The Jared Letters-- Month 5-- Boxed In

Your father and I took you to an eye specialist today and they handed me a stack of forms to fill out before you went back for your eye exam. As I was filling out the forms, I encountered a quandary.

One of the questions required that I check the box that represented your racial background—a question that most people answer without a second thought. For a number of reasons, I would have expected to be prepared for this decision. First, I am biracial myself, second I am in an interracial marriage and third, I study ethnic identity. So…. I have always known this day would come, but as I sat there with the pen poised to choose a box, the decision became weightier.

Do I check “black” for you? Your father is black and the convention in this country, due to the “one drop rule” is certainly for you to be identified as black as well. And yet I am your mother and I am Korean and white…. How can your ethnic identity exclude me and my heritage completely?

Do I check “Biracial/Multiracial”? It’s certainly technically more accurate but what does that communicate about your ethnic identity? It feels like a betrayal of each specific ethnic group to which you legitimately belong. You have a right to claim your connection to each of these ethnic groups, yet the word “multiracial” does not do those connections any justice.

Do I check “other”? What does that even mean? It’s certainly not psychologically satisfying to check “other”— it makes me feel complicit in marginalizing my own son.

Do I leave it blank? As constrained as I feel by these boxes, I feel most uneasy about letting a stranger decide your racial/ethnic identity for you, particularly after the debacle in the hospital over these issues. I think for some people, leaving it blank feels like a type of resistance but to me it feels like you’re being restricted. Most people have the opportunity to proclaim their identity and the thought that you may have to choose one or none at all frustrates me.

I guess the most important thing to me is that you feel a loving and healthy connection to all aspects of your heritage… that you feel that you have the right to claim each of those connections without feeling like you are betraying any aspect of who you are. I don’t ever want you to feel rejected by one group because you identify and/or affiliate with another.

I want your life to be enriched by the diversity in your family and your own experiences and ultimately in your own identity.

I am grateful that for now your brow remains unfurrowed by troubling matters such as these…

Your loving mom.