My mother is Chinese. My father is Black. I grew up in an all white neighborhood. And I look Latino. My fiancée is Jewish. What will my children be? How will society see them? How will I and my fiancée see them? Most importantly, how will they see themselves?

A Chinese-American woman I once dated said I am the most balanced bi-racial person she knew. That's when I was in law school. In law school I was involved in both the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association and the Black Law Students Association. I was accepted by both groups. I had Asian-American and Black roommates. College was not as balanced. I was heavily involved in the Black Students Association and I lived in the Pan-African House. I didn't attempt involvement in the Asian Students Union. I wouldn't have felt comfortable. Nobody would have known I'm Chinese-American unless I told them. It was too much of an effort. In law school, my roommate Jae, who was Chinese and Korean, was the link to my Asian-American socializing experience. If I had not been roommates with him my law school days would not have been much different from my college experience. So maybe I'm not that balanced after all. On the other hand, in college, though I didn't hang out with many Asian-American students, I did take many courses in East Asian Studies. I also took Mandarin one semester and I was in the Tae Kwon Do Club all four years. I've never tried to deny my Asian side. I've always wanted to learn more about both sides of my mixed heritage. Growing up, my mother and grandmother, who lived with us, communicated in Cantonese. My father would cook us grits and catfish on the weekends while my grandmother's specialty was wonton soup. She spent hours patiently rolling the wontons, then we would gulp them down in minutes.

I went ten years only dating Black and Asian-American women. I didn't have a rule against dating White women, but I did have an affirmative action policy. I wanted to end up with a woman of color, preferably brown-skinned so my kids would look like me and be able to see their blackness. Two of my more significant relationships have been with women of South Asian descent. They were my complexion exactly.

Recently, my interest in Buddhism has lessened my preoccupation with color and I will be with a White woman for the rest of my life. But, I still want my kids to be able to look in the mirror and see an image that is clearly of color. I want this because I fear that if they see a white image their sense of identity will not encompass their Black and Chinese heritages. I want this so badly that I once made the shameful statement: "Unfortunately, our kids will look white." Is it possible I would love my kids less because they look white? It's a sickening thought. I don't think that will be the case.

Tiger Woods, a "Cablinasian," who resembles me in appearance to a remarkable extent, does not like to be called African-American. I don't mind being called African-American. That is who I am, but I am also Chinese-American. I think that is Tiger's point. He does not like being called African-American to the exclusion of his other ethnic backgrounds. Most Blacks argue: "Yeah, well Whites see you and treat you as Black, therefore that is what you are." I understand this logic and agree with it to a certain extent. It is important to understand the reality of how society views you so you can better prepare for and handle the obstacles you may face. Yet it saddens me to think that how others view you could be the sole foundation for how you view yourself.

Our kids will be tri-racial. How they look and how society views them will be a strong influence on how they identify. However, I would like to think that how we raise them will be the strongest influence on their self-images. My fiancée and I are on the same page. We will give them a healthy dose of all their cultures, but we will be careful not to suffocate them. Most of the books on our book shelves relate to African-American issues, life, and culture. My fiancée and I work at the public defenders office in Roxbury, Massachusetts, a Black community. Thus, though our kids will be socializing mostly with Whites, there will be other ways that their cultural heritage will seep into their consciousness. They will see regularly their Jewish grandparents and aunt, as well as their Chinese grandmother. Special trips will have to be made to Florida to see their Black grandfather. Chances are they will go to Hebrew school, and though they won't go to temple every week, the Jewish holidays will be celebrated. They will see that both of their parents link their cultural identities to their occupations, to helping the disadvantaged who are disproportionately of color.

I often say I am half Black and half Chinese. But that is a crude manner of expressing my identity that makes it sound as if I could split my body and consciousness into two halves, one Black, the other Chinese. My identity is a complex mix of overlapping and intermingling layers of cultural consciousness that cannot be given a well-defined label. I travel between three worlds which themselves overlap and intermingle - Black, Asian, and White - and I usually don't feel fully understood or accepted in any of them. My children will have a significantly harder time being accepted by Blacks which I can only hope will not lead them to reject their Black sense of identity. Maybe Tiger Woods, who by just being, has opened a national dialogue on the complexities of race and identity, will be their role model.

Feel free to send general comments,
or suggestions on how to raise tri-racial children to:
AVPolk@aol.com

©1998 all rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part prohibited without
the express written consent of Interracial Voice.