Race Trader

In spring 2004, while a grad student at the New School for Social Research in the Liberal Studies program, I entered the following essay in a contest sponsored by Canon Magazine (web page since removed - so sad), the Liberal Studies program's literary journal. The topic was "The American Dream" or something to that effect. "Race Trader" came in second place, and it earned me a nice little check that I used to pay a credit-card bill.

My America bowed out the day I was born. With my light brown face nestled against my white mother's body, I experienced one of the only comforts this America would allow me: the shroud of naïveté that would for a long time conceal my lack of identity. My long, tiresome, and angst-ridden journey toward eliminating the significance of my mixed-race blood would be without the equality that the red, white, and blue promises for all. There would only be questions and an overwhelming quest for belonging. This is my America. This is my story. It's a story of race and why I chose to give it up.

I wasn't surprised when I first heard about the rape. There was a man missing from my life and his absence resonated within me. But this wasn't the only thing that consumed me. Once I discovered the mirror, I was plagued by something else. Why was I darker than my mother? My incessant questions concerning his whereabouts no doubt played an important role in the revelation that, I existed because of a violent sexual assault. This brutal act conceived me, along with a racial reality whose burden I would be forced to grapple with.

Racial America was not something I felt a part of. My need to recognize my differences intensified as the years went on. That it even mattered was more so a testament to the situation in which I was living, rather than any conclusions I was able to reach on my own. I only knew what I had to try to become because it was shoved down my throat around almost every turn. So I decided to find out for myself, and my search for a way to fit in began with my longing for a father when I was two years old.

“That's my daddy!” I shouted, pointing at the television. My mom, sitting next to me on the couch, looked over at me, caught off-guard by this outburst. I was certain I had found that elusive male figure that was supposed to guide me as one half of a loving parental unit. This man I wholeheartedly believed to be my father was on one of the football teams playing this particular weekend. I couldn't take my eyes off of him as he finally began to remove his helmet — his hair expanding like a Nerf ball does after it's been squeezed. I wasn't aware that my mother was looking at me until, shocked and not amused, she politely explained I was mistaken. I had to let it go.

As the years went by, as I encountered more kids with fathers, my interest grew again. I was so eager to have a father of my own, that I would sometimes stand in front of the mirror and say the word “dad” over and over. “Dad” — it felt foreign. But I kept saying it. Maybe I thought he would materialize if I said it enough. But it never sounded right. Nor did the idea of even having a father. And that night, when I was seven, when my mom told me the reason I existed, it became clear. I didn't really have a father, after all. And with that, my fruitless search for him ended. Nevertheless, he was in me. And this is what I will never be able to forget. Ever. I have a lighter shade of his skin color, and it is the sweetest bane of most days one way or another. “You are black and white,” my mother would say. Black. Skin. Nose. Lips. Hair. But as that grew, it became unmanageable, she would say. And she cut it off, not knowing what to do with it. But no matter what she did, she couldn't erase my skin color. What this skin color meant, though, what I was actually mixed with, would remain unclear despite my mother's insistence. Despite mine.

When I was about eight years old, my friend Robert and I were playing baseball in the street. A neighbor whom I had seen many times before came up to us and talked a little bit about nothing in particular. He was really tall, a giant even, wearing a bright blue Hawaiian shirt that concealed his big belly. He had thick curly hair and a hairy face, and he looked down at me with beady, though not creepy, eyes. Despite his gruff appearance, he smiled softly as he asked me if I was Hawaiian. “Hawaiian?” Where did that question come from? “No,” I said. I looked at him a little longer, although it was now with bewilderment rather than curiosity. “I'm black and white.” I thought it strange that a man who had never spoken to me before wanted to know if I was from some faraway place. The small talk ran out, and he walked away; Robert and I were able to get a couple of more innings in before nightfall. I never saw the big-bellied man again, but I never forgot his image. And I never forgot his question.

