Race Against Time
“What are you?” It’s a weird question, and it always refers to ethnicity. I’ve never had a good answer for it; I haven’t constructed my identity in a way that gives a meaningful response to that inquiry. I also have the privilege of not having had an identity foisted upon me by the society in which I live.
I work in a place where nearly everyone is either a first generation immigrant to America, or in the first generation to be born in America. Figuring out which cultural baggage people have brought with them seems rather important in that sort of situation- stereotypes are lazy and often cruel. But they can offer a useful shorthand.
So how do I answer that question? “What are you?” “What is your blood?” My last name gives a very obvious answer. But expecting me to behave like this because two of my grandparents were born in Sicily seems bizarre to me. Nor will it yield an accurate impression of me. (This might be closer, but it still fails.)
The other part of my ancestry– my grandparents would howl to hear themselves described as ancestors- is complicated. Mennonites who fled from Prussia to Russia to Canada before my mother’s mother snuck over the US border. So does that make me German? Russian? Prussia is now in Poland, am I Polish? That woman had 3 children (including my mother) with a man who is just native American enough to live on a reservation. Does that make me Native American?
I could zoom out and say that I’m simply “White”. That’s easy, and solves a sort of problem, but raises a whole host of other questions. By saying that I’m “white”, I put Sicilian, Prussian, and Slav into the same blender as Anglo, Celt, Saxon and Frank. If it were just a matter of once more pissing on Hitler’s grave, I’d be for it. It isn’t just that, though. The creation of a “White” race by blending together the various ethnicities of Europe was a part of a deeper American project aimed at creating explicit Others who could be exploited without qualm. By saying I’m “White”, I’m claiming not to be “Asian” (Chinese and Japanese are the same race. Only in America!), claiming not to be “Native” (Ohlone and Algonquin are the same people!), and most especially claiming not to be “Black” (No one can tell the Hutu from the Tutsi, right?).
Saying that I’m a “White” guy may be a good enough answer. It’s also a terrible one. When asked about my ethnicity, I usually claim to be an American. When I answer that my “my family is from Europe”, the important part of that sentence isn’t the noun, but the verb. My ancestors are from Europe. Your ancestors are from Central (or south) America/the Pacific Islands/Asia. And now you and I are here. That makes us coequal partners in the American project.
I also claim to be an ethnic Californian. That is a glib answer, but a true one. I value fair play. I value co-equality among people. I view identity as constructable. I eat curry on my noodles, and prefer my vegetables fresh. Those are Californian ideals. Children who grow in this soil tend to have them.
Mostly, though, I feel like a giant nerd. That’s a whole other topic.
