things. But the term “African-American’ seems often used as a way to describe my skin-colour, without taking into account culture. And my culture — the culture I grew up with in my home, and certainly the one I most self-identify with — is absolutely Trinidadian/West Indian.
Thanks for opening up such an interesting conversation!
K.
Also (just to follow up) — the term “Afro-Caribbean” also feels PERFECTLY accurate for me, as well. :)
K
I’m white+white but when I lived in Philadelphia I really felt what it was like to be a minority. My family was photographed at public events where we were the only white people and at an African storytelling event the story teller stared at us pointedly as she described the poor giraff who didn’t know how to dance. It was so funny to me it helped me lighten up and realize not everyone is as touchy about race as I might think they are.
It’s really hard to put all your heritage is a box. I’m Colombian but since we were also colonized there is a great deal of history behind the hispanic/latino box. My mother is french, spaniard, german and black. My father is spaniard on his mother’s side and his dad was from Peru. My grandfather was chinese, hungarian and indigeneous. I have fairly light olive skin but have curly hair and a big butt so people assume I’m half black. One of my brothers is always asked if he’s half Korean and my oldest brother has olive skin with sandy hair and green eyes. My dad looks white, my mother looks more middle eastern more than latina. My husband is Chilean, our oldest is a red head, our middle child looks like a fair skinned latina or white and our baby has a curly of head of dark blond hair and hazel eyes. My husband and I are always asked where the red head came from and if I’m alone with the baby, people assume the dad is white. Definitely too much to mark with just one box.
This is so interesting, thank you Gabrielle!
I live in Scandinavia and here even thought of asking ones race or ethnicity is strange (and I think it´s illegal here). Only things asked in schools is home language and religion, for that every kid has right to get lessons in those 1-2 hours per week.
Are we really making progress when being “white+white” requires a sigh and a quasi apology to our children? My son went to a school that was mostly black and hispanic. He was not allowed to do a report on his favorite baseball player because the player was white. He was encouraged to find someone else. My other son came home from school one day and said he felt guilt for being white. Why do you or other s think it is progress when we put so much stock into our racial makeup? Aren’t we supposed working to be color- blind? My favorite MLK quote is he hopes one day a man will be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. How is 20 boxes, totally based on what someone LOOKS like and choosing one any kind of progress. Why now when I go to the DR. am I asked about my race? What the heck does that have to do with my healthcare?
We are NOT moving forward. We are dividing people on the basis of their race and color more than ever.It’s just disguised as being “inclusive “
I think your point is valid. Just wanted to point out though that it actually CAN be important for medical professionals to know your race and/or ethnicity since that does have an impact on your chances of developing certain conditions or diseases.
Yes, I do see that race is sometimes a necessary component, but usually it’s irrelevant. Family medical history is much more relevant. I would prefer to answer the race question in person to a DR. who deemed it necessary to ask. NOT in routine paperwork
Growing up I was raised close to the Spanish side of the family with all it’s emotions, wonderful food and strong sense of family. At about 3-4 I realized I did not look like mi ties. I looked Scot-irIsh like my mom. I kind of went back and forth with that. While red hair, blue and green eyes where in the Spanish side , I was a white blonde baby. Now I have 6 half Turkish grandchildren. Not one looks like me but they are so wonderful and yummy. We are gradually going back to the African palette of color, with all these different cultural choices.
I’m Chilean living in Canada. And people ask me if I’m from Libano. When my sister in law came here with her family to visit us . The guy from the taxi talked with her husband in other language and he had to answer that he didn’t understand . The taxi driver was from Pakistan. It’s strange because we don’t have more mixtures than spaniard and native Chilean.
This may be silly but I would classify myself as white. My parents, grand parents and great grand parents are all white, born in America. I recently found out that my 4 times great grandmother was from Holland but I don’t think that is relevant. However if you were to go by origin of my family’s last names then we would be all over the place (Irish, German, dutch, more Irish)….but that seems tricky because now that I am married I guess I would be German. While I like to know where my ancestors originated from, I am not sure if it would change how I fill out the box on any given form? I am American who cares what tone my skin or that of my family’s is.
