My face blazed red with embarrassment as I stared dumbly at the receptionist. I was one week post-partum, in the throes of new motherhood and surgery recovery and no sleep. And these are the things I blamed my blank mind on. The receptionist repeated herself.
“Ma’am? What race is your baby?”
“Oh,” I chuckled awkwardly, buying time. “Sorry about that, I spaced out. We’re not sleeping, you know.” The words spilled out of my mouth as I tried to think of an answer.
The receptionist gave me a sympathetic smile and waited. The sympathetic smile started to be tinged with judgment as I stammered, “I, I’m not sure, what are the options?”
“Um, whatever your baby is? It’s a simple question…”
“Oh, haha, um well…”
We settled on “other.”
Thus settling on sitting my child with otherness. A lack of a specific box that can be easily checked. Friends, clinically, I know what race my baby is. I can rattle of percentages, but when it comes to standardized forms, even that gets complicated.
- He is 1/4 Pakistani (which isn’t a box, and people argue whether that is “Asian,” “Middle Eastern” or “Caucasian” – which, side note, I’ve been told by my woke friends that Caucasian is no longer an appropriate term; however, it’s still on the forms so I am going to hope that no one gets offended here!).
- He is 1/8 Puerto Rican – but you have to either be Hispanic or Not Hispanic on most forms. You can’t be sort of Hispanic, in America.
- He is 5/8 white. He gets 4 of those 5 from his Daddy, and 1 of those 5 from me.
Look, these are questions I struggled with my entire life, too. What do I check? Which box? Who am I? For me, it was easier. Dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin that tans instead of burns. If I had to pick something, I’d pick multiracial or other, and I was cool with that. If it weren’t an option, I’d pick whichever box best fit Pakistani, because I never felt enough Hispanic to mark the all-or-nothing Hispanic boxes, and I was more Pakistani than Puerto Rican or white. I always felt that multiracial was a good pick for me. That’s what I identify as.
But what about my son? He is 5/8 white, and he looks it. He has light hair, blue eyes, fair skin. And yet, for example, his eye shape is just a little more almond than his white peers. His skin is just a touch more olive and holds out longer in the sun without sunscreen. A host of tiny differences, features that his Mama, who has memorized his sweet little self, would notice. Visually, to the rest of the world, he will still be automatically granted the privilege that comes with being a white man, and I want to be intentional about teaching him to use that for good and not for evil, to be cognizant of his privilege – but that’s a post for an entirely different day.
However, to just mark the box white, I feel, erases my entire sense of self. It erases the heritage he gets from my family. It erases the food and culture and ancestry and struggles that our families up the tree faced. My son loves Biryani and chicken curry and mangoes. He dances to Bollywood music at my Dad’s house. He gobbles up rice and tortillas that my mom makes. He’s learning Spanish in daycare and adores telling me that green is verde.
The receptionist at the doctor’s office doesn’t want to know any of this. She doesn’t want to know what it feels like to not have a distinct racial identity. She doesn’t want to know that my hesitation comes from an honest place of not knowing the right answer. She rolls her eyes when my husband walks up to see what the fuss is about and says, without thinking, “Why didn’t you just put white?” as he holds up our fair-skinned squirmy worm. Of course, he said that, and I see the confusion as I look at him with tear-filled eyes. It will take a long conversation to help my own spouse understand. How can I expect a doctor’s office receptionist to get it?
I’ve taken the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GMAT, and passed the Missouri bar. Yet, here it is. The most difficult question I’ve ever been asked, “What race is your son?” And I can blame that day at the doctor’s office on mom-brain and sleep deprivation all I want. But the truth is, my son is almost 3 years old and I still don’t know the answer. I don’t know if it’s more right to just mark white, so that my primarily white son won’t accidentally infringe on opportunities meant for people who face racial prejudice on the daily. Or is it more right to mark other/multiracial (when it’s an option) because he does have a beautiful, diverse racial profile and my half matters? Or do I analyze every form and toggle between the two everytime, trying to understand the purpose of the questionnaire?
I simply don’t know the answer, and I don’t think there is a test-scorer who can tell me if I did it right or not.
I recently read 12 years a slave with my book club. We later read a book about the history of the French quarter of New Orleans where they had specific “establishments” for “quadroons” or “octoroons.” Historically even one eighth was not enough to call someone white.
There are plenty of places to explore your rich heritage, think cultural festivals and society groups. Ancestry.com is a great place to start recording family information while it is still fresh.
For paperwork, you can probably just mark white if that matches his appearance.
Omg! This resonates with me so much. Thank you for writing it so beautifully. My son is half caucasian and half african(I’m from Uganda, Africa)… I always select other, and put bi-racial or multi-racial. Because I dont consider myself “African-American” yet thats what we are labeled as.
I always refused to check a box on any of those forms. They angered me. Who was I to assign a racial identity to my children born of parents of different races. And in those days the options were Black, White, Asian, indigenous/Pacific Islander. I had been forced to pick one on a door to door US housing census forum when my firstborn was 3 months old. I was told I would be liable for a $500 fine and or imprisonment if I destroyed the form. That the canvasser could change the answer if I did not choose an appropriate answer. She explained that the child’s race is generally assumed to agree with the race of the mother. I quickly thought “that means in a patriarchal society that a biracial child is illegitimate.” I chose dad’s race at that point.
After that I never checked a box again!!! I always indicated that my child could choose at age 18!and that no one could choose until then how that child identified racially!
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