Although 100% Japanese by ethnicity, growing up in three countries had myself challenging various cultural norms from an early age. Gender roles, uses of particular language were some significant issues I struggled to adapt to in various locations.
On the flip side, over the years, I have met and befriended multiple multi-ethnic people in many diversely represented situations like at an international school or at UBC. And almost always, these people describe themselves as, “I’m half Japanese” or “quarter Spanish”. But I never fully understood what it meant to be half “½” or quarter “¼” of a race. In my case, I am 100% Japanese but comparing myself to my friends from Japan, I do not understand enough about their culture to claim myself full “100%”.
As Fred Wah, the author of the fictional biotext, Diamond Grill lists his family members on the basis of how “Chinese” they are by percentages we can see how he values them as “racialized investments” (Page 83, Diamond Grill). Indeed, multiracialism, not just in a particular individual but within a community has come to be heavily valued. But what for?
For instance, when the State of California passed Proposition 209 in November 1996, all state government institutions were now legally disallowed from discriminating on the basis on ethnicity or gender. As a result, the University of California schools have lost a big portion of the minority in their student body since they could not allow for a guaranteed representation of minorities. As I have mentioned, the value placed on multiracialism can be observed here in the fact that university institutions demand for a representation of many ethnicities as possible. But again, how do these universities determine the races of the students? It is by a simple check off of a box by the applicant listing their ethnicity. There are no spaces set aside for any written explanation of their background.
My point is, are we, both monoracial and multiracial human beings, giving too much credibility to the genetics of our ancestors or the proportions of our ethnicities? In other words, what do we expect others to think of us when we list our percentages or tick off our ethnicity in a census or a college application? What does it tell, if anything, about us? Ultimately, I believe we are allowing others to view us a certain way and that is often, simply stereotypes.
Often my friends joke around saying I have become too “Americanized” as I have lived in the U.S for my four years of high school. Putting aside the question of what the exact definition of being “Americanized” is, I see the irony in the fact that I am seen as a product of socialization (like we should) in the American society and concurrently, I am still given a stereotypical label that is an “American”. This act of ignorance or lack of attention to individual human being and the act of settle the issue of sorting one’s race by conveniently checking them off into categories might very well be the fundamental barrier and disparity that is created between races and ethnicities. I believe the fact that we universally classify ourselves on the basis of percentages of culture points to the reality that we are somewhat neglecting to represent our own selves fully.
Hi Makoto, I am glad that we share the same inability to claim ourselves as truly 100% of a particular ethnicity (I being Taiwanese but grew up entirely in Canada with very less cultural understanding). But what does it mean and where does it come from: our parents’ racial background or the place of birth, etc. I think you are absolutely right on about the kinds of stereotypes we’re assigned in a societal perspective and as well as how much of it is a true reflection on our identity. To further add on, I like to suggest that the fact that the world has become so globalized, it is hard to just say that we are socialized through the location we currently or did reside in (Canada, United States, etc.) The reason why I say this is because even though I am proud to be a Canadian citizen, I feel that entertainment wise, America has a fair share of influence on me. That is to say that because of globalization, global influence has just as much as a influence as local does. Thus, the construction of individuals’ identity exceeds across the globe.
Emily, you bring up a point I did not come to think of. The fact that location does not determine our cultural identity anymore. As we have access to online shopping from almost anywhere around the world, we are able to “sample” many different cultures and perhaps that is an area of vulnerability in shaping one’s cultural identity. But how do we make sense of all this? Are we then all classified as one culturally free mingling generation? Again, back to my point in the blog, there is simply no way to correctly label a group of people let alone an racial group. As many people point out to the lack of community this might bring, I believe the ability to see each other as clearly unique from one another breaks barriers and are able to see and make the small connections. In other words, I feel as though this is like managing your social life. You hang out with one group of friends every Saturday and you see your teammates on Sunday. In each case, one can make sense of themselves as part of the group and will conform to the folkways of the group and thus individuals will rely on the “custom cultural dependency” where they are able to express their many faces with different groups of people.