At the time, I had no idea that this was to be the first of countless instances when race and ethnicity would figure significantly where I was concerned. As the years went by, I tried to avoid the discussion of such issues. But race would become more prevalent in my life, because it became more prevalent in other people's lives. They were interested in me. Interested in naming me. “What are you?” they would ask. I recycled the question in my mind. And although I knew I was black, half African-American, I internalized the question's uncertainties. And I hated it. I felt wrong. So I had to ask, too. “What am I?” I would ask of my mother one week. “What am I?” I would ask the next. “You are what your mother is,” became the reply. This was what I had to go on, but somehow I knew it wasn't true. I am not what my mother is when I'm being watched, questioned, judged. I am not what my mother is when I peer into the eyes of my reflection in the mirror. Regardless, I stopped pursuing the answers I wanted so badly, and I retreated into the naïve state of unknowingness.

The danger of my ignorance was that I did not entertain the idea of my difference. I chose to fit in. Despite the thick skin I believed I was developing, I was not safe from the inquisition of the outside world. Nor was I safe from its aggression. And it was this very skin that betrayed me. I received such directives as “Nigger, go home!” from a nice gentleman out the window of his moving vehicle; such sarcastic jibes as “What race should we say you are?” from a young female officer on a power trip who had pulled me over on my bike for running through a stop sign; and such innocent-enough slurs as “You look like a little monkey” from my third-grade teacher after getting our school pictures back. Didn't they know I was what my mother was?

I took all this in but it just sat there as I went about my business believing race was insignificant. However, the unrelenting world around me persisted in its desire to place me. And I could no longer hide behind the wall of ignorance I had built. But when I left for college, the racial space I thought I occupied shifted, and I would never again be comfortable in my false security.

Immersing myself in a multi-racial community of undergrads threw me into a deeper misunderstanding of my racial contribution. I got used to uttering a standard response to that familiar question: “What are you?” “I am mixed. Black and white.” I would respond quickly and unconvincingly. Still ignorant of the significance of my situation, I began to consider this merely a fun game. I was able to draw the attention of so many people, and I didn't even have to earn it.

“Roll your 'R's,” my Latino friends would say. I could. To them, I was Latino.

“No, she's Filipino. It's obvious. Look at her eyes.”

“You could be Samoan, you know.”

I began to feel that their inability to identify my race with one quick glance threatened them. I played along, though, thinking I would get used to it. I never did. I was never going to blend in, and I had to accept it. But this difference finally became a burden, and I wanted it to go away.

I began to doubt what I was saying. I felt like an imposter, an inhabitant of some place I didn't belong. And I didn't like it. How much did I know about being black? I was raised white. The people who wanted to separate me from the crowd, to other my existence, made me uncomfortable in my own skin. I never considered the fact that they had no right of ownership, no right to fetishize me. I never considered the fact that this was not my problem. Nevertheless, I needed to feel I belonged in the black community I claimed as my own. I had to be sure that, when I said “I am half black, half white,” I believed it. So I began the process of constructing my race.

I read the slave narratives of Harriet Jacobs and Frederick Douglass. They gave me a foundation on which to root myself as I faced the barrage of questions about my ancestry. If I could angrily recount the dreadful torture slaves endured in the name of American capitalism, then my opponents would retreat, satisfied with the authenticity I presented.

I rallied behind the messages of Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, and Malcolm X. The speeches and essays of these men gave words to the anger that was brewing within me with every piece of knowledge I gained. Their rhetoric represented a refusal to submit to the racism that African Americans, and certainly I, faced as a result of the legacy of slavery. I wanted to jump on this black-power bandwagon. I wanted to give a face to my anger and make sure those around me could see it.

By reading the works of Zora Neale Hurston, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde, I tapped into the lives of slaves and maids, sharecroppers and secretaries, jazz singers and hookers. These characters jumped off the page and epitomized the pain and struggle that blacks have endured since they were brought to these free shores. I wanted to be a part of that.

I felt connected to a group of people struggling still to find its own identity. They were my people now, and on some level, I belonged. At least, I thought I did.

Although I was now informed to a certain extent about black life, there were, of course, some things missing. Reading only provided me with some insight into the racial identity I wanted for myself. There were other, more visible forms of assimilation into blackness I could pursue that would make it so I was easily recognizable as a full-fledged member of the black race.

