The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Courissa,
Bath, NY
I get a lot of questions when people hear I live with my aunt and uncle, because I call them “mom” and “dad”. I have lived with them for over 6 years and they both stepped up to be my parents when they didn’t have to, but they chose to do so.
Corning Community College
Caroline Correia,
Edina, MN
Growing up 60 miles away from New York City in the 70s and 80s may as well have been 600 miles. As a child, I was acutely aware of what “other” felt like, even within my whiteness. My town was white, Catholic, and it wasn’t the kind of place you just landed in – you were there for generations. I am first generation American, and my parents are German. We weren’t like other people in our small town. My Dad worked in the “city” as a hairdresser (but he is not gay, try to explain this over and over), they both had thick accents that none of my friends could understand, we didn’t have any family in this country so holidays were just the 5 of us, we listened to classical music and opera at home. We missed so many cultural references that everyone else just seemed to know. And I felt is so deeply – the differences didn’t feel good, they felt like something I should run away from. I refused to speak German at home, I didn’t want my parents to meet friends, I never talked about our traditions, I felt such deep shame and resentment. Without realizing it, I see it only now so clearly, that I sought connection to anyone else in my town that was also different. My church friend was the sole black girl, my tennis partner was the Korean adoptee, my first boyfriend was the black quarterback, the second one was the Jewish boy. They all bore the mark I had of “otherness” in our community. College was the turning point in my life. I was exposed to students AND professors from bigger worlds. I realized my background made me unique and people thought it was special. “Good” different, not “weird” different. It it taking me a lifetime to come to terms and try to understand all of these feelings within my “whiteness.” I spent too much of my young years harboring anger at my parents and their choices for raising their family in such an insulated area. They were trying to do the best for their children, sacrificing for us, giving us a good life. They saw our town as safe (they are both children of WW2.) This need for physical safety was more important than emotional safety, which was never considered nor spoken of. I have learned to be grateful for my childhood because this is how I practiced straddling multiple identities. I can navigate any space I occupy. I have learned to understand. I am still learning.
Jillian Mosley,
Berkeley, CA
I am bi-racial, born in ’71. Are seriously wonder if they had any expectations about what my life would be like because I do not think they were prepared–they certainly didn’t prepare me to navigate race.
Avis Danette Matthews,
Glenarden, MD
“Don’t act your color.” I recall hearing that phrase a lot while growing up in the ’60s in Prince George’s County, Md., a Washington, D.C., suburb. On a 5th-grade field trip, as the school desegregation debate boiled on medium, one of my beloved black teachers gave us that instruction as we prepared to get off the bus to tour one of D.C.’s many monuments and museums. For the first time, the thought occurred to me, militantly: “How come? Why not act our color?!” In a flash, I envisioned our school, my classmates, our parents and siblings in our warm and loving homes within our nurturing community; our trusted teachers and perfect principal; our weekend Camp Fire and scout activities; our backyard kickball and football games; our annual go-kart race; our parents moving their cars so we could have the whole street for sledding in the best of snowstorms; our summer dashes to the ice cream truck — and I felt adamant that WE SHOULD ACT OUR COLOR. I didn’t say all this to my teachers on the bus, of course. Years later, seeing those same teachers at funerals and celebrations and such, standing adult to adult with them, I realized that they had known it, too — we WERE radiant.
JSRL Padre,
Glendale, CA.
I am Filipino. Born in Quezon. Imported to East LA. Learned to walk and talk in Los Feliz. Never heard Tagalog at home. It’s not my parent’s first language. That would be Ilocano for my papa, and maybe Alcalenian or Pangasinan for mama. Because of where I grew up, Spanish is more native to me than Tagalog. But every Filipino I meet at work assumes I speak Tagalog. And when they realize I don’t, they disparage me and my parents.
Terry Tringali Killoran,
Sterling Heights, MI
I had black friends growing up. I thought I did. We played together at school and after school at their house, or ours, in the driveway. Little did I know that’s because my parents wouldn’t let them come inside our house, and vice versa. And I remember once I asked if she could come to dinner and my father said NO so fast and loud that I jumped because it scared me. The friendships lasted until they moved away before junior high school. They wanted a more “comfortable“ neighborhood to grow up in. Not until I was an adult did I understand that statement.
Brandon Milard
o,
Somerville, MA.
Me with my parents at graduation in 2012.
Alex Liu,
Columbia, MD.
