Talat, a 16-year-old Turkish boy, kept asking me the question. He lived in Istanbul when I met him in June of 1983. I told him about the indigenous population (I have a bit of their blood) at the time of the European discovery of America and the successive waves of immigration that came: the Northern Europeans, the Southern Europeans, those who were stolen from Africa (and from themselves). Later they came from all over the world. I mentioned the melting pot (denied by some).
But his question does not have an answer.
Americans are not defined by blood. As many have noted an American is defined by location and the acceptance of the creed: the” self-evident truths” of the Declaration; the Constitutional restraints that begin with things like “Congress shall make no law …” or “No State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. I don’t believe that I succeeded in explaining it to Talat.
Twenty seven years later I got a census form with ten questions on it. Two of them were about race. Like Talat, they wanted to know what blood I was. They offered the usual choices.
I thought about it for a while and then checked the box for “other” and wrote: American.
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17 hours ago
Oh, so I click on "zero comments" to comment. Wasn't intuitive, but there you have it.
ReplyDeleteAs someone who plays at health services research, I understand these questions and why they're important. If we didn't know people who identify as African American or Latino, or disabled, or all sorts of other things have different socio-economic status, health outcomes, etc., we might deny it or never do anything to fix it. Sometimes we need to measure things, even when they are only perceptions, just to define the present reality.
But I hate putting things in boxes that don't belong there. Age works; goes in a box nicely. Address, even income if defined clearly. But race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, even gender? Not boxy things. I do dream of the day that everyone realizes this and we really don't need them for any purpose.
The pertinent question is! Why would anyone feel the need to define themself as a/an _________ American or why would anyone feel the need to define someone else as a __________ American?
ReplyDeletetwo thoughts
ReplyDeleteTom: I think new immigrants traditionally thought of themselves as hyphanated Americans until they got through the transition period.
The problem of course are those who want to continue it indefinitely and even worse those who profit by promoting it.
drK: It is nice to contemplate the day the boxes are not necessary. How long to wait? Perhaps John Roberts suggestion in a decision disallowing "reverse" race discrimination is pertinent: "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
The census asks about race (which it often gets confused) because members of various races--really ethnic groups--are: a)often proud of their heritage, and b)want a count that shows how important their group is, and hence how much political and economic/social power they might/should have in this country. It is not a nefarious attempt by Big Government to control us. To say that we will EVER get past such group-based senses of identity is to engage in wishful thinking. I am "through the transition period" but am still proud of my German heritage--not that I want government aid for being a German-American or anything--unless, of course, Irish-Americans get such aid!
ReplyDeleteDid you list yourself on the census as German-American?
ReplyDeleteAs KW points out the census asks about race to establish how much political and economic/social power an ethnic group might/should have. Isn't that in itself a de facto perpetuation of racial/ethnic division?
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm a little late coming to the party, but here goes...
ReplyDeleteRace doesn't seem to me to be a very well-defined category (biological or otherwise) and historically it seems to have occasioned many pernicious misuses, so I choose not to self-identify. I do wonder if the attention paid to racial identification on, say, census forms, perpetuates a race-consciousness that isn't entirely healthy. But, that's not a sentiment I'm willing to make too much noise about... as KW points out, many people find some fulfillment in their racial self-identification.
On the birth certificate application for my new daughter Amelia, there were places to identify the race of the mother and of the child. (As the incidental male, I wasn't given any place on the application form to make such an identification.) My wife Jenn identified herself as "American," a category she had to write in. We did the same for Amelia.
Wayne, I noticed you put "reverse" in quotes when talking about "reverse" race discrimination. Does anyone other that me see see the term "reverse" discrimination as not only unnecessary but nonsensical. Discrimination is discrimination. Literally it would be something akin to a double negative.
ReplyDeleteI agre with you about what it would mean if I had said simply reverse discrimination. Some people use it differently. I thought the quotes would indicate a sort of "so called" flavor to reverse.
ReplyDelete