What are the unique challenges of parenting multiracial children?
by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Jason Sperber, originally published at Rice Daddies
I’ve been reading a bunch of posts lately, by hapa parents and/or parents of hapas, about that periennial old miscegenated bugaboo [no, not the stroller, look it up], the “why don’t I/how can they/who’s keeping me from fit(ting) into the group(s) I/they claim as my/their own” question. Twizzle touched on how the media’s “black enough/not black enough” game with Sen. Barack Obama raised the old questions for her and her daughter over on Kimchi Mamas. Carol wrote about yearning for a community of multiracial/interracial AsAm families and why it’s important to her on Bokumbop. Over on her blog, Mama Nabi sought tips about how to teach her mixed daughter about difference after LN started making her first early connections between difference and ideas about “normality.” Michelle Myers wrote a deep post on Anti-Racist Parent about how and why a multiracial child might not even find community in that most basic of places, the family unit. And on connected notes, on Rice Daddies, Monster Daddy wrote about how his daughter’s formulation of Chinese-ness (and its equation with abnormality) is freaking him the fuck out, while Soulsnax, before he even joined us, called out the forces of mental colonization and self-hatred for already messing with his newborn daughter in her first days of life.
Okay, it’s way later than I’ve been staying up lately, so I’m sorta rambling here, but this kinda shit is stuff I’ve been thinking about and grappling with my entire adult life, as someone who calls himself, variously, a student, a teacher, an activist, a scholar, a parent, and, important here, a multiracial Asian American. Before I totally become incoherent, let me do a couple things. First, here’s a link to Prof. Maria Root’s “Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People” (opens PDF file). Yeah, I know the name changed, but that’s what it was called when the joint came out in college, so that’s what it still is to me. I’ve linked to it elsewhere and often, but this thing crystallized so much for me back in those heady identity-formation-filled college days.
Second, check out this essay by African American Salon.com columnist (and mother of two biracial black/white kids) Debra Dickerson [yes, she of the infamous “Barack’s not ‘black’ black b/c he’s not descended from West African enslaved people in North America” argument, which really was more about how some white folks might be giving themselves a guilt-free pass for supporting a “black” candidate without dealing with America’s racial history and present than about labeling or de-labeling Brother Obama, but anyway]: “Don’t be black on my account: A black mother’s gift to her biracial children.” It’s a fascinating look at how a politically and socially conscious and active mom of color from a community with a different history with miscegenation and the inclusion/exclusion of racially mixed people than AsAms is reckoning with these kind of hard questions in her own life and family.
At any rate, I hope this article, and bits and pieces of the blogposts I’ve referenced here, might open up dialogue in the comments here about these issues—about creating, finding, and redefining community for us and for our children, about ideas of inclusion and exclusion, about how our own experiences with all this crap in our own lives affects, consciously and unconsciously, how we might deal with this stuff in teaching our children about it, and about themselves, their families, identities and communities, and what it all means.
Okay, that’s ramble-y enough. Time for bed. Heh.
Jason Sperber is a former stay-at-home-dad of a 2-year-old daughter (“The Pumpkin”) and the husband of a family physician (“la dra.”) living in California’s Central Valley. He is currently a writer/blogger/online community manager. A former high school social studies teacher, he has a background in ethnic studies and education for social justice. He writes the blog daddy in a strange landand coordinates Rice Daddies, the group blog by Asian American dads. He can be reached at daddyinastrangeland@mac.com.
Carmen Van Kerckhove is co-founder and president of 
dawn wrote:
Thanks for these links! I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, too, as I watch how people define Madison. It’s a world I haven’t quite figured out yet and I’ve been writing on it in my (off-line) journal trying to get a handle on it.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 8:37 am ¶
atlasien wrote:
I think every major racial category in the US has a somewhat different way of looking at multiracial issues.
For example, African-Americans have a long tradition of inclusiveness, but not so much a tradition of dual multiracial/black identity.
Mixed asians are figuring it out along the way, because we’re usually kind of isolated from each other.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 12:31 pm ¶
Kim wrote:
Nicely put, atlasien.
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 1:36 pm ¶
Kim wrote:
Woah! Sperber, do that again for me. Do that AGAIN! Monthly updates, commentaries and links about what is going on, man.
