Armenian, Greek, What’s in a name?
Chris Terzian,
Gainesville, FL
As an Armenian and Greek individual, my race and heritage are known by the last three letters of my name (ian). It denotes my roots and my origins.
Ambiguous ethnic origin depending on place
Melissa
Bowie, MD
It wasn’t until I moved to the DMV (the Washington DC metro area, for the uninitiated), that I began to chafe under assumed ethnic identities. I have great examples: waiting for the metro and a metro employee sings the “Mexican Hat Dance” behind me; taking my (blonde) kids to the park and having the other moms assume I am the nanny; an Egyptian man talking to me about “people like us.” It really came to the fore for me when I tried to board a specially chartered plane bound for Poland but operated by El-Al, the Israeli airline. I was stopped, over and over again, at each checkpoint just trying to get to the plane. I was questioned; I was sequestered. I was under intense scrutiny. Finally, I simply asked: why me? The young guard looking over my passport said: “You look like you have an ‘ambiguous ethnic origin.'”
White but grew up as minority
Vicki Hohner,
Olympia, WA
While I am a white midwesterner by origin, I spent most of my formative years as a minority. First as part of the only white family in several Alaska Native villages, where my parents were elementary school teachers for many years; and in my high school years, as part of a small Texas-Mexico border town which was 3/4 Hispanic. I have been the target of bullying and racial stereotyping, and while I know what I experienced was not as extreme as many people of color experience it did give me some perspective on their lived experiences. In Alaska, even at a young age, I could see how the white Western influence was destroying native communities’ ability to continue to live off the land without providing adequate alternative livelihoods for the “educated”. In Texas, I saw how the white power dynamic enabled the smaller white population to dictate much of the social and economic interactions of the Hispanic residents. When I first moved to my present location I was uncomfortable because I found the town “too white”. When traveling in other countries, I try to fit into the local population and avoid “ugly Americans”, of which I, unfortunately, see many; entitled, demanding, loud, and disrespectful of the people and places they are visiting. I find it interesting as well as infuriating when white people who do not know me well make statements that assume I think like they do, seeing people of color as “the other” or less than/undesirable. My parents felt some guilt about subjecting us to such an unusual childhood, but I am extremely grateful for the perspective it provided, which allows me to relate more often to the challenges and negative experiences of people of color and be more outraged at the disparate treatment of similar activities and offenses.
I believe in the hyphen!
Roberto Jara,
Alto, MI.
It drives me nuts when people say, “Let’s all be color blind, forget our cultures of origin and just be ‘American,’ instead of ‘Latin-American,’ ‘Asian-American,’ etc. I can be American and preserve by culture of origin! Those of us who come from cultures other than the dominant Northern European Culture, have something to contribute to North America as our country evolves. Life would be boring without Chinese food, Salsa music, etc. I’m proud to be Mexican-American. My suspicious side suspects that when people say, “Let’s just all be American,” that they just want me to forget my culture and be absorbed into their dominant Northern European culture and story. The story needs to grow! My ancestors didn’t come across on the Mayflower, they waded across the river and I am not ashamed. I’m proud of what they have done to make this country better by not being absorbed into a melting pot, but making a wonderful stir-fry of people from all kinds of beautiful cultures living side by side and creating a whole better than the sum of the parts!
Wearing your difference on the outside.
Mona Khadr,
Washington, DC.
“But where are you from, originally?” is a question I get a lot. When I was younger, I answered proudly (“Egyptian!”) because my heritage was something that made me unique from my mostly white-American peers in the suburbs of MD and PA. As I got older and entered high school, college, and the work force, things changed both in myself and in society. I was becoming more sensitive about this question and aware that some people had preconceived notions about Arabs because of what they saw either in 80s and 90s movies and TV shows, where Arabs were often portrayed as terrorists, or because of very unfortunate events in the news. And there didn’t seem to be any portrayals in the media or popular culture of “normal” Arabs to even things out. I started wondering about the best way to answer while retaining my right to privacy. I received advice from colleagues who were also either immigrants themselves or from immigrant families. Some advised me it was nobody’s business where you’re from and to keep it to yourself. These people basically promoted the idea of playing a game of chicken until the question-asker gets the hint and stops asking. But that can lead to awkwardness in a conversation if a person doesn’t “get the hint” to stop their line of questioning (as if you didn’t understand the question the first or second time), and I’m not a confrontational person by nature – so this would be uncomfortable for me. And I truly don’t believe that everyone who asks this question has bad intentions – most are just innocent and curious. I tend to evaluate on a case-by-case basis depending on the tone of the conversation, where it’s taking place, and the vibe I’m getting from the person asking questions. Sometimes it feels completely innocent, like someone in a store or a restaurant asking me where I’m from because they think I look like I was from their home country. And sometimes it feels completely inappropriate, like a colleague in the workplace asking the same question. (You’d think everyone would know that this question is illegal to ask in any workplace in the U.S., but they don’t!) Luckily I’ve never encountered a hostile person asking this question, and I’m not entirely sure what I would do in that situation. I still have no perfect way to handle this question, so I just try to take it one instance at a time. Wearing your difference or your uniqueness on the outside is a fact of life for many people (tall people; short people; people with physical disabilities; women in a male-dominated workplace/field; any minority in a majority-dominated situation), so I try my best to keep that in mind and take it in stride.
