Racial Identity in Balance |
The Chronicle of Higher Education
2004-01-07
Naomi J. Miller, Professor of English and the Study of Women and Gender; Director of Institutional Diversity and Assistant to the President
Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts
I consider myself multiracial. Technically, I am half Japanese, a quarter Czech, and a quarter English-Dutch. By definition, then, I am an “other” in American society. Or at least I am according to conventional definitions of race and ethnicity, which require people to check the box marked “other” when they don’t fit into one of the pre-established categories.
And yet, every day those of us who are multiracial live “outside the box,” as tired as that phrase may be. We are not “other” to ourselves. And we need not allow ourselves to be defined in contrast to, or in opposition to, an assumed standard of racial singularity. But we do need to educate those around us about the reality of feeling boxed in by definitions of racial identity that confront not only multiracial individuals, but every individual who checks a box whose category is not an adequate definition of his or her identity…
…I’m writing from where I live, as a multiracial parent in a “mixed-race marriage,” that has produced mega-multi-racial children. To me, these issues are not abstractions for a campus diversity report: they are, fundamentally, my responsibility and my life.
My husband is half black, half German-Jewish, and so my four children are a veritable rainbow coalition among themselves. Interestingly enough, partly because we live in Arizona, some of the racial/ethnic identities that are not included in their background (such as Hispanic and Native American) are ones that are associated with their multiracial appearance…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: Naomi J. Miller, The Chronicle of Higher Education