My hair, always a source of frustration for me, was where I chose to start. I went to a place called Kinks with a little trepidation one evening to attend an introductory meeting about growing dreadlocks. This neighborhood black-hair-care establishment wasn't just somewhere one went for an appointment. It was an experience. Upon entering the Victorian house, the instant scent of nag champa incense and oils filled my nose. “Hey, sister,” most would say to me as I headed back to Venetia's chair to await my biweekly touch-up. On any given day, rap, jazz, blues, or R&B filled the room as the soundtrack of the African American environment I entered every two weeks. Conversations about personal and work relationships were in abundance, and everyone was included in everyone else's stories. I was belonging.

Grab. Apply goop. Twist. Clip. Repeat. After Venetia filled my head with freshly twisted, clipped-together formations resembling locks, I got under the dryer. I insisted it be set to high, because, three to four days later, the hair comprising each lock on my head invariably grew impatient and began working its way out. Still, I twisted and twisted clockwise in compliance with the pattern that my curls followed. Throughout this process, I continued reading. I trusted the mirror. I allowed my skin color, nose shape, and thick lips to reassure me. All of the work I had done helped secure my place in the African American community. It helped me locate an identity to cling to. I turned inward during it all, trusting myself to substantiate my presence in the black community. I was informed. I was legitimate. I belonged.

After about six months of twisting my hair, I began to notice a change. It was finally beginning to lock, another sign I was really black. Finally. The rough, tangled sensation I felt between my fingers as I twisted each day comforted me. I twisted harder and longer. Seven months. Eight months. Nine months. But they weren't locking fast enough. It wasn't working. I had to cut them off.

The lock-cutting ceremony was emotional, which I didn't anticipate. I didn't expect the lighting of the candles, the words in Swahili — I don't remember which ones — or my tears. I felt with each cut that I was making myself an outsider. I was abandoning one of my only cultural ties to the black community that I worked so hard to become a part of. What was I doing?

They told me to keep the locks until I was ready to get rid of them, at which time I was to burn them and distribute the ashes in the land or to simply bury them. “Do not throw them away,” they said. I didn't.

But despite my efforts, pleasurable though they were, I started facing the fact that I was falling short. I knew blackness was not mine to have. For no matter how certain I felt during the years of my racial construction, I was still hard to label. I was still Samoan, Filipino, Latino and — only sometimes — black to the outside. I was a guessing game. But it was no longer fun. I was mixed, of course, and no amount of reading or hair appointments could change that. The more I clung to my blackness, though, the quicker it weakened in my grip. The combination of my doubt and outside curiosity became too much. I felt overwhelmed. What does this all mean? I felt alienated. Where did I belong? Ultimately nowhere. Then what was it all for? To fit in? I didn't. To avoid scrutiny? I didn't. So, what was I? They asked, but I stopped answering.

During my life, I have tried hard to find a semblance of racial understanding within myself. This is exacerbated by others' need to place me. When they approach me speaking Spanish, assuming I am a Puerto Rican transplant in New York City, I smile politely, shake my head, and say “no habla español.” I think that's right. When someone insists on my being Filipino, I smile politely and accept their assessment. Do they know I don't care what they think?

For many, their subjectivity is the only contribution they're willing to consider. And I've grown tired of it. We're supposed to be able to consider ourselves something. And it is supposed to be accessible for everyone else. But I am inaccessible. And so I am done with the game. It is exhausting. Done with the dream. It is futile. If not for its mere existence, then because of the fact that any dream of belonging I had existed only because everyone else said I should have it. I did not ask to be born to a white woman nine months after she was raped by a man with a skin color of his own. And I did not ask to be relegated to a racial entity. The journey I took to racial understanding led me through many stages of uncertainty, defiance, pain, pride, and, finally, to the place I occupy now. It is from this place outside of America's dream that I will continue in my unwillingness to identify my race. I have reconciled my discomfort with my unfathomable mixed existence, because not knowing is the fact of my life.