I Am More Than My Blood
Jelly Babies of all shapes and sizes. http://en.wikipedia.org/
This is my premise behind calling for no more boundaries amongst humanity:
I look around me and sometimes feel as though I don’t belong anywhere. This is probably because I belong to more than one land and many cultures. Yes, I was born in the United States, but I also belong to Japan which holds claim to half of my DNA. I was one of those people who used the “other” box to describe my background, during a time before those official documents allowed for more variety of choices. Although I’ve finally reached some sense of comfort in being different, it took years before I stopped stressing whenever I had to fill out any kind of form. Back in those days, I was simply disgruntled because institutions didn’t have as large a viewfinder as I did. And I wasn’t alone, though it sometimes felt like I was.
Young And Mixed In America (movie credit: NY Times)
My ancestry is diverse: British, Scottish, French, Irish, and Japanese (that I know of), and I have looked upon every branch of my history with utter fascination. I have always taken pride at the diversity of lessons and events whose specific blend ultimately resulted in me. I’ve also had the privilege of experiencing other cultures outside of the USA, so I never wanted to lay claim to only one specific coordinate on this planet. The only thing that works for me, and gives me a sense of belonging, is to claim Earth as my home and humanity as my culture. If only more people felt that way, then maybe we could see the big picture as we should see it. It sometimes feels like the only other people who get this concept are those who had the opportunity to view our tiny planet from outside of our atmosphere, in the grandeur and loneliness of outer space. Out there, there are no visible borders which prevent finding solutions that allow us to accept one another and live in harmony.
As a writer, I’m fascinated to see how we use our own experiences when writing our literature, even when it takes place on far away worlds. Now of course, this is normal because writers usually use events in their own lives as inspiration for creating a story and its characters. But from all of the plots that we choose to write about, one in particular reigns supreme. This most common of themes is the fight amongst bloodlines, races, or whatever we want to call it. This warfare of the visual provides a dramatic backdrop, but of course, it also never gets resolved because the perceptions and emotions change as minutely as the position of each participant in motion. And our real world mirrors the actions in literature. It seems that we won’t see past our own prejudices until we find some kind of common belief that we can all hold to be true.
Half-Asian Conversations (movie credit: David Yim / makingmovies101 YouTube channel)
I decided years ago that I’m lucky because I belong to that cultural group that is not pure-blood. Yes, this is a personal conclusion that I’ve reached after having lived my entire life not fitting in anywhere, and viewing the world from the outside because of my complex genetics makeup (which we all have, by the way). But as civilization continues on, the amount of people who can’t claim to be pure-blood increases. I have to say that I find this scenario to be a hopeful turn of events, because there might now be a chance for people to finally look outside of those physical attributes that solidly try to fit a peg into a conforming hole.
Now, I’m not claiming that all people of pure-blood show prejudice, because they don’t. Just like some of those who are multi-cultural don’t always have open minds. But many times, we look outside of our familiar using a viewpoint that others on the outside are a viable threat. After all, we are a sum of what we’ve been taught. And, in my opinion, herein lies the crux of our problem. We are taught to fear what we don’t understand. That needs to change.
Embracing the unknown has brought us to our future. But we threaten our continued future when we refuse to let go of our past. No, we shouldn’t forget the past, but we definitely should learn something from it. The lessons of becoming one, while still respecting our differences, will go far when we’re trying to build a world where we all have an equal say towards our collective future. It’s about time that we lay claim to humanity as who we are, so that little by little, the divisions become a thing of the past. Then we can finally concentrate on fixing those tragedies that keep getting in the way of our unity. Of course, none of this will be easy, but it is possible if we’re all in this together.
Multiculturalism is finally being talked about more openly. Here are a selection of articles published by the New York Times on the complexity of racial blending. They were enjoyable yet emotional, because they spoke of the complexity of a life that we all live everyday:
I’m glad that we are finally starting to have this conversation about the future of racial perceptions. For too long, many of those in previous generations were the unspoken race who refused to give up any portion of our background, because they were all equally important to us. Now, the future is being confronted head on by the reality that even the divisions of old cannot hold sway when they run up against that most powerful of motivators, LOVE.
So, maybe finally, people will stop asking with that confused look on their faces, “What are you?” (see 4:18+ minutes into Half-Asian Conversations). That would be an awesome change of events.
Students Choosing All of the Above (photos credit: Stephen Crowley / NY Times) |
More info:
If you want to find out more about multiracial advocacy, then you might want to look into this organization who is working diligently to increase everyone’s awareness on the subject: Project RACE. Perhaps such a premise as this might help to diffuse an explosive topic, and allow us all to concentrate on finding a way to stand together as humans as we pave the way towards a prosperous future for everyone.
[...] studios make good on their promises to hire up-and-coming talent from different socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds, we will not see much growth in the diversity amongst characters on the small screen anytime soon. [...]
[...] and not the group identity (which is too 2D). I’ve written about this before here and at the Urban Times, because I’ve spent a lifetime filling out ridiculous government and medical forms that try [...]
[...] of their views are forms of Christian extremism. They need to wake up and remember that we are a multicultural country now and we need to live in 2012 not 1800. They always say, “This nation was founded on [...]
[...] In 2001, after 9/11, I created my second online project: Dichotomy: It Was a Matter of Time and Place. Living in Washington, DC on the day of the attacks, it became apparent that those of us who experienced them directly had a very different viewpoint than those who experienced them via the media. And I wanted to highlight those differences. So, I constructed one of those “where were you” websites but with an important twist. I asked people to submit stories of where they were and what they experienced from two different viewpoints: as participants (those who were in DC and New York City) and as witnesses (those who lived elsewhere and experienced the attacks via the television, newspapers, and the radio). And then I paired these two different viewpoints on the site to emphasize that difference. Read one pair of stories and then hit the refresh button and two more stories appear, one from each group. There are some amazing and powerful recollections on the site, including one from a person who was in one of the Twin Towers. Most importantly, the stories are so human. And that is the foundation of art: a human experience. [...]