What Are You?

  A harmless enough question. Someone might be asking you about your profession, your year in school, or many other things. However, more often than not when I am asked this question, it is not in reference to any of those things. People what to know my nationality.

 

In response to this question, I have taken up playing my favorite game…. “What do you think I am?”

The responses I get are numerous and varying, and never cease to make me laugh. Apparently I can convincingly pass for mixes of Italian, African American, Native American, Latina, Greek, Lebanese, Asian, Pacific Islander….the list goes on and on. I laugh because as far as I know, I am none of the above. Unlike many people who can be classified as racially ambiguous, I am not some strange mixture of many different races. Most of my family lines can all be traced back to one place: Germany. Those who feel the need to inquire as to the origins of my ancestors commonly will not believe me when I tell them this, and that’s completely fine by me. It’s always fun to know that you have the ability to blend in in many cultures.

 

The thing that bothers me about this whole situation though is not that people mistakenly believe me to be a different race than I am. (I could honestly care less about races…people are people) What really bothers me is that people feel the need to find out exactly what you are. The cultural idea of sorting people based on where their ancestors are originally from. It doesn’t matter if your family just came to the US yesterday, or if it was so far back that no one even remembers at this point. The idea of classifying people based on checked boxes on a form has permeated our society, and I am not sure that this helping us to become more accepting of different cultures at all.

So what are you?

I am a human being. I am part of the human race. I am a person who loves music and loves to sing. I am a person who takes a while to open up to new friendships, but who is completely loyal to the people I do let in.

I am not a checked box. I am more than the color of my skin, which changes from season to season.

I am human.

What are you?