Oh, what should I call myself. Oh, what should I call myself.
I have an idea. How about calling yourself an AMERICAN, especially since that is what you are. That is what I put on all forms that I that have an "Other" listed on them, including government and census forms.
It really freaks out these pollsters that call and ask "What nationality are you?" and I say American. Maybe, I should start adding "And proud of it."
Number of mixed race families on the rise
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=3926509Michelle Craig's friends toss out, in alternate turns, that she is "too white" or "too black." As one of America's 7 million multiracial people, the 20-year-old has grown accustomed to hearing, "So, what are you?"
She doesn't mind explaining; she's grown up openly speaking about her black, white and Japanese heritage.
She's gotten used to checking multiple boxes on exams and applications and then having an administrator decide what race she'll be for the day. She's no longer fazed by having to explain that she's not adopted by or married to her white father.
With 41 percent of America's multiracial population younger than 18, how to balance different heritages is becoming a growing focus.
In "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," an Anglo/Puerto Rican teenager struggles with whether she fits into her father's new white family.
Comedian Dave Chappelle, in the first season of his Comedy Central show, launched a discussion of the confusion by having celebrities of ambiguous descent such as Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter and Mariah Carey "drafted" by different racial groups on his comedy series.
The world of mixed-race children is even explored in the Harry Potter books, where "mudblood" is the derogatory term for those who don't come from pureblood magician families.
The trend is especially pronounced in the West. More than 11 percent of Arizona's marriages are mixed, almost twice the national average.
Craig, and her 17-year-old sister, Stephanie, are the result of one of those marriages.
Although they both grew up eating Japanese breakfast with chopsticks or going to origami clubs with their mother, they have been defined differently by the world.
"My younger sister looks like me, but she's the white version _ thinner lips, straight hair, thinner nose," Michelle Craig said.
Friends ask, "Which one of you is adopted?"
She struggles to separate comments like that from how she views herself.
"Over time, society puts you where they want to put you. Over time, the more you hear something, the more you identify with it," she said. "The less you hear that, the more freedom you have to choose."
People put her in a box. "Maybe even on a daily basis," she said. "Like when you get in the car with someone and they put the station on an R and B or hip-hop station."
She admits she identifies more often with black culture but gravitates toward mixed men. "I like somebody that's willing to accept everything they are."
Her mixed heritage allows her to float between cultures. "Depending on how I wear my hair and makeup, people will talk Spanish to me or give me my change in Spanish."
She's rarely encountered overt racism, save for the middle-school girl who called her the N-word and ended up ostracized until she apologized.
It's the more indirect ignorance that bothers her.
For example, she visited North Carolina with a black friend and picked up a slight twang. A white friend asked her, "Have you been around black people?"
Unlike her sister, who looks more Asian and says she's "one way all the time," Michelle said she changes, depending on whom she's with. But she doesn't like the idea of being claimed by a group, like when friends feel like they have the right to comment on whether she's "black enough" or "white enough."
"In general, people would probably prefer if you identify with one thing."
But she can't be that way.
"I don't pick myself apart anymore," she said. "Everything is just blended. You can't really deny one part of yourself."
The most difficult question for Anisa Lee Morado came before she even started the standardized test she took as a fourth-grader last year.
She had to check a box on her ethnicity.
"They asked, 'What are you?' " the 10-year-old said. "I didn't know what to check, so I just checked Asian and Hispanic."
She was still thinking about it when she came home, asking her mother if she did the right thing.
The family blends the two cultures seamlessly, much like Lorraine Lee's childhood home incorporated Chinese figurines with Mexican canary yellow, pink and turquoise walls. Lee, who is Chinese and Mexican and grew up speaking Spanish and English, doesn't think twice about serving stir-fry and calabacitas or Mexican beans and white rice.
Lee, a longtime executive with Chicanos por la Causa, visits the classes of Anisa and Rita, 12, bringing cake on DÃÂa de los Muertos and barbecued pork for the Chinese new year.
Her proudest accomplishment, she jokes, is that both of her children can eat with chopsticks.
She and her husband, Alonzo Morado, aren't as pleased that their daughters don't speak Spanish.
"We always thought they'd be bilingual," Morado said.
But back then, Barney and Sesame Street didn't come in Spanish. Neither did kindergarten.
The assimilation bothers the parents.
"If you're talking about blended in terms of understanding and accepting each other, that's good," Lee said. "But if we're all blending in a melting pot, there's not an acknowledgment that we have ingredients that are rich and important."
Even though she is Chinese and proud of her heritage, it's uncomfortable sometimes even for her. She wouldn't go to Chinese restaurants when she and Morado were dating, afraid someone would speak to her in Chinese and she wouldn't understand.
When she visited Hong Kong, she inadvertently offended her host by asking for white rice _ peasant food in China.
"I remember growing up not feeling fully accepted. I was not 100 percent Mexican, I was not 100 percent Chinese," she said. "But I never felt 'less than.' "
Even though she remembers a group of kindergarten children running around her in a circle, chanting a derogatory nursery rhyme, her daughters' experiences have been less painful.
Once, a boy in Anisa's class called her "Chinese girl." Her older sister took care of it, cornering him and telling him he was being racist. He stopped.
Lee's children, she hopes, are paving the way to acceptance, though she admits there's still work to do.
"I believe they will have great answers to the racial problems we have today."
As children, Collin Bryant, 17, and his sister, Erin Bryant-Pollard, 15, knew they were different.
Collin, their mother Marian Bryant, 50, explained, was milk chocolate. Erin was white chocolate.
Though the two were raised by Erin's father, who is white, Collin's biological dad is black.
This worried his mother. "The one thing I couldn't readily provide was African-American culture," said Bryant, a substitute teacher and budgeting forecaster. Collin has a black godfather who educated him on black history and culture.
He's firm about how he views himself: He is black.
He's even considering going to an all-black college. He's searching for a connection, but he worries about missing diversity.
Articulating why he feels more black is difficult for the high school senior. He just knows it feels more natural.
He's close with his younger sister, a high school sophomore; the two hang at the mall, play basketball, lift weights, watch television.
When the two were younger, their differences weren't so obvious.
"When we were little I was like, 'This is my brother.' No one cared," Erin said. "About fifth grade, it was 'Well, wait . . . How does this work out?' I'd say we have the same mom but different dad."
When they were young, Marian took them to Mass.
"I remember being surprised and sad and hurt when I got so many looks," she said. But now it seems to be a "kinder, gentler, world." Her kids, she said, know better.
They address their differences openly, without awkwardness.
"When we go somewhere and there's more African-Americans, Collin will say 'Hey, what's up?' even if they don't know each other," Erin said. "It seems like they're more friendly _ closer together as a race."
"If she has a question," Collin said, "like we're watching TV, she'll say, 'Why do black people do that?' Or if we're watching videos, she'll be like 'What does that mean?,' " Collin said, flashing a grin at his younger sister.
People have a tough time grasping that they're siblings and not a couple, an idea that clearly cracks them both up.
Collin sometimes feels more seriously about their differences. He doesn't like the way blacks are portrayed in the media, and he sometimes feels "torn" between his heritages.
When he reads about slavery, for example, "I feel bad. Like how could this happen?" he said. But "I don't see any need to get mad at white people. That's part of me. I look at it from two different perspectives."
