10A
Tuesday, December 6, 1994
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FORCED TO CHOOSE
Continued from Page 1A.
Mom, Ryan, me, dad and Sara at the Warwick Castle in England. We lived in Europe for 3 years before I graduated from high school. Whitney Simonsen 1994
Asian or Pacific Islander, Black and, finally, white. If you're Hispanic, forget the race box entirely. Hispanic people are recognized as an ethnic category, not a race. But they can always check the 'other' box.
It's not a system that makes much sense. Wardle contends. Neither Wardle, who is white, nor his kids, who have a Black mother, check any box anymore.
"The government stinks," Wardle says. "It can't recognize who biracial people are. The census needs to be changed with the ultimate idea to get rid of all categories listed. Don't put people in little groups and boxes."
图示
Whitnev Simonet doesn't fit in a box.
She is adopted. Her parents, Leslie and Don Simonet, are white. Her biological mother was white, her biological father, Black.
"I tan quicker," the Overland Park freshman told them.
"You don't look like your mommy and daddy," white kids used to say to her.
As she grew up, Black people could tell that Whitney didn't fit in. They teased her, called her "zebra" and "oreo cookie."
The teasing made Whitney wary of Black people, especially Black girls. When she was a cheerleader at Pioneer Trail Junior High School in Olathe, Black girls in the stands teased her, threatened her and made rude comments — just because she was light skinned.
Later, Black girls pretended to like her because she hung out with older Black guys.
"They would say, Oh yeah, we need that nigger magnet," she recalls. "And now, if I am accepted by a group of Black girls, it's almost an accomplishment or something."
All of her life Whitney heard people tell her to choose one of her races, Black or white.
"Out of all the hardships in my life, I've gotten the most crap from the Black side," Whitney says. "They would say: 'You have to choose. The Black is the only side that will accept you. If you have 1 percent of Black in you, then you're automatically Black.'
"The that made life hell for me," Whitney says. "I couldn't stand it. I didn't want to choose, and I'm not going to choose. I wouldn't be comfortable because I know that I'm not all of either."
When Whitney fills out an application for a job, or a scholarship, or school and there isn't an 'other' box, she checks Black.
"I do it when it seems to be in my favor," she says. "But most of the time I put 'other.' Sometimes I'll put both. Sometimes I'll make my own box that says 'other' because I really hate having to choose."
When her parents, Leslie and Don, enrolled Whitney in grade school, they said that she was Black simply because society would not accept her as completely white. However, Whitney is white on her birth certificate because children adopted in Virginia, where Whitney was adopted, automatically take the race of the adopting parents.
Mom, dad and I before my high school graduation. Tony Sanchez, 1989
"We raised her in a white world." Leslie says.
But family was more important than a status symbol.
When Leslie and Don decided to adopt, they got a lot of reactions from people who said, "You'll never be able to join a country club."
--approach has been I'll just make friends with whoever."
Larry Hart was more important than the sociologist "And we are children of the '60s," Whitney's mom says. "We really believed that when our children grew up, racism would be extinct."
There are too many minority groups who feel pressure to solidify Hispanic, Native American and other people together, he says.
But racism is not extinct. In fact it's getting worse, at least for biracial people, Wardle says, "because of the politics of race."
And the same groups, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who once filed court cases against the "one drop of blood" rule, now use it to protect themselves. The race box gives minorities political power in census and mortgage, job and scholarship applications. Wardle says.
If a "multiracial" box were added, existing minorities would lose power as some biracial people stopped identifying themselves as Black or Hispanic or something else. Wardle savs.
"Minority political groups think they have too much interest invested," he says. "That's why they are against it."
However adding a box could be beneficial, Wardle savs, especially in the area of medicine.
For example, if a child is Asian and Black but is identified as Black on hospital records, he might have a disease that Asian people are susceptible to which wouldn't be diagnosed because doctors wouldn't know he also is Asian.
"And it would certainly effect the number counting when kids come into the schools," Wardle says.
图 1-1
According to office records at Southeast High School, Richard Prince, Wichita senior, was white throughout high school.
But Prince always identified himself as Black because he grew up in predominantly Black neighborhoods.
"I have always associated myself as being Black," he says. "It has a lot to do with the way I was raised."
His white mother, Esther, raised him to understand that color isn't, or shouldn't be, important, so he learned about both races.
"I always left it up to them," she says. "I taught them to be proud of who they were, not what they were."
