Passage of the week: 'Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above'

Photo from Today @ Colorado State website.

Susan Saulny recently wrote an article for The New York Times entitled "Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above" about the demographic shift in the United States due to immigration and intermarriage, which really interested me since I myself am of Jamaica, German, and Italian descent.

Saulny opened her article with coverage of how students from the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association at the University of Maryland played a game of "What Are You?" in which they picked apart their peers' every feature in an effort to guess their race, and then Saulny went on to address the significant changes and impacts that people of mixed races are having on our nation's demographics, culture, and society.

Among the interesting facts and statistics Saulny presented in her article include the fact that "the crop of students moving through college right now includes the largest group of mixed-race people ever to come of age in the United States[,] one in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities, according to data from 2008 and 2009, [...] multiracial and multiethnic Americans (usually grouped together as "mixed race") are one of the country's fastest-growing demographic groups [and that] experts expect the racial results of the 2010 census, which will start to be released next month, to show the trend continuing or accelerating."

However, the thing I found most interesting that Saulny pointed out in her article was how "many young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity." For example, when individuals are asked to mark their race on forms such as the census, many mixed race Americans like Michelle López-Mullins, say that "it depends on the day, and it depends on the options" (Saulny). Saulny points out that this is just one way in which they are "using the strength in their growing numbers to affirm roots that were once portrayed as tragic or pitiable," and I can definitely understand and relate to this.

On forms where I am asked to mark my race, I always check off two boxes (even if the instructions clearly say to only mark one option) with "Black," "African-American," or "West Indian/Virgin Isander" and "white" or "Caucasian." The option of "other" is almost always available for me to check off, and many people say I should just mark that off as my race, but I do not see why I should have to resort to classifying myself as an "other" when my races are all clearly listed on a form.

Laura Wood, 19-year-old vice president of the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association made a very valid point when she said, "I think it's really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that. If someone tries to call me black I say, 'yes — and white.' People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can't."

In other words, individuals of mixed race are "asserting their freedom to identify as they choose" (Saulny), and as Wood further explains, "society is trying to tear you apart and make you pick a side," and I do not believe that is fair, reasonable, or respectful to those of us who are not simply one race but are composed of two or more ethnicities and are, as I see it at least, walking examples of one of the American dreams.

 Works Cited

Saulny, Susan. "Race Remixed: Black? White? Asian? More Young Americans Choose All of the Above." The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 29 Jan. 2011. Web. 4 April 2011.