Ethnic identity for a mixed-race daughter?

Question

My daughter is 8 months old, and she comes from a mixed family. I am caucasian and native american. Her biological father is Asian Indian. My fiancee (who has been with me since I was pregnant, and is basically her father) is a Zulu from South Africa.

To me, she's just my little Peanut ... she's light enough that she seems "white" with me, but dark enough that she seems "mixed" with my fiancee.

I could care a less how she's classified, but every time I fill out a form, they ask for her "race." Also, as she gets older, I know people will try to place her in their own categories.

How do I instill a sense of pride and self-identity in her, and at the same time maker her comfortable in a world that insists on placing people in categories?

Answer 1

Study all the different cultures in her life with her. She should be proud, she represents something beautiful, peace between races, love between the people on earth. Just make sure you darling girl knows that she is beautiful and truly unique, that you honestly is a symbol of what we should all be aiming for and that others who reprimand her for it are just jealous and bedazzled by her grace and her charm. Good luck to both of you!

Answer 2

so if you could care less, fill in other like me, I am a mix a German and Japanese and English and Irish and I love it. I am proud of all my races.I don't want to be call just "white" I am not! I know about my history, I know how to cook different foods, I know most of family history. I am a mix race and proud! You can instill pride in her, teach all about the native American, the Caucasian, the Asian Indian, the Zulu race. She will choose which race she wants to be called or labeled in the end anyway. So as a parent your job is to love her no matter what, teach her right from wrong and really race is just a label. First we are children with open minds just human not labels.

Answer 3

You tell her she's mixed, and if anyone tries to tell her otherwise she needs to correct them.

My kids have a blend of nationalities (not races), and then I have an adopted son who has his own. I told all my kids that America is an melting pot, and they are perfectly American by virtue of the many nationalities associated with their ancestry.

I always told them they are precisely what America is all about, and that they are Americans.

Your daughter needs to know that "mixed" is a perfectly "legitimate" thing to be, and if she is asked what her race is she should say "mixed". (If she's filling out a form that offers no space for "mixed" then she will need to either check her two genetic races or else write in the word, "mixed".)

A whole lot of children (particularly American children) have a whole bunch of different nationalities in their ancestry. Your daughter does too. It shouldn't make a difference that some of those nationalities are of a different color.

Because you are apparently not married to your fiance his nationality/race shouldn't be factored in, whether or not he is - for now - acting like a step-father. If you get married to this person you can then talk about her step-father's ancestry if you want, but it should be made clear to her that her eye color, skin color, etc. comes from you and her biological father because those are the facts; and she needs to understand the facts.

Answer 4

I'm an American from Puerto Rico of Spaniard and Italian Heritage,and if that's not enough my name is German..So,every time I meet someone I have to explain this over and over,In P.R we have different ethnic groups and for the most part nobody really care about what race you are or nationality.To answer your question:Do what I do,when I fill out a form I always put other as race...I'm very proud of my Heritage that I don't feel like I need to choose any category...To me there's only one race..The human race.When your daughter is old enough then she can choose how she'll clasified herself..

Answer 5

Canadian. Uhhh....Americans are not the ones who classify people by races. Canadians do it. We are not South Africans about it, but it is always that you are 'this ancestry' or 'that ancestry' and not Canadian. Now I have nothing against immigration, bilingual education or multiculturalism, but if people are not American or Canadian first, then what are they? E.g. national surveys that ask "Are you Canadian or of this ancestry?"
The two are mutually exclusive? You can't be Canadian and be of a different ancestry (as in nonwhite?). This is also a form of racism.

It is the problem with the French. They are always separate, never learn English, want special status and then want to separate. As aCanadian, I am sick of it. We may have an election and my choice is a French Canadian liberal (again), a Bush fan who imposes his conservative values on the country and leaves out certain parts of the country, and socialists in love with their unions and their hammer and sickles, making cases for the rights of crack addicts. We should really just try supporting our country more.

Answer 6

Filling out on "race" section is always optional, you don't have to answer this and other questions "the form should say so". As far as "placing her in the categories", who cares if others try to do that. She is an American. I have a 19 year old daughter, who is mixed. She is well adjusted and we all consider her as an American, in fact those things doesn't even come up in our everyday life. She attends university, very busy, and happy. It is parents' fault, when they start to instill in their children how different they are from others, and that they have different cultures, etc. To me, that's where racism starts.

Answer 7

My kids are too mixed, white and hispanic. They struggle with classifying themselves with all the papers they fill out in school. I don't know why forms ask that anymore!!! I just tell them to mark 'other' or change it up, what ever they feel! They are high school age, though. I don't know what to tell you, other than they are inspired by their parents. I never even discussed race. They learned about it in school. (the right way as far as their school goes) He came home (he gets very dark after the summer) and asked me "Mommy, how come you never told me I'm black?" I started cracking up. Guess he was so dark, the kids thought he was black. I tried to explain to him the best I could about 'colors' but I have to say, my kids are as color blind as they could be. I think that's what an American is, a great big hodge podge of colors and people! No one color is more American than others! Kids really clue in to what their parents say, though, I know that. Hope it all works out, glad you are enjoying your baby!!

Answer 8

My roommate is mixed, she's half caucasian, half taiwanese. She always tells me what it was like growing up...She was embarrased of her asian side and tried to pretend she was only white. Now, though, she wishes she knew more about being asian because that is what she is too, whether good or bad. She wishes her parents had brought her up teaching her equally about BOTH cultures and instilling pride equally about BOTH in her mind. Maybe you should acknowledge that she is neither one nor the other, but wholly both. I bet she would appreciate being mixed by the time she grew up a lil.

Answer 9

Hate to have to be the lone dissenting voice again, but like that's anything new.

I really like all the "peace, love, and brotherhood to all" mentality that the rest of these folks profess to having. Problem is, it doesn't fly in the real world.

A child's race/heritage/culture is the most fundamental of all necessary things. It's the single societal grouping that we can all belong to even when the other sub-groupings in our lives are letting us down. Without that one most basic thing in their lives, there is no basis to build anything else on. If that single most important base is weak, the society, or in this case the child, inevitably fails.

Remember the example of the American Indians? Take away a person's heritage and you destroy thousands of years of societal identity.

Most sociologists today agree that it's the lack of heritage and broken traditions that are the root cause of most of society's problems today.

Your child is going to learn his traditions, heritage, and culture from you. What he learns from you, he's going to pass on to his children some day. If you choose to teach him nothing, he will pass that on to his children, too.

Answer 10

The current generation is the one that's started to write in their races. Previously, most people have bubbled their minority, like a white/hispanic would bubble hispanic, but the times are changing!

I'd be sure she gets introduced to all the different backgrounds. Do their holidays, eat their classic meals, stuff like that. As japanese raised in a 95% white elemetary school, I think of myself as white most of the time, but my parents got me all the things behind it. We did boys day, we used japanese (and more often hawaiian) words. My mom cooked the recipies she learned from hers, so my tastes devloped with that diversity.

It's not often I stop to think about it, but I'm glad I've got a culture I can claim, one that I know. So often, I feel that's taken for granted, so give her all of hers! Raise her as a person with strong character and self esteem, so she can be her own independent person.