Despite his upbringing, Prince says he has faced the same problems as other minority children: prejudice, discrimination and racism.
"The only thing is that, instead of being able to go back to your neighborhood or go back to where you're comfortable, you get it from all sides." he says.
Because of the prejudice from both Black and white people, Prince says he struggled with acceptance growing up.
"Acceptance is really big when you're younger," he says. "They say it isn't, but when you're younger, it's huge. Making friends was always interesting, so my
When Prince was in junior high and high school acceptance became more of an issue.
Basketball was his salvation.
People communicate much easier with you if you are an athlete. Prince says,
"It's always been a factor in making friends for me," he says. "Always been kind of a crutch, I guess you'd sav."
Prince's family often was shunned or rejected because it dared to mix blood.
"Whenever I think about my mom and dad's relationship, it must have been incredible — the crap they had to go through — being turned down from places to live, being fired from jobs," Prince says. "My mom's side of the family disapproved and did not see any of us for many, many years. But my mom didn't really care. She just fell in love, and that's it."
Prince's mother, Esther, says that she understands why her family reacted badly. Her mother and stepfather, who had just started a new business in Arkansas, thought mixed grandchildren would hurt the business.
"We were united." Prince says. "We had to be. I had the type of family that went through all this hell before it got to me and made it easier."
Prince and his family did not visit Arkansas or contact his relatives for almost 20 years.
"I had to respect her wishes," Esther says. "But it was hard for the kids to understand."
"Well," he says, "I'm Prince. I'm a person. Does it matter if I'm mixed or anything like that?"
But in the end, the looks, rude treatment and lack of acceptance only made the family stronger.
But he still has people come up to him — in his face — and ask, 'What are you?'
Prince understands that it will always matter to some people, but he says that he can't help wishing differently.
"People want to race classify so much," Prince says. "Well, I think my parents and people like them have created a whole new race of people."
Some people may be realizing this new multiraci group is here to stay, but Wardle thinks others will continue to resist the idea for a while.
"There are enough articulate people in the biracial community and kids in the community, and as they come up and get involved, they will change the direction." Wardle says.
--like Salynda White, who is Korean and Black.
And this new race includes more than people like Whitney and Prince, who are Black and white. This race includes individuals who are Asian American and white, Hispanic American and white and people
Although Salynda identifies herself as Black when she has to fill out a form, she knows that she is biracial. But being an individual is more important than color of skin, she says.
"I identify myself as an individual, not as Black or as Korean," says Salynda, Kansas City, Kan., freshman.
Tony Sanchez, Topeka senior, has never adjusted to being biracial. He is caught between two worlds and doesn't particularly like it.
图二
"I kind of wish I was in one group, but I can't be," says Tony, who is Hispanic-American and white. "I don't feel totally accepted by one side, but I don't feel totally accepted by the other side either. I feel out of place in both cultures."
Tony's parents divorced when he was 5. He has seen his Hispanic father only six or seven times
“It’s difficult for me not to hate him for not being there,” he says. “I want to learn more, but I have no idea how to approach him.”
since. He resents that his dad wasn't around to teach him about his Hispanic heritage.
To learn more, Tony joined the Hispanic American Leadership Organization a few years ago. For a while, he says, the group was what he needed. He felt at home, learning both his culture and the language he wanted to speak. The other members accepted Tony despite his mixed background.
"I was eager to get in there and learn what I thought I should know rightfully." Tony says. "Just because I not full Hispanic doesn't mean I'm not Hispanic. It's not about blood. It's about culture."
But the culture Tony found in HALO soon became too much. When the group held dances, the
other students were in a comfortable world, but Tony didn't know what to do.
"I was just kind of standing on the sides." he says.
"Jose was kind of starting on his shoes," he says.
Tony considers himself Hispanic despite his mother's protests that he also is half-white. When he joined HALO she disagreed with his decision.
"I thought it was dumb," Cheryl, who is white, said. Cheryl says she wondered why he wanted to join because he is not Hispanic.
"I really didn't think of him as Hispanic," she said. "To me, he's not full anything. I never encouraged it at all."
The way Tony grew up affected his personality, attitude and self-image. He grew up on the east side of Topeka, the tougher side of town, with few white people, quite a few Blacks and a few other Hispanics.
"I don't even like to accept this about myself," he says, "but for a while I really disliked white people. Not a dislike but a distrust."
