Being a Person First

I feel like I am an anomaly in that in that I seem to have grown up with a real lack of racial identity. My mother is from Kentucky and has blonde hair and blue eyes and my father is half Guamanian and half Filipino. My point is that in grade school I always felt as if I was too strange to associate with any particular racial group. To the majority of kids I knew I was Chinese or Mexican, but to Asians or Hispanics I was white. I remember being called China boy on the playground, and the hateful look of the boy who said it. I think that from events like this I was conditioned to expect racism from people with southern accents. This is interesting considering my mother’s roots.

Another event that demonstrates the ethnic grey area I seem to fall in can be found during my first summer job. I waited tables at a Mexican restaurant so I don’t blame customers for expecting me to speak Spanish. But on several occasions I’d go from disappointing customers with my unilingual skills, back into the kitchen where the cooks were making fun of me in their native tongue.

I think that growing up in this way fostered the belief in me that ethnic identity exists on a relatively superficial level. I don’t mean to deny anyone anything that’s important to them, but I grew up feeling like I never belonged. I remember looking at myself in the mirror and wondering what I was whether I’d ever fit in. However I think this may have been good for me in the long run because it led me to instead build my identity simply around being. It was like starting with a blank slate. I realize this may sound like a lofty ideal but I truly have come to believe in the equality of every human soul. The way that race is perceived in contemporary society seems to disrupt this equity all too often.

I believe it is important to celebrate our cultures but that association with any particular group should not be allowed to supersede an individual’s association with the human race. We should not allow superficial differences to keep us divided any longer. People should be wary of the fact that any association with any particular group often comes with a built in list of other groups that you’re not supposed to get along with. Here’s who you are and here’s who your enemies are. I think that as a species we should fully realize the potential that our advanced intellect provides us, and recognize that simply being a Homo sapien provides you with billions of friends in the same situation you are in. People who allow race to divide are simply not thinking on a large enough scale.

However I do feel as if the world is heading in the right direction. It seems that in general the current trend is that people are becoming more accepting. I use the word accepting in lieu of the word tolerant. I believe that our potential for interconnectivity extends far past simply “tolerating” one another, and that in time the world will recognize this fact.