As for Dickerson/sickerson…I don’t know. I can’t think she’s being genuine, or even believable, in her piece.
Anyhoo…so cool.
Meera…where are you?
Posted 19 Mar 2007 at 1:41 pm ¶
Gunfighter wrote:
I think that Dickerson misses the boat here.
Being black isn’t about ebonics, or soul food, or gospel music.
Being black, simply, is being black… much like being white or latino or asian.
We all come to the table differently… but less differently with every generation.
When I was a kid (I’m 43 now) I lived in the black working class part of town, which was near the white working class part of town. The middle class black people lived in their part of twon which was next to where the middle class white people lived. Everyone got along, but there was nearly no socializing after school.
Fast forward to today, in my middle class neighborhood, many of my neighbors are black. Many are white. Some are latino, some are from south asia. Many of our kids are ethnically mixed. All of them get along. None of them seem to be having identity problems.
I think, that very often, the unique challenges of raising multiracial or biracial children are mostly in the minds of their parents.
Posted 20 Mar 2007 at 7:22 pm ¶
Kim wrote:
“Many of our kids are ethnically mixed.
I think, that very often, the unique challenges of raising multiracial or biracial children are mostly in the minds of their parents.”
Honey, thems is fightin’ words.
When you move out of an area where ‘many’ of the kids are ethnically mixed, and find your children struggling with others’ struggles to place them, squarely, in a shaded box, then talk to me about the delusional state of the parents.
You were on point with the ‘less differently with every generation,’ statement, for the sheer recognition of class similarity and coalition building when it comes down to threats against the finances, tax bases, or educational opportunities (presently or the projected college costs) that middle class whites, blacks and middle-class-everyone else will speak to, and act upon.
The very same stresses that are exerted upon the poor and working classes today as were exerted for decades before today, still work to stir the foment of the underlying, sometimes unbridged and unacknowledged, fault lines of this class of people: racial unrest, or perceived favoritism or lack of protections that are the angst of one group will find the two (or more) pitted against each other.
And yes, there will be play. Even in the divided grasslands and railway sides of the South there was intent and actual play by the kids across color and class lines, until…
THE PARENTS INTERCEDED.
It is the same today as it was then, it will the overbearing and fear-ridden parent that instills these children (at right about puberty) with ideas of inherent differences, transmitting a bias in attitude and more that may find you coming back to ARP to consult.
Lovingly,
Kim
Posted 20 Mar 2007 at 8:58 pm ¶
Lyonside wrote:
>All of them get along. None of them seem to be having identity problems.
Gunfighter: You’re right in that people are not confused just by being multiethnic; it is an EXTERNAL issue, not INTERNAL. And you’re fortunate to live in a diverse area.
However - that doesn’t mean that it’s all in our heads, for God’s sake.
Let’s see:
1. My newborn daughter has already been mis-identified on hospital forms (I corrected it).
2. Recently I’ve missed out on making over $200 on marketing surveys because when I answered “Other - Multiracial” to the surveyor, I was told that I didn’t meet the demographic they were looking for. The sympathetic surveyor asked my background, and encouraged me to choose “black,” since, “Society would generally consider you black.” At which point, I told her that NO, I identified as biracial, and that I get mistaken for Latina more than anything, and that society doesn’t generally consider me black at first glance.
3. What about comments we routinely share around here, either from biological parents of multiethnic children, or TRA families of visibly different ethnicities, comments fr from total strangers and family members alike? The reported comments and incidents are similar enough that every time one of us comes up with one, there’s a chorus of “Oh, me too!” Why are all the “She’s my mommy, not the nanny” shirts sold out?
Thse 3 examples: all in my head, eh? I wish.
Oh, man, how I wish.
Posted 21 Mar 2007 at 12:18 pm ¶
Gunfighter wrote:
Kim and Lyonside,
I come in peace, ladies. I certainly didn’t mean to imply that it was ALL in our heads… I simply meant that a LOT of it is on our heads.
The trick is to peel the onion and figure out which is which.
Cheers,
GF
Posted 24 Mar 2007 at 2:49 pm ¶