While doing some research online about Wah’s idea of “faking it” and thinking about what it could mean, I came across a Wikipedia page defining the word passing (in terms of racial identity). You can see the Wikipedia article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passing_(racial_identity). Digging deeper, I focused my search on this concept, and came up with a number of interesting articles, ranging from the use of racial passing by mixed-race black people in the U.S. from the late 18^th century to today. I was surprised at first that I had never really heard of the term “passing” used in this way, until I read that “racial passing is one of America’s deeply hidden traditions,” according to a booked review titled “Shade of White” in the New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/27/books/review/Arsenault-t.html?_r=0). Another article describing the research done by a Stanford historian on the racial passing topic began with a story about a man, Dr. Albert Johnston, who grew up in Chicago and attended medical school there, marrying a black woman and then applying to an internship. He hid his black ancestry and told everyone that he and his wife were of white descent in order to be accepted to the internship. This went on for 20 years, and everyone believed it. Then, when he applied for the Navy during World War II, he suddenly decided to reveal the truth and applied with his true racial background—mixed-raced black. He was rejected by the Navy, and the truth spread to his neighbors and job at the hospital, from which he was fired. The article explains that the motivation of the research by the historian, Prof. Allyson Hobbs, was not to study what the person was gaining by pretending to be white, but actually what they were losing by not being black. He admits that when “racial passing” was looked at in the past, it was usually considered “an individualistic and opportunistic practice, a tool for getting ahead.” However, Hobbs believes that there were other people who passed, but felt wrong and like they were betraying their culture for doing it, or as he puts it, they crossed over “with a heavy conscience.” Here is the article: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/december/passing-as-white-121713.html.

I feel that this relates to how Wah felt throughout his life when he struggled with the hyphen between passing as a “white” Canadian and being Chinese. His metaphor with the kitchen door being a symbol of the hyphen, and him always kicking it and abusing it, shows that he struggled with the separation of both racial backgrounds. Also, one could tell that he always felt a little sad or like he was betraying his family and the Chinese culture when he acted “white.” Especially when he was debating whether to go into his friend’s Chinese restaurant (King’s Family Restaurant) because he doesn’t know his place and feels a bit like he doesn’t belong there. Even though he is able to get over this feeling and enter the restaurant, when he leaves he feels once again as if he is betraying something as the white racist feeling comes over him.

Interested in seeing how racial passing plays a role in American culture today, I searched for current articles referencing the term. I came across one on an American news and entertainment website made for the black community called Atlanta BlackStar. The article is titled “10 Black Celebs Who Successfully Pass for White.”( http://atlantablackstar.com/2013/08/13/10-black-actors-who-are-successfully-passing-for-white/).

Wentworth Miller

It is mostly pictures of different biracial celebrities, and the article’s writer “revealing” their heritage as partially black. One of the actresses, Melissa Gorga, told everyone that she had no black in her whatsoever, but the article seems to disagree, as they post a picture of her as a child before she went under cosmetic surgery, where she has the coarse black hair and facial features of a person of black decent. Above the picture the article states, “You be the judge.”

Melissa Gorga today

Melissa Gorga as a child

The article seems as if it is criticizing celebrities who can’t pass for white, and making it seem like by passing, they are doing something good or “successful.” Reading the comments on the page, many of them are heated and angry about the way the post seems to be assuming that these actors had always tried to hide their black side, as if they were not proud of it and didn’t want fans to know. The article treats the situation as a kind of “reveal.” Many commenters disagree, saying that many of the actors listed are not denying their black ancestry and not trying to “pass” per say. One commenter brings up an interesting point about the difference between “passing” and “presenting.” This relates to the research article I discussed earlier, and the idea that many mixed-race black people are not actively trying to pass as black but going along with it because it helps them with their job and acceptance in society. Presenting refers to other people just assuming the person is of a certain race, without the person actually telling them. Passing, on the other hand, refers to actively trying to portray oneself as a different race.

