Obama's Census Choice

I must admit I was surprised when the White House announced that President Obama identified himself solely as African-American on the census form. He could have checked White as well or written in Mixed Race, but he didn't, so the statement he's making is clear about where he feels he belongs.

Don't get me wrong. This is his absolute right. It's his life and his family and these issues are never easy. I can imagine he wanted to be the same as his wife, his two daughters, and his mother in law. I used much the same reasoning when I became an American citizen, but I was never asked to renounce being British (or at least the Brits said I was still was and that was enough)so I could keep what I was born with and celebrate both parts of me.

But even allowing for understanding the difficulties, I can't help a niggling discomfort wondering how I would feel if my half-Hispanic grandson should decide he is solely Hispanic and blows off the rest of his ancestry. Actually, I know I'd be hurt. I've done everything I can to help make him proud of his Native American roots but I also want him to be proud of the generations of hard-headed, hard-scrabble, farmers, soldiers, teachers, doctors, and nurses, that are my direct contribution to his father. Whether I like or even approve of them, they contributed their genes and deserve to be in the picture. I'd hope he could embrace us, warts and all.

Obviously, I feel forcing people to choose just doesn't make sense anymore. In my own case, while the choice might be obvious, I'd still want to insert footnotes probably because I lived most of my adult life in Hawaii. There one is more likely to describe ancestry by nationality rather than race, mainly because things are so mixed up that multi-racial is about the only possible label. A young person might list, for example, Hawaiian, Portugese, Chinese, Japanese, German, Scottish, and English (or more) as ancestry and be proud of it because it reflects the history of migrants to the Islands.

Even the label "Caucasian" suggests multi-racial. It binds together the products of milennia of migrations and intermarriages, even though people use it as if it refers to a genetically and culturally cohesive group of people. It doesn't--anymore than the term African-American can encompass the African sub-continent and the spread of its people across Europe and through Asia and into and through the Middle East. If our DNA testing is right and we take the long view, we should all check the box for African-American.

I look foward to the day when this nonsense of race fades into the past and it no longer matters. About forty years ago, Time Magazine ran a cover story on what Americans would look like in a hundred years. I remember the cover well. It showed the various possible combinations of very handsome people, all of them a golden-honey color. This is where we are headed, I believe. It's certainly true of my husband's family: three out of four grandchildren have to be described as mixed race.

I think it will be a very good thing for this country once we get there.

Still, I can't help feeling sad how Obama's choice has effectively cut away his late mother and grandmother. And for that matter--not that it makes much difference to him I'm sure--how he has pushed people like me away as well.