Saturday, July 26, 2008

Coping Introspective

Me and my siblings at the Mall

So lets recap the past initial entries:  
1st, we've discussed where my ancestors have come from and how I've come to be born in this present generation.  

2nd, we've illustrated how I've grown up with controversial questions about my origin as well as person hood. 

 And 3rd, we've revisited many of the ideas and assumptions that were either vocalized or reinforced upon me as a young person growing up multi-racial.

At this point I want to connect with you who relate to these kind of experiences.

Have you paused long enough to take a good long look at yourself?  By that I mean forcing yourself to take a long look in the mirror, both outside and inside.

I started doing that years ago, especially during high school at age 16 when I was still trying to decide what I was going to be to everyone.

Standing there I'd ask the questions to myself.  "What am I looking at?" (note I did not ask 'who'  yet, that question would not come until a long time later.)  "I am a person.",  I would reinforce to myself.  I had to.  I had to.  You see, everyone else in my life that was more or less considered one 'race'  didn't seem to have to answer this question for themselves.  But I had to.

Everything that I had seen in my life up until then was illustrated from white people from a white perspective in a white understanding,  or was illustrated from black people from a black perspective in a black understanding...or was illustrated by native peoples from a native perspective with a native understanding...or was - okay, you get it.  

I did not have any of my own perspectives formed yet.  At least not any that were being socially validated by any of the other races.  My superiors - the adults - as well as my peers felt that they could just take the liberty to define myself for me.  To their credit, though, many did ask "What are you?" (I did take that as 'what do you define yourself as?') But imagine (if you were or are not a mixed person) having someone ask you this question:

"What are you?"

I guess one might answer 'American', 'Black', 'Hispanic', 'Asian', 'White', 'Irish', 'Italian' - fill in the blank.  But the question when asked to me at the time - 16 years of age, and being of mixed race heritage, was one too difficult to answer.  

No one had an answer for it.  When I would answer 'mixed', or 'multi-racial', or 'Black, White, and Native American' I would more often than not receive looks and responses of doubt.

Does it seem strange? Why?  Why should someone doubt my own definition of what all of my life I've understood myself to be?  

Maybe I misunderstood them.  Maybe encountering a person like myself was too hard for them to believe possible.  My parents, after all, had gotten married just shy of a decade after it would have been illegal for them to be.

Still, my own mother's family was mixed, African as well as Native American.  Though, it was reinforced to them (by other family as well as their local  African American community) that they were 'Black'.  Not 'part Native American', nor even 'mixed'.  They are Black,  Black,  Black.

Maybe I just didn't have the social sophistication of an adult yet.  I got that feeling from all of my adult relatives that this was the case.  "He's just confused", they would say after I would attempt to explain myself.

Still I would go back and look into that mirror.  Over, and over, and over again, questioning it, challenging it - even confronting it.

But where were the mixed people?  With their mixed perspective?  Understanding the world from their own point of view - which actually does vary from any one of the afore mentioned monoracial point of views.  

In fact, the mixed perspective varies quite dramatically, I would say...

More of that later, how did I cope with this invalidation of who and what I was?

Woah...that's pretty strong language, isn't it?  To accuse any one of  'invalidating' another's very person hood is pretty condemning. 

But let's draw a mixed person illustration here:  Imagine that you are walking down the street to the bus stop.  Once there you find yourself waiting for several minutes for the next bus.   You feel that someone is staring at you and, turning to face her, presume that she has been staring for quite some time.  

"Can I ask you a question?", she speaks up - now realizing that you notice her intrusive behavior, "What are you?"  

'Isn't it obvious?', you think to yourself.  'Can't this person see that I am _______(fill in your ethnicity).'

So, you decide to humor her by giving her an answer:
"Well, I am _______(fill in your ethnicity)."

"Huh. You don't look like it."

Suddenly the bus arrives and the woman gets her things, crowding on with everyone else at the stop.