My race, my origins, MY LIFE!
Estefany Anaya,
Redwood City, CA.
Acknowledge the human race’s African origin
Ted Fink,
Rhinebeck, NY
As a kid growing up in the 1950’s, my Grandpa wouldn’t let me play with the black kid who lived next door because he was…black. But in school, I was taught to love my neighbors as myself and the lessons helped me to see his command as wrong at a very early age. My travels to six continents and meeting people of every color have only confirmed how wrong he was.
I’m white my daughter is black
Jennifer Berkemeier,
Farmington Hills, MI.
I’m a single mom. I adopted my daughter from Haiti in 2012 when she was 4 years old. I’m white, and 15 years older than most of her friends’ moms. We get a lot of stares and unwelcome comments from little kids (“Is she your grandma?” “How come you’re different colors?” “She can’t be your mom…she’s white”). We love each other. We talk about race, her origin, being white and black, and being a non-traditional family. I’m teaching her to embrace it and be proud of it. It’s strange and painful to teach someone about slavery when you’re white and she’s black.
I don’t even know my origin
Creytisha Gray,
Lubbock, TX
After centuries my ancestors being stripped from my Homeland, I have no idea where I, nor my ancestors are from. The only clues I get are through DNA ancestry (which does not tell me where exactly my ancestors settled). No traditions, values, religion, or even language is known to me about my people.
Yes I’m tobacco-pickin white trash
Tracy Hart,
Washington, DC.
Yes, I’m from a tobacco-pickin, Southern white trash family, and I mean that in the most endearing way. Some stereotypes my family breaks: we were Southern but poor sharecroppers rather than slave-owners. Other stereotypes my family embraces: using discriminatory language in equal measure across all those who are not white Southerners. Yes, I’m mortified, but it leaves me wondering: is it more honorable to be a closeted racist or one who is out in the open? As for me, I believe we are all Africans in origin (ultimately — from the Rift Valleys), my sharing of which almost caused my family to choke on their turkey one Thanksgiving. I can only hope that my daughter finds her own authentic voice in all of the cacophony.
REPOST FROM NPR:
NPR continues a series of conversations from The Race Card Project, in which thousands of people have submitted their thoughts on race and cultural identity in six words.
When Tracy Hart says she’s from “a tobacco-pickin’, Southern, white trash family,” she says that she means that in the “most endearing way.”
“Some stereotypes my family breaks. We were Southern but poor sharecroppers rather than slave owners,” Hart tells NPR special correspondent Michele Norris, founder of The Race Card Project. “Other stereotypes my family embraces, using discriminatory language in equal measure across all those who are not white Southerners.”
The term “white trash” shows up fairly often in the six-word submissions for The Race Card Project, Norris says, as do words like hillbilly, redneck, hayseed and bumpkin. “People are sometimes writing about pain, sometimes they’re using humor to distance themselves from the pain, sometimes it’s associated with a kind of nostalgia,” Norris says. For Hart, it may just be all of those things.
Many people who have written to The Race Card Project have used jarring phrases to describe their roots.
Hillbilly White Trash? I’m Oxford educated — C. B., West Va.
“Appalachian” means “none of your business” — Amy Tanisha, Petaluma, Calif.
Hillbilly – the wrong kind of white — TR Kelley, Swisshome, Ore.
I’m Appalachian — it’s an invisible ethnicity— Catherine Vance Agrella, Asheville, N.C.
Poor white trash, not welcome here — Tracie Combs-Cantu, Austin, Texas
Do hillbillies have white privilege too?— Tony Van Winkle, Knoxville, Tenn.
But when it comes to “white trash,” she is probably on the fringe. Hart is a water resource economist at the World Bank in an intellectually elite environment where her colleagues might be surprised to hear her describe herself this way.
Raised outside of Houston, Texas, she spent summers visiting family in the South. Often, these family members were just getting by, like her great-uncle Reece Billings, who lived near Independence, Va.
“He died within the last 10 years, never having had indoor plumbing, never having had electrical wiring in his house, never having had a telephone line to his house,” she says. “The water for the kitchen came from the stream through a PVC pipe then dumped into a sink and then there was an egress PVC pipe that took it back to the stream downhill. And that was the only running water in the house.”
Hart’s grandmother grew up in that house. Hart has come some distance from that now. She’s one of the most educated members of her family, an education paid for in part from that “tobacco-pickin’ ” she references in her six words.