Dear Gaby (and anyone else!)
I only get to catch up with the blogs I’m reading every two weeks or so, so my comment is a bit late – sorry!
I’m German + Portuguese but grew up entirely in Germany. I do get asked where I come from sometimes (rarely) even though my looks are quite dark. Also, I guess, I don’t feel German or Portuguese, I’m just me. In any case when I read your post my first thought was how interesting it is that race and heritage is such a big issue in the US. I don’t mean this in a negative way at all. It’s just that over here it’s rarely discussed. I’ve never ever had to tick a box indicting my race or skin color or anything like it. What’s so fascinating about this is that (and I say that as an outsider, so what do I know, anyways? – ha!) for a country which calls itself a melting pot of cultures there isn’t to much melting going on.. Even if mixed familys have become a more common site today the fact that you’re still ticking boxes gives the”race” you belong to a weird significance that rathe divides then it, well melts a society together.
Dear Sarah
As an outsider, you can see how odd it is for this “melting pot” to be obsessed with race. The one thing that I did not include in my post above, is I believe that the motivation for dividing the races is political. I believe the idea is to pit groups against one another for political gain. “I’ll do this for YOUR group” when the law should be color blind
Such an interesting topic! I’m white but my husband is Hispanic. (And I took his last name, which confuses people sometimes since I’m clearly not Hispanic.) Our daughter is 2.5 so she hasn’t had to think about it yet…but I admit to having joked that her being both female and half Hispanic, she’ll be eligible for a lot of scholarships when she gets ready for college. ;)
Slightly off-topic but still related are the assumptions made about my husband’s ability to speak Spanish. Despite their ethnicity, his parents and grandparents were all born in the US. He knows a little Spanish but is far from fluent, yet we regularly get unsolicited mail and magazines in Spanish based solely on assumptions based on his name (and possibly our location — Texas).
This is fascinating. I am white + white with red hair. My husband is from India so our biological daughter is half white and half Indian. She is beautiful with dark hair and eyes and complexion – and often mistaken for Hispanic, Latino or South American. When she is with me strangers assume she is adopted because she looks nothing like me. We also have 3 adopted biracial (black + white) children. One looks just like my bio daughter and 2 have light skin and blue eyes. We are a very interesting mix and I love it.
So interesting that this race conversations has yielded a lot of color conversations (skin and eye color descriptions). In so many many racial conversations the “whiteness/lightness” angle still brings up issues of privilege. Even amongst POCs there is still a definite hierarchy based on skin color, and racism is alive and well.
My son is Mexuvian (Mexican and Peruvian) American. We try to constantly reinforce his Latino identity and work (it is work even though we live in CA) to be fully blinglual because we feel it roots him in so many ways.
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When I got married in Russia I had to give my citizenship as well as my nationality. They accepted US for the former but not for the latter. “Caucasian” wouldn’t work as I wasn’t from the area between the Black and Caspian Sea, which is what the term means in Russia. I couldn’t get married without claiming a nationality so finally went with Scottish, as my last name is Henderson.
It is an interesting question.
Some forms that I’ve filled out don’t have boxes at all, just a line where you write down your cultural background. That seems more realistic than trying to cover every possibility with boxes to check, but may not work for gathering information from a very large group.
Having moved from the US to the UK it’s interesting to my kids (when doing school or medical surveys) that the options are so different from what they saw previously in Texas. I copied this from the UK .gov site:
White
English/Welsh/Scottish/Northern Irish/British
Irish
Gypsy or Irish Traveller
Any other White background, please describe
Mixed/Multiple ethnic groups
White and Black Caribbean
White and Black African
White and Asian
Any other Mixed/Multiple ethnic background, please describe
Asian/Asian British
Indian
Pakistani
Bangladeshi
Chinese
Any other Asian background, please describe
Black/ African/Caribbean/Black British
African
Caribbean
Any other Black/African/Caribbean background, please describe
Other ethnic group
Arab
Any other ethnic group, please describe