Racial
identity has always played a significant role in determining how a person is
treated. Along mankind’s timeline, there has slowly been a trend to accept
colors of all kinds only in the recent century or so. By no means is this acceptance
or assimilation universal; people today can still be heard using racial slurs.
What happens though in a world where people of multiracial backgrounds slowly
become more prevalent than those who claim only one race? Will there be an
enlightenment of sorts where people no longer make judgments based on skin
tone? Unfortunately our generations will
likely not know this answer, but it is a good idea to look at our surroundings
now and notice the increasing trend of people who wish to be identified as
mixed race.
As a
person who was born to a Mexican father and Irish German mother, I have found
that I am often forced to “pick a race.” From tests to school applications, I
have had to mark either Hispanic or White. This has honestly always confused me.
I was surrounded in a “white” culture at school, so from day one I formed a
white identity. However, as I began to grow older my features and skin tone
began to paint the opposite picture of how I perceived myself. An astonishing number
of people, including President Barack Obama, have begun to embrace their mixed
background. Although some might claim that bringing attention to people of
multiple races hurts civil rights, they fail to look at what struggles these
types of people may face, including choice of identification.
An
interesting study of a mixed population in South Africa describes how even
though there is a large mixed population, there can still be problems avoiding
the notion of white dominance. If those who can vote still only vote for people
of white ancestry, it’s hard to see any real advantage of stemming from two
different races. In an article by Tanya
Golash-Boza called Dropping the Hyphen?
Becoming Latino(a)-American through
Racialized Assimilation there is this notion that a person is never just an
American unless they are white. What happens to a country’s attempt at
unification when the people can’t even all agree on what to call themselves. Although
assimilation, the process of becoming equated with a preexisting way of life,
has three supposed degrees of variance (including straight-line, segmented, and
racialized), there seems to be no way to escape a label of some kind. A mixed
person ultimately has to define themselves and this is counter intuitive as
they have the privilege of two (or more) very distinct worlds.
Treating ones varied cultural backgrounds with respect and the attention each deserves is quite possibly a solution to reservations one might have when claiming identity. As I mentioned earlier, there is a slow but building group of leaders and popular people who have mixed race. This is a sigh of relief for others who struggle or who feel confused when explaining that mom is white and dad is brown. Of course the idea of mixed race is nothing new and neither is the idea of segregated groups of color. What is changing, and for the good I believe, is the study of the mixed children. There is recognition now that people of different colors do have an effect on the arts, in literature, and in theatre. Mixed kids are slowly understanding that they can have pride and be accepted.
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