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| Book cover for "Raising Mixed Race." |
I read the book Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children in a Post-Racial World [affiliate link], by Sharon H. Chang. I read this because my 2 kids are mixed-race Asian kids (white/Chinese). I really liked this book. It had a lot of deep stuff to say. I recommend this to parents of mixed-race Asian kids.
This post will cover some of my thoughts about the book:
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Language
The book spends a lot of time in the beginning talking about the language used to discuss race. The language we commonly use has origins in racist ideologies throughout history- for example, in the 1700s, Europeans invented the "five-race construct" (ie, the five races are Caucasian, Mongolian, Malayan, Ethiopian, American). Even now, you sometimes see the term "Mongolian" used to refer to something related to east Asians. That's kinda racist.
The example given in the book is a nurse discussing Chang's son's "Mongolian spots." A Mongolian spot is a dark birthmark, kind of looks like a bruise, that some east Asian children have. The nurse, aware that the name sounded kinda racist, said, "I don't know why they call it that, they just do." Chang was unhappy about this; in the book she says this nurse was perpetuating this racism by using the term "Mongolian spots."
I don't really know what to think about this- my first reaction is that it seems fine to me to use the term "Mongolian spots" but to say it with air quotes or something that makes it obvious you're aware it sounds kinda racist. The book seems to be saying that even using it at all is racist and bad. What's the alternative, though? Does she want this nurse to start a movement to call it something different, right then and there? (A quick google tells me that "Mongolian spots" do have a non-racist name: slate gray nevus. Okay, so, now that we know, we should use that term instead.) My second reaction was, I'm white so maybe I shouldn't tell people of color "oh this thing you think is racist, actually it's not racist."
A lot of this book was about how it's problematic for people to say certain things about mixed-race Asian kids. And I definitely agree that the language we use for race has a really bad history, and it's important to learn about that history, and in an ideal world we wouldn't use that language, but I'm not sure what to do in the world we actually have. It doesn't seem helpful to me to create a really long list of things you're not allowed to say when talking about race (which is sort of what I felt the book was doing, in some places).
For example, the book says you shouldn't talk about what specific fraction people are of each race (ie, my kids are half Chinese and half white). Instead, the book always uses the term "mixed race" or lists the specific ethnic groups (for example, "Chinese/white"). Yes, this makes sense to me, because historically there have been government policies that quantified what fraction your ancestry would need to be to "count" as a certain race (like the "one-drop rule"), and those policies have always been harmful. And even now, if a mixed-race person ever meets someone who really wants to know the specific fractions of their ancestry (ie, it's really important to this random stranger to find out that you're 1/2 white, 1/4 Chinese, and 1/4 Vietnamese), that can really only come from racist assumptions. This person is trying to figure out what stereotypes to apply to you, and that's why they want to know the numbers. Or they're trying to say that you're not "really" Chinese (it could be other Chinese people telling a mixed-race Chinese person that).
So yeah, I agree that it's problematic to talk about mixed-race people in terms of specific fractions. And it's problematic to discuss which of their physical features look like which race. And it's problematic to say that one sibling looks "more white" than the other sibling. Etc. I feel like this book spends a lot of time telling us things we shouldn't say.
Is that useful? I guess? But if people still have the same framework for thinking about race, but they just know they're not allowed to say their conclusions out loud, does that actually help? I guess then maybe the next generation will grow up not hearing people say those problematic things, so they won't internalize the ideology that goes with it.
Anyway, I agree that we should be aware of the language we use, and the history of it. Chang does a very good job of explaining the history of these racist ideas and why it's problematic when people use certain terminology to discuss race or mixed-race people. But in a practical sense, I sometimes felt like this book was telling me a lot of things we are not allowed to say. And I don't really know what I should say instead? I guess that's not a problem with the book, but with the racism embedded in our society.
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The history of laws surrounding interracial marriage
When I learned about the civil rights movement in school, I remember learning about laws which made it illegal for a white and black person to marry. And then the famous Supreme Court case, Loving vs Virginia, struck down all those laws. What I did NOT know was that this wasn't just about white/black interracial marriage- there were also laws saying white people couldn't marry Asian people. Wow! I had no idea! And I am a white American married to an Asian guy. Kind of ridiculous that I had never heard about this history at all.