In The Diamond Grill, it seems to me that Wah has a lot of difficulty between whether he should actively try to “pass” as white (or “fake it”) or just go along with whatever people think of him. He obviously has a deep connection to his Chinese heritage, and this shows in the large number of recipes, loving descriptions of the grill and stories of Chinese culture in the book. However, he also describes how when he goes outside to the “white world,” this force of a want to fit back into the majority and keep passing as white takes over him, partially because it just happens and he is able to, and partially because it makes life easier for himself. For example, in the one part of the book when he has gone fishing with an old Chinaman and someone starts singing a rude racial song, Wah says “I try to become as white as I can” (98). But on the other hand, Wah does not always try to be white. Most of the time, people just see him as white because he looks like it from the outside. It seems to me that as Wah grew older, he became more accepting of being Chinese, going from actively passing ( or “faking it”) to passively presenting himself for others to interpret.

After watching Between and reading Diamond Grill, I have been very interested in finding out more about the status of mixed race peoples in North America and their experiences in society both in the past and today. After doing a bit of research on the internet, I came across an interesting article on the National Geographic website called “The Changing Face of America” written by Lise Funderburg with portrait photos taken by Martin Schoeller. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/changing-faces/funderburg-text

The article discusses how the acceptance of interracial marriage and adaptation to the increasing number of mixed race people has changed just over the past 10-14 years. For example, it mentions how it was only in the year 2000 when the U.S. Census Bureau allowed multiracial people to check off more than one race on their form. When they finally allowed this, 6.8 million people utilized this new option. To me, that is a large number of people who were not being catered to, and were initially forced to choose one race over another, making many of them feeling as if they were betraying one part of their identity by having to choose one. It amazes me that this change to forms was made only 14 years ago.

The webpage also provides a link to a photo gallery of portraits taken by Martin Schoeller, which was put together as a representation of the “melting pot” quality of the U.S.

Here is a link to the gallery:

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/10/changing-faces/schoeller-photography

I was intrigued by his photos, and especially his purpose behind his artwork, which he explains as: “I like building catalogs of faces that invite people to compare them. I want to challenge the way we use appearance to shape identity.” As we discussed in class, and also relating back to Diamond Grill, identity is made up of many parts, of which appearance is only one. But, for some reason, people have gotten into the habit of judging other people’s identities by the way they look, or even just by the hue of their skin. An interesting scientific experiment was discussed in this National Geographic article as well. It is called the “eyeball test” and basically showed, using brain reaction testing, that people identify race in around one-tenth of a second. This is even faster than identifying gender.

As mentioned in the article, as well as demonstrated in Between and Diamond Grill, other factors such as politics, religion, history and geography all influence a person’s identity. For example, in Diamond Grill, the politics behind how Chinese would be allowed into Canada and the head tax affected how they identified themselves and how they were treated in society. Your family history also affects your identity, and is closely related to race.

In another National Geographic article (http://proof.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/17/visualizing-change/), a woman by the name of Michele Norris started a project called the Race Card Project, which reminds me very much of the Six Word Memoirs website we looked at last term. For the Race Card Project, people are invited to send in short stories of only 6 words, to express their feelings and experiences with race and cultural identity.  Many of them, although short, pack in a lot of power and emotion.

“I am only Asian when it’s convenient”—Heather Brown, Seattle, Washington

“My mixed background means ‘White Enough’”—Maximilian Willson, Olympia, Washington

These two are interesting in that they show how mixed race people can sometimes have a “choice” at how they want to be identified. They can choose, for example, if they want to emphasize their Asian part when it could benefit them, or choose white in anther situation. These race cards remind me of the situation in Between when Fred Wah is at first put on a 5 year waiting list for Chinese people getting a visa to allow him to work in the U.S. However, when he shows up to the office and they see his face and see he is not fully Chinese, they immediately allow him to obtain a visa. It fascinates me how some rules like that can change, just because someone looks different.

by Chad Oiastad of Madison, Wisconsin: “My grandfather would hate my children.”

This one is very powerful, as it identifies how people’s views of interracial marriage have changed over the past few decades. It also reminded me of the similar situation in Diamond Grill, when Wah talks about how his grandparents did not really accept the interracial marriage between his Swedish mother and Chinese father, but when they saw how Wah looked very “white” they were more accepting of it.

Similar to the effect of Six Word Memories, The Race Card Project has given people who struggle with their race and identity to let go and express themselves and many of them include pictures and artwork in addition to their six words.

This project just shows that with the increase in interracial marriage, there comes a growing acceptance. Hopefully this acceptance will keep growing and becomes at least “less prickly than it’s been in the past.”