Caryn has pure Chinese blood and I have pure German/Irish/Russian/Golden Retriever blood (actually, I'm pretty much everything EXCEPT Chinese). Fee will have 3 sets of Grandparents, 2 of which are mixed race. (3 for 3 if you count the fact that my dad is an engineer and my mom is not :) I don't necessarily care what race he thinks he is but I do wonder if he will.
Being a white male, I'll admit race is not something that's gotten thrown in my face. However, Caryn has some examples. One of my favorites being the all too frequently asked question from a guy, usually in a bar-type situation: "What type of Asian are you?" A close second is "Where are you from?" To someone like me, the question means where do you live. To Caryn, it's the "polite" way of asking "What type of Asian are you?" Her response to the question is always "I'm from New York, why?" Most of the time, people don't realize how dumb their question was until this point. The sight of them explaining that they didn't mean where Caryn grew up, they meant "What type of Asian are you" usually makes them realize how stupid their question was in the first place.
Here's my point. My son will have predominantly Chinese features. However, there will be part of me in those features (assuming I'm the dad...hehe). I'm anticipating the first time someone (probably a young substitute teacher) reads Bronfenbrenner off an attendance sheet and sees a handsome Asian looking boy raising his hand. She'll ask what type of Asian he is, and he can say "Bronfenbrenner is German you twit." Deine Mutter hat einer Schnurrbart!
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Just think of the stereotypes he'll get to deal with: super smart, unbelievable work ethic, makes wooden clocks with a centipede-like dragon that pops out on the hour...
I think he should respond like his mother used to do and say: "I'm Hawaiian." :)
I just want to see him and touch him. Maybe there will be more options to check in the racial section of forms by the time he has to fill them in. Biracial is the best they can do for now. Other is a sad and ambiguous box that should be done away with! I pray he never has to use it.
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