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White dads who "don't see race"
This book had many examples of white dads being problematic toward their Asian wives and mixed-race kids. For example, there was a white man who was dating a Chinese woman, and wasn't willing to travel to China to meet her family, what on EARTH. There are white men who don't think it's important for their mixed-race Asian kids to learn about their Asian culture, eat the food, celebrate holidays, and so on.
It's common for white people in the US to not really be very aware of race. To assume that since it doesn't affect them, it won't affect their kids either. You look at your own kid, and all you think about is how you love your kid. Of course you don't see them as a simple Asian stereotype, and therefore it never occurs to you that other people will see them that way.
(Also my situation is different because I'm in China; I'm a minority here. This book is written from a US perspective. Obviously very different from what my son is experiencing as he grows up in China.)
I feel that this is something unique that mixed-race kids have to deal with. If you live in the US and have a white parent, that parent hasn't had the experience of people treating them as a racial stereotype, and so they don't know what their child is experiencing. If both parents are monoracial, well that's a different thing than being mixed-race, and so the parents aren't really able to relate to much of what the kids are experiencing.
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Kids know more about race than their parents expect
Many of the parents interviewed for this book (parents of all races) said they hadn't really talked to their kids about race because they felt like their kids were young enough that it didn't affect them yet. But, the book says, kids do have ideas about race, from a very young age. There are examples of babies who have an Asian mother, and the babies are happy to be held by other Asian women, even total strangers, but cry if someone of a different race holds them. There are examples of toddlers being afraid of black people.
I also haven't talked to my son about race very much. He is in preschool. (My daughter is still an infant. She hasn't even discovered her feet yet. I don't think she knows about race.) I guess I don't really know what I'm supposed to tell him.
My son goes to a public school here in China. All the other kids are (monoracial) Chinese. I wonder if he has thoughts on that. I just assumed that little kids didn't really have any awareness of it, but, uh, why did I assume that? And to me, my son looks Chinese (but I guess I'm not supposed to say that?) but then when I see him next to the other kids, who are Chinese and not mixed-race, well then you can really tell that he's mixed-race white. Sometimes when I pick him up from school, the other kids see me and point out that I'm not Chinese.
(And he always gets Chinese people commenting on how his skin is white, like it's a compliment, which I also find problematic. My FAVORITE one was when we were at a restaurant, and then after we finished eating, I left to go to the bathroom, and then the people at the next table started talking to my husband and son, and they were like "he looks like an international baby"... like... they did not realize he *actually is* an international baby. Apparently they totally missed me being there.)
I guess my son does have thoughts about race. But doesn't have the language to communicate them with me.
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Practical suggestions
I'm glad I read this book because it had some practical ideas which I find useful.
- I should help my kids find friends who are mixed-race. If they grow up being the only one, they will feel like they're weird and different and no one understands them. I don't know why I didn't think of this before- *I* am in some social media groups for international women married to Chinese men, and that's really helpful for me- why didn't I realize that kind of thing would also be really helpful for my son?
- Toys and books which depict mixed-race people and interracial marriage. The book talks about how it's really difficult to find stuff like this! It's hard to find a doll which is Asian, let alone mixed-race Asian. After reading "Raising Mixed Race," I got these books for my son: All About Families and All About Diversity [affiliate links]. To show him that there are all different kinds of families and people. These are really good! I guess I should also find a book for him with a main character who is mixed-race white/Asian.
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It's not just about white + east Asian people
Typically when people think about "mixed race Asian", they think about white + east Asian (ya know, like my kids). But this book makes sure to include a much greater range than that. It includes families from many different Asian countries (including India). And it talks a lot about anti-black racism in the US, and how that is connected to Asian people's experiences in the US, and there's a whole chapter about the unique situation that mixed-race black/Asian people are in.
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Conclusion
I liked this book, and I recommend it if you have kids who are mixed-race Asian. It helped me realize that I do need to think about how race affects my kids' lives, and how to talk to them about it.
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