What Is My Choice?

Recently I was talking with my son concerning what responses he should make on job applications when they ask you what your ethnicity is. Specifically, as a mixed-race person, how do you answer the question. Plus, this led to another question of what do you consider yourself? First off, let us start with identifying what our DNA results are from 23andMe.com. My make-up is 49.0% Sub-Saharan African (mostly West African), 48.7% European (mostly Northwestern European), 1.1% Trace Ancestry (mostly Native American), and Unassigned 1.2%. My son’s makeup is 75.5% European (mostly Northwestern European), 23.5% Sub-Saharan African (mostly West African), 0.75% Trace Ancestry (mostly Native American) and 0.3% Unassigned. My Ancestry.com numbers are close to the 23andMe numbers.

So, with me sitting at about 50% African American and white and my son at ¾ white and ¼ African American the question is what are we and what do we identify with?

Being such a mixed culture, I have never really thought about it. With a last name that is of Mexican decent I really have had a hard time trying to relate with one group or another. Our family has always joked that we are Heinz 57 – a mixture of just about everything. No one group is better than any other and just respect and treat everyone like you would want to be treated.

When we look at our family tree, current and past, we have a diverse family of a variety of ethnicities and cultures. To try and categorize ourselves as one ethnicity or another would be doing an injustice to our heritage – African American, White, Latino and Native American. Do I really need to pick one to identify with?

Our conclusion is that we will pick “2 or more races”. That way we are sure to include our whole heritage and we can be who we are.

#diversity #inclusion #diversityinme