Tracy Hart’s great-uncle Reece Billings harvests tobacco on a North Carolina farm.
Tracy Hart’s great-uncle Reece Billings harvests tobacco on a North Carolina farm.
Lyntha Scott Eiler/Library of Congress
Her interests and ambitions have always set her apart from many members of her family. She’s a trained opera singer and went to school at U.C. Berkeley. She lived overseas for several years and she says that she speaks 10 different languages. She’s used to cultural bridges. But she says the hardest bridge for her to cross is when she returns home and faces the judgment of her rural, geographically isolated family.
The term “white trash” is something that she embraced. But she says her family “might think that I’m being a bit uppity in saying that. … I’m able to admit it because I’ve stepped out of it. … It’s where I’m from — but it’s not where I’m at.”
It is a pejorative term. It is harsh and it is a slur — but it can also be used as a shield. “I have members of my family who will say something about, ‘Yeah, that’s just because we’re white trash,’ and laugh,” she says. “And if someone else said that they would not be amused. But within the family using it is OK.”
For those in the Deep South, she says, the term has been embraced by a significant part of poor people who feel misunderstood. “They feel misunderstood because of the heavy legacy of slavery and segregation and poverty,” she says. “And I think part of their feeling misunderstood is to take on or embrace that term, which is self-denigrating but it also says, ‘We’ve been hurt, too.’ “
I don’t know where I belong.
Daisy Carranza,
Sparta, NC
The question of belonging is something I have always struggled with. I am a hispanic who was born in the U.S. However, people like me are stuck between being American or Mexican (or wherever their parent’s origin is). I am too Mexican to fit into the American category and I am too American to fit into the Mexican category. Both groups see me differently because of who I am or where I am. I go from being a proud American to a proud Mexican to a confused Mexican-American. Where do I belong when I love both and make me who I am?
Tenth generation American, still asked origin.
Leah Perlongo,
Sunapee, NH.
Ever been asked “Where are you from?” and the answer they expected was not the town you were born, but a country you’ve never been to? I find it frustrating that we in USA assume that people who look a little different are probably from another country.
I’m Black but NO-ONE believes me!
Kristi Webber
Las Vegas, NV
Growing up, there were several clues and incidents which occurred over the years which hinted at some sort of non-European ancestry in my mother’s background, and which would eventually lead to me pursuing her family’s ethnic roots. I had heard vague rumors of “Cherokee” blood but had long ago dismissed that notion and had instead zeroed in on black ancestry as being the likely choice, due to various factors, but mainly because my maternal grandmother’s family was rooted in the Danish West Indies, as she was born and lived until her late teens on the island of St. Croix, USVI. So when I unearthed the 1940 US Census Record entry for my grandmother, her parents and siblings, and her maternal grandfather, I wasn’t really surprised by what was listed for them in the Race category: Grandma, her mother and her siblings were all either “Mulatto” or “Mixed”; her Danish father was “White” of course, and her grandfather was listed under “Negro”. DNA testing has confirmed my genetic ethnicity as being from within a range of up to approximately 12% African, but no less than 5%. This pretty much fits in with my mother (who is very dark skinned) being up to 25% black herself, and reveals Grandma was up to half black–and no one in my family knew it! After coming to America as a teenager, to a country where no one knew her or her brother and sister, they all were able to “pass” as white due to the extremely “white” genes inherited from their Danish father. If the three children born to Grandma, my mother was the darkest complected. But she married my father, a redhead, and I was born pink skinned, blue eyed and white-haired. That hasn’t changed much, but my racial identity has. Even if no one believes me when I say I am “mixed”, I continue to proudly identify myself as being from both “black” and “white” ethnic origins.
Slavery is our original national sin.
Lynn Levine,
Prescott Valley, AZ
Our national origins in slavery constantly limit us in terms of the progress we can make towards a just society. I am not sure, given these origins, that we will ever get there.
I am, am I, truly Canadian?
Yosh Kasuga,
Canada.
Canada has the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and embraces multiculturalism on the surface and yet I wonder why as someone born in Canada…I don’t always feel as Canadian as the white Canadian. Why do people ask me where I am from? or where my parents are from? …really from? While no one asks my white friends the same question.
If culture evolves, as I believe it does… my question is when do my parent’s ethnic customs and other customs of other ethnicities become accepted as part of Canadian culture…or will Canadian culture only be associated with first immigrants of French and English origin?
If I don’t enjoy Hockey, Poutine, beaver tails or maple Syrup…does that make me less Canadian?
More than just a “white” woman
Brandi Schroeder,
East Lansing, MI.
I have a rather diverse group of friends, and the other day one made a comment about my origins. I grew up in a predominantly caucasian town where my high school held maybe 10 black students. My friend, who happens to be Somali, asked this question, and upon my answer he said “but you’re so cool with us” as if the lack of my town’s diversity would have an effect on my interactions. A human is a human is a human.
