How would those who ask such a question handle a visit to Hawaii or California, where it is not unusual to encounter multiracial people and people whose race/ethnicity is not immediately obvious?
While I know what happens when I assume, I’d hope that such people would have more of a filter when they are outside of their own environment.
Hawaii has the added complexity that the racial issues is also affected by how Hawaii became part of the US in the first place along with decades of marginalization of Native-Hawaiians and non-Whites as illustrated by things such as the decades-long neglect of public K-12 schools which is one key factor in why the state has one of the highest rates of private K-12 school attendance in the country(~20% of all K-12 students).
- Effective military coup against the sovereign Hawaiian government by wealthy White US businessmen such as Sanford B. Dole with the backing of armed US Navy personnel after Queen Liliuokalani became "too independent" by attempting to promulgate a new constitution to replace the hated "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887 which White US business elites in Hawaii like Sanford B. Dole forced upon the previous monarch with armed force to facilitate their dominance of Hawaiian government as it allowed White US/European resident aliens the vote while simultaneously depriving native Hawaiians who didn't meet financial and literacy requirements and specifically excluded Asian-Hawaiian citizens of the franchise.
busdriver11: “So if someone is multiracial do they choose whatever race they want to identify with and say they are A,B or C? Why not just say you’re multiracial instead of cherry picking one choice? It would be more honest.”
I don’t see how it’s any less honest than my cherry picking where my family is from when people ask about my heritage. We’re from so many European countries that you don’t have enough minutes in your day for me to list them all. People should be who they want to be.
As a straight white male people make statements to me that is a clear indication that sexism, racism and homophobia is still strong and a problem.
My response copied from my mom is 'I don’t think like you do"
@busdriver11
I am half Mexican half white. If you saw me on the street you’d likely assume I’m full Hispanic. As a child I had people tell me I must be adopted when they saw me with my blue eyed mother. The point is many of us don’t get to "choose.
I’ve been called wetback, I’ve had white extended family members make horrible comments about Latinx. On the flip side I’m always hearing how sad it is that I don’t speak Spanish.
Being of mixed heritage is complicated.
The subject of the OP could “pass” as white, but if caught doing so just a generation ago, would have been violating the law in using a whites only water fountain, school, marrying a white person, etc.
Actually up until the 1980s, in some ways.
http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/12/one-drop-rule-persists/
^more about the lawsuit here
I guess it’s easy for people to categorize races, to blame something on “them”- whoever “them” is. And there are some stereotypes which derive from typical cultural norms, and which are not negative in an of themselves, but end up being used to talk about a race and cause it to feel negative.
Growing up in SoCal, we were raised pretty color-blind, I don’t think I was really aware, consciously, at the time, how diverse my HS was, because I did not think about it. My HS job had people whose families were recently of so many different countries, besides Mexico & Central America & the Philippines, there were also the assorted Southeast Asians- Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, plus Chinese/Japanese, etc. Then there were eastern Europeans, Romania, etc. I don’t recall prejudice at the time, but it may have been happening with older people. My brother’s wife is Asian and the kids half, one looks Asian, one looks like Mariah Carey, maybe Hispanic would be the guess. One of my kids is always assumed to be Hispanic, except in the UK she is presumed to be East Indian. She has been recruited by campus Hispanic organizations, so I guess she experiences the treatment of a minority.
Really, when you think about it, racism is a stupid construct to empower one person or one group over another. And when you think back over history, people are just power mad, not everyone, but when there is a vacuum, it gets filled with a power monger, from a dictator to the inquisition to a middle school mean girl, there is a need for power by some people. It’s pretty lousy.
Re: #46 and #47
Seems like it was about what her birth certificate said about her race, which she discovered when applying for a US passport, not what the US passport said, since US passports did not mention anything about one’s race (images of various 1980s US passports can be found on a web search).
