Back to Ask the Experts Page Back to NYSCCC Home PageAn adoptive parent writes:
I'm a biracial person (half Caucasian and half Asian) who looks very Asian. I identify more with being an Asian American and consider myself a person of color. Some families who are White and adopted transracially have been calling themselves Asian American families and/or Families of Color. My reaction is that they aren't either of these. Their children are. I don't understand why they drop the description of multiethnic or interracial families. What's wrong with this term? Sometimes, I feel they are co-opting my identity or stealing my identity. I don't think the parents who are White would really know what it means to be Asian American or a person of color, so why do they use this term? Thank you.
John Raible Answers:
I can't answer your question exactly, since I don't presume to speak for others (for example, those white people who describe their families as families of color). But I do have some observations and thoughts on the topic.
I understand your question to be whether it is actually appropriate for white people (or as you refer to them, Caucasians) to call themselves families of color. As a person of color myself--and one who grew up with white parents and siblings--that kind of labeling does strike me as a bit odd, as well as inaccurate. By claiming to live in families of color, aren't they really saying they see themselves as PEOPLE of color? And doesn't this imply that they are no longer white?
In my own case, I usually say that I grew up in a white family, although lately I have started to describe my nuclear adoptive family as an interracial or multiracial family, since there was one child of color present ( i.e., me), and we did have to deal with racism. However, I would never describe ours as a family of color.
On the other hand, as the single adoptive parent (who is also biracial) of two African American boys, I do think of the family I formed in adulthood as a family of color--since all three of us are people of color. Had I partnered with a white individual and adopted my black sons as part of an interracial couple, I'm pretty certain that I would not have called the family we formed either a white family or a family of color, but rather an interracial one.
From reading the newsletter of Pact: An Adoption Alliance, a group that supports transracial adoption and that calls their member families, families of color, I think I understand why they use that language. Apparently, they advocate for white parents to think of themselves as no longer heading white families after they adopt children of color. They do this in recognition of both enduring racism and certain public hostility (in some locales especially) to race-mixing.
I think they would say that white parents MUST become anti-racist, and that this begins by recognizing that their families formed through transracial adoption will not be seen as white by society at large, and that that is not necessarily a bad thing.
I have thought a lot lately about how we name and describe our families. For example, I have imagined adopting a child of a different culture, let's say, just for argument's sake, a Native American child or a Jewish child. If I wanted to embrace my child's culture, I would definitely join groups where I could meet other parents like myself AND where I could interact with Native and Jewish parents.
I would value the chance to learn from Native families and Jewish families--that is, families headed by Native and Jewish parents with Native and Jewish kids. But I don't think I would start referring to my own family suddenly as a Native family or a Jewish family, because I am not Native or Jewish.
Moreover, I think my friends who are Native and Jewish would agree with my decision; I think they might easily be offended if I started implying that I am part of the Native American culture and community or the Jewish culture and community simply because I adopted Native or Jewish children. I feel strongly that it could be seen as insensitive of me to claim either of these groups as my own, given the histories of genocide and oppression against both groups, and given what non-Natives and non-Jews (like myself) have taken forcibly from both groups. For me to individualistically take one more thing--even something as seemingly trivial as a label--would feel like I was perpetuating the same racism that each group has suffered for hundreds of years.
Having said that, I feel equally strongly about the need for white people to become active anti-racists. I think this goes hand in hand with taking responsibility for raising a child of another race. And I also think white people who take anti-racism seriously, and who move to multiracial neighborhoods, send their kids to integrated schools, and who fill their homes and social networks with friends and loved ones of color DO become different from other white people who live much less integrated or transracialized lives.
For this reason, and based on my research with white people who grew up in transracial adoptive families, I think some people can develop what I call post-white identities. That is, they know they are still white and benefit from white privilege, but they also know that their experience stands for something, and they become white AND something more. Post-white identities seem to be formed out of long-term relationships of caring with individuals of other races OUTSIDE their families. For example, they might have a spouse, partner, or best friend for life who is African American, and belong to a mostly African American church and live in a predominantly black neighborhood. By becoming immersed in black culture, they are both European American AND African American culturally--even though they still identify as white racially.
So, to go back to your question, I'm not exactly sure why different white people choose to call their families families of color. To me, it seems more accurate to talk in terms of post-white identities and transracialized families. I offer these terms as ways for all of us to think in new and creative ways about how we can integrate our lives and lifestyles by forming real and lasting relationships with people of various races.
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5/22/2006