At times, Tony even resents the white part of himself because of the way white people have treated minorities in the past. It's hard to accept being half and half, stuck in the middle.
"When I came up here I was kinda shocked because I didn't expect to see only white," Tony says. "I feel out of place here because I don't see a lot of people of color. I need that."
Tony brought his attitude with him to KU. He says he often has made rude comments to other people just to get a reaction from them.
Other people, white people, tell Tony that he isn't the only minority at KU with problems and that he should deal with it. And he agrees ... to a point.
"When they go back home, they're not minorities." Tony says. "I am all the time."
Ironically, Tony looks white.
"With me you can't really tell — I might just have a good tan," Tony says.
"I kind of wish something like that would happen to me," he says. "I would just go off. I'm not gonna back down from anybody."
Tony says that he has never been blatantly discriminated against because he is two races. But it isn't for lack of trying on his part.
Tony's childhood in Topeka is one of three variables that affect biracial people and how they adjust to their genetic fate.
"It depends on how you were raised," Wardle says. People raised to feel better about being biracial will have better experiences.
Wardle says the community and the school also play important roles in being biracial.
For example, Wardle's children were asked to be on a Nickelodeon show because of their race.
"Is the school going to support the parents' right to raise the child as biracial?" he asks. "They have no right to tell you Black or white."
Wardle says a biracial person's experiences vary depending on what kinds of opportunities the person has had in past jobs and education.
"They were rejected because they had no problems based on race," Wardle says. "They are faced with some nice options. They don't have to choose based on race."
But later, they were told they wouldn't be participating.
图四
Ed Palmer, a sophomore at Haskell Indian Nations University, hasn't always made his decisions based on his race.
But then he didn't even realize he was part Native American until he was 11.
"I didn't think much about it," says Ed, a San Francisco native. "For the longest time I thought I was Mexican."
"At first I was like 'cool,'" Ed says. "But I told people, and people started treating me differently. They were afraid of saying something to me."
"What's going on?" he asked. "I'm still Ed."
When he was in the 8th grade, Cheryl sent him to Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, Okla, to learn more about his background. Once there he realized what it meant to be Native American, and it wasn't what he saw in the movies.
"I got angry," he says. "It was the first time I ever felt this kind of anger. They were making us look like a joke."
At Riverside Indian School, Ed was ditching school, drinking a little, smoking — normal stuff, he says.
Ed began to notice that Indians in movies were either scapegoats or buffoons. Indians often were drunk in movies, too. And although Ed hates the drank Indian stereotype, he admits he was one.
"I was angry with my mom for sending me there," he says. "It exposed me to things I didn't think existed."
After Riverside, Ed went to Chemawai Indian School in Salem, Ore., where he started drinking heavily, stealing from his mom and smoking pot — not normal stuff, he says.
"They were talking about pride and everything but despoiling it by drinking," Ed says. "You know, like, 'They're keeping our people down, so let's go get drunk.' And I was doing the same thing. I started to become a statistic."
Although Ed is biracial, he now says he is Native American.
"I wake up in the morning, and that's what I am," he says. "I learned more from that side of the heritage. I found more harmony."
Tina says she never told Ed how to identify himself. "It's not the color of your skin," she says. "It's what's inside you. But you don't get that everywhere."
Within the Native American community, percentage of blood also is an issue. Although a young person can claim certain grants, health care and medical insurance if that person has one-quarter Native American blood, many native people would not consider such a person a "proper Indian."
"I am Native American as far as I'm concerned," Tina says. "If I was a quarter Black, I'd be Black. If I was a quarter Chinese, I'd be Chinese."
Ed says that he is glad he didn't grow up in a Native American world.
"I can sit here and tell you how proud I am, but then I'll just contradict myself," he says. "I figure if I had grown up Native American I'd have grown up with an automatic chip on my shoulder."
At Haskell, Ed has found that being 'white' or being 'Indian' is a matter of both skin color and attitude. He says that being 'white' is defined by how a person acts, not by how dark or light the person is.
But a professor at Haskell accused Ed of being white. That prompted Ed to write an editorial about skin color and attitude for the school paper.
"The reason I wrote the article was because I was discriminated against by a faculty member who happened to be full blooded Native American," he says. "He said, 'Isn't that just like a white man?'
"But race is so easy to blame something on," Ed says. "it's all color, and it's all stupid. I mean, I hate to sound like an MTV commercial, but enough is enough."
Graphic by Noah Miner