What just happened?  A random person on the street just invaded your privacy, questioned your very person hood, and invalidated all of your ancestry and racial self in one fell comment.

So what.  What does she know?  How could she possibly know all of your relatives who are of that racial background?  If you could invite that woman to a family reunion, you'd show her - beyond a shadow of a doubt!  Why, just look at your ethnic people in history; hasn't she ever heard of _______(fill in cultural/racial hero), or ________(fill in cultural/racial hero) - or even _________ (fill in yet another cultural/racial hero)!!!

But it doesn't really matter now, she's on the bus, and you're standing there with all of your ancestry insulted.

Alright, now play through the same scenario as a mixed race person.  The crucial difference? There are more often than not no mixed relatives in their racial background.  If she was invited to their family reunion there would be no other mixed race people.  And how many mixed race heros have you ever heard of?!

But it doesn't really matter now, she's on the bus, and the mixed race person is left standing there...invalidated.  

Yet, once again, as a mixed race person, you do not feel like a person.

I've gone through the above illustration many more times than I would like to count.  And, each time, I had to go back to the mirror and re-affirm that I was, indeed, a legitimate person.  Even if no one else had the power, intellect or will to do so for me.

So, to answer the question of coping, is one of the most important disciplines in all of life: Introspection.  It is a starting point - not the end all, mind you, but if you are going to take your mixed race makeup seriously you have to be willing to go into the reality of who and what you are!

Don't be afraid of it.  This is who you are.  You are a person.

2 comments:

blackholeknitter said...

Jason,
Every topic that you have covered, I have mused about but from a cultural point of view. I was born in one country and moved to the States when I was two. My father was (or is) a political exile. I grew up in Texas and graduated from high school there. The year after my graduation, I moved back to my birth country. I recently learned about several concepts that pertain to my situation: adult third culture kid, multicultural kid, cross culture kid and culture broker. Oh, and my favorite hidden immigrant.
The hardest question for me to answer is “where are you from?” I usually respond by giving a brief history of the places I have lived or I just say “I live in (fill in the blank).”
Not a day goes by that I don’t ask myself if I’m American or Chilean. Some days I feel more one than the other. Sometimes I say “we” and sometimes I say “you”, which must be confusing to other people. I speak two languages fluently. So if I speak Spanish, I look Hispanic and if I speak English, I look American. My biculturalism doesn’t show itself and people simply assume that I am exclusively one or the other. Sometimes I shrug it off, but most times it pisses me off.
This condition has shaped my life quite strongly. As I look back, an incident in particular seemed to be the trigger for my way of coping with being a bi cultural person. A couple of months into my freshman year in college, a classmate (who is now a good friend) said that she thought that people who considered themselves hybrids where full of it. Wow, that hit me hard. I never considered myself to be so arrogant, so my reaction was to be more humble, more guarded and to try not to offend anyone. In essence, I invalidated myself. For that reason, I tend to avoid mono-cultural gatherings and haven’t made deep connections with anyone in this country.
In one of your posts you questioned as to whether a mixed race should be considered a different race completely. I vote yes. I find it extremely difficult to relate to others who have only known one culture. I can’t just turn off one of my halves and become mono cultural. That mix creates a whole set of viewpoints and even values that is exclusive to itself and not to one culture in particular. Personally, I think that’s pretty cool and makes us an important part of society and not just the byproduct of immigration, forced or voluntary.
At this moment, I’m going through an introspective process that includes questioning my life choices, including my career. It is quite a burden, but I have come to understand it as a necessary step in being a peace with who or what I am.
I’m glad to have found your blog. I truly believe that the topics that you cover are the essence of a globalized world and, for some reason, they have been passed over. People like you and me are the product of a globalized world before that word became so common. This is why the issues you have touched on are so close to my heart.
I wish you luck in the search for yourself, and I’ll be dropping by frequently to check out your posts.:)

Tikki said...

very nice explanation of why the What Are You question becomes so sensitive. Nice work.