I grew up in SoCal and have raised my kids here. My kids are biracial, white from my husband’s side, Asian from my side. It’s hard to visually tell what they are racially until they are spotted with me and their dad lol. Most of their friends in high school are non white, with a good amount of them being biracial (Black and white, Black and Mexican or Black and Asian). In my observation, the biracial kids that I know tend to associate more with the race of the mother’s side (including my own) being that we influence the household the most. I have parents who have immigrated here and are my kids’ only living grandparents. They have very thick accents despite living here for over 50 years. But I do agree with the statements that being biracial/multiracial is complicated and difficult when trying to fit in socially. Like another poster mentioned, sometimes biracial kids are made fun of because they’re not “____” enough.
IMO, I think the geographic area I live in (and CA in general) is pretty diverse racially and therefore more accepting of biracial people and couples compared to most parts of the country.
@OhioMom2 I bet if any of the posters on this thread that say they’re white were to take a 23andme test they would find they probably have black ancestry
My son took this test and it traced black ancestry back to my white husband’s side.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-most-diverse-cities-are-often-the-most-segregated/ indicates that some diverse places are still highly segregated at the neighborhood level. Los Angeles is not great by California standards in the table at the bottom of the article, but some other cities like Chicago, Atlanta, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Washington, and Baltimore are significantly more segregated.
I can’t stand it when people put me in the position of “tacit agreement” to their bigoted remarks unless I “take them on” about it. This is especially difficult in light social situations, and even more so with much older relatives. This last election seemed to bring out a lot of that stuff.
I happen to be biracial myself, half African-American and half Caucasian. Most people have passed me off as African-American due to my appearance (although some can tell I’m multicultural), butI have never met anyone that has been able to identify my actual heritage breakdown. I look absolutely nothing like either of my parents whatsoever either, so regardless of which parent I happen to be with, many assume that I’m adopted unless my parents are together with me.
Additionally, while I never have faced any blatant racism or discrimination directed at myself, most people raise their eyebrows, including my parents in some instances, at the idea that I would rather be considered “multicultural” than African-American.
In the end, my greatest advice to those who are also biracial is to be fully accepting of who you are. Don’t let your race be the quality or characteristic that defines you in the eyes of anyone
https://www.splcenter.org/20150126/spek-responding-everyday-bigotry
Here is some help from the Southern Poverty law Center for those who see responding to a racist comment by another as an opportunity. We can all take small steps to help make things better.
@ucbalumnus I’m not surprised that ethnic groups tend to gravitate toward each other. My point I was trying to make is that CA in general doesn’t have the social acceptance ‘problem’ of biracial couples and their children as other parts of the country because of our ethnic diversity.
I don’t know where you live or grew up, but I grew up in San Diego where like Los Angeles (and Chicago and NYC) you have pockets of ethnic neighborhoods: Mexican/Chicano areas (South San Diego, Chula Vista and Barrio Logan), Black areas East San Diego), Vietnamese (Kearney Mesa), Filipino (Mira Mesa, National City), Arab/Middle Eastern (El Cajon/East County), White/Caucasian (Rich–>La Jolla or Rancho Santa Fe; UMC–>Point Loma, Del Mar, Encinitas or Carlsbad; MC–>La Mesa, Scripps Ranch, Poway)… you get the idea. Even though this is true, this is self segregation as people prefer to live and shop with their people. It’s not like the government is forcing them to rent or buy in these areas. And there is nothing holding any ethnic person back from moving into (or up to) other neighborhoods.
.
However, the size of their own ethnic presence that people prefer can vary. For example, people can vary on what the minimum size of their own ethnic presence is that they desire:
- Does not have to be present.
- Has to be present, but does not have to be large.
- Has to be at least a large minority.
- Has to be a majority.
- Has to be nearly everyone.
It is likely that areas where people (across all ethnic groups) tend more toward higher numbers in the list above tend to have higher levels of segregation. High levels of segregation may be more problematic for multiracial people, if they are seen as the “other” even by those of one of their racial/ethnic backgrounds (as you mentioned in #50).
@ucbalumnus I can see how that could be a problem for someone of mixed race or is in a mixed race marriage. I have friends who are a mixed couple. They lived in one part of town where the neighborhood was not too friendly toward their family. They felt it was because of the mixed marriage factor. They moved to another town where they felt more comfortable and accepted.