Culture, inmigration patterns, history – it’s all very nuanced. Confucius did boil down the success formula though…what do ya’ll think?
Cayleigh Malone,
Durham, NH
Often times people think that because I am a middle class white woman, my parents are paying for my education. While I am grateful to have a roof over my head and food on the table, I am on my own in college. My parents have their own medical bills to pay and I have to learn how to pay loans and live on my own. So when someone says I attend on “daddy’s money”, please realize I will have all my own loans to pay after school
Stephen Still,
Birmingham, MI
I’m from a small town in the state of Washington, didn’t see a black person until I was 10 years old, but parents laid down the law early, I had to love everyone! Be like Jesus…”Red and yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight”. My dad was transferred to Detroit in 1961. It was where I met racists. I not very religious now, but my parents drilled it into me. They were angry that Japanese friends were put in “concentration” camps during WW2. I grew up in Detroit, went to Wayne State became a journalist and lived a privileged life. Adopted daughter from China late in life. I believe you have to work hard to love.
Ilbersalle Fallon,
Austin, TX
Courters,
Bay Area, CA.
I grew up in a latin home, of a first generation born parent. By DNA–I am native-american sicilian. I was raised with latin catholic, tibetan, native american, and sicilian culture. As a child, in my desert neighborhood, I stayed dark and it was rarely noticed that I was not “technically” latin (plus I spoke spanish). When I was a teen, we relocated to a colder climate and I bundled up and became so pale so quickly that my worried parents sent me to the doctors! In my new (differently diversified) area, the assumption was that I was white, and therefor innately understood that cultural perspective. It is a mild understatement to say that I did not, and it was continuously detrimental until my early adulthood. I currently live in a latin neighborhood, and when I am out and about, people approach me in spanish–but only during the summer months. Can’t we just engage authentically and drop the preconceived notions?
Christopher Davies,
Bridgewater, MA.
For the hogwash between people with different skin types to lessen it is up to parents to teach their children that we are all on the same team. lets all work as one to make planet earth a better place
Selamawit Hurisa,
Richmond, VA
In my child’s school, the majority of parents are white. I am a black immigrant and I am confronted with many difficulties while navigating the humanscape of a majority white school. I find it difficult to fit, be accepted and just participate in the perfunctory day to day parent interaction at the school. Every time I visit the school and participate in school events, other parents are staring at me as if I am from a distant galaxy. They treat me indifferently or ignore me completely, and I allow myself to feel uncomfortable and further question if in fact I did come from another planet. Perhaps to many of the other school parents I am from another planet.
Gladys Pressley
Ann Arbor, MI
Jane Medina
Orange, CA
My daughter Annie had just turned 21. So she, my husband, my son, and I put on our cocktail party clothes and went to the fanciest restaurant in Orange, California to buy Annie her first drink. As our car climbed the steep hill where the restaurant sat like a crown above the city, we worried that we wouldn’t be able to get a table next to one of the outdoor fire pits. We were right. All the fire pits were taken by white and Asian couples, so we sat at a little table next to the kitchen, determined to enjoy ourselves. Our determination slowly waned as we waited to be served. All of the parties near us were being served their fancy drinks, talking and laughing with the cocktail waitresses, paying their tabs, and leaving. We asked a passing busboy to speak to a waitress. His eyes darted towards the woman who evidently was supposed to serve us, he mumbled an excuse and hurried away. After an hour, we left, too angry to speak to the manager. We went to a Mexican restaurant at the bottom of the hill and had a wonderful time.
As a white woman married to a Mexican American man, I was used to the uncomfortable glances from people who disapproved of racially mixed couples. But I had seen those glimpses of prejudice decline during our 30 years of marriage. So I was genuinely shocked when we experienced such passive-aggressive bigotry in 2004. I think our society has matured nine years since then, but it is naive to say that prejudice has been eliminated. Perhaps someday all people will consider these subtle acts of prejudice as antiquated and as horrific as slavery. I hope so.
Jennie,
Los Angeles, CA.
I am 4th generation Chicana. My mother is Mexican-American and my father is White.
One of the saddest things is to be rejected in relationships or see as different from your significant others’ family. I find that Mexicano families do not understand the history of Mexican-Americans. Someone I dated pointed out that his parents would see me as “White”. What was more upsetting was that he wanted me to be ok with this classification vs. fighting for my identity, the identity I see for myself. A complicated intersection that will not be defined by whites or by other Latinos.
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