Do you want the "what-are-you" life for your kids?

Most of us, I assume, are proud to be hapa/mixed/multiracial/etc. That pride is a feeling a site like this is meant to foster, I think, in addition to a sense of community.

But, when I think about how it was growing up to (and still encountering) the constant questioning - "What are you?" "Where are you from?--No, I mean, where are you REALLY from?"; and the frequent objections - "No, you can't be [what you say you are]" "You look more [this ethnicity]"; I wonder if I would wholeheartedly wish that kind of experience on my kids. It hurt when I joined Asian-identity-oriented campus groups and was asked why, or people assumed I was not at all Asian but had an "Asian fetish." It hurt when I joined groups affiliated with my other half (like Jewish youth groups), and no one would crush on me because I was 'obviously not really a Jew.' It hurts nowadays when I'm with my full Asian American boyfriend and his Asian American friends refer to me as his "white girlfriend."

I've been with my boyfriend for awhile now, and I have to admit that it's occurred to me that, if we had kids, chances are they would look much more identifiably Asian than me. I am more than OK with this. I would honestly rather my kids look some kind of full Asian, as opposed to ethnically ambiguous like me.

How do you feel about this issue? Do you wish all aspects of the hapa experience on your kids? Will our kids' generation have the same challenge in terms of having to assert their ethnic identities over and over? Or will society have caught up a bit and stopped trying to box us into one heritage?

17 months ago
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  • Jared

    If your kids are mixed, white, black, asian, blue, they are going to get picked on and made fun of for something or other, just love them and be there for them. 


    Also these days there are more and more mixed people, it wont be as hard as when we were growing up.

    12 months ago

  • diana

    You're so right, Kristen. Thanks for posting this.

    13 months ago

  • Kristen

    While I can understand people not wanting their children to go through the same things we have had to encounter, I think that is all the more reason to keep mixing races, because I do believe that one day people of one race WILL be the minority, and then we won't have these problems anymore. I personally do not care what the close-minded people think now, while I'll admit having my moments in adolesence of feeling unaccepted at times and irritation everytime someone said "What are you??" with that damn look on their face, or people even referring to me as a question mark, I feel like it has helped make me a stronger person and while I can't say for sure that my child will feel the same or handle the situation quite the same, I hope that it does. I hope that she'll feel proud and beautiful because that is what she is, that is what I see and that is what the rest of the world will see, one day. It may not be within the next decade or two but the more we mix it up, and the more we encourage acceptance among all races, the less people there will be to ask us those offensive questions and give us rude stares. I don't wish these things on my baby or any other hapa children, but they will happen until they don't anymore, we're not to that point, but when we are it will be because we didn't back down and we didn't care if some hated us for it. We did it because we love who we love, and we see the bigger picture.

    13 months ago

  • Michael

    Yeah -but they can plan -out; how to Answer -this question (beforehand)!!
    E.G. -'I AM=A Human'; could be 'the smug answer'; LOL.
    B.T.W. -Pers.; I 'd Love my kiddo's (If I Ever -have Any); to 'Look diff. to me/be diff. perhaps'; for some -reason (Maybe)??

    12 months ago

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