U.S.A.
September 7, 2020
THE ASIAN REPORTER n Page 7
Dual identities challenge America’s race labels
By Sally Ho
The Associated Press
I
t was just 20 years ago that the U.S.
census began to allow Americans to
identify as more than one race. And
now, the country is on the threshold of
seeing the name of Kamala Harris —
proud daughter of a Jamaican father and
Indian mother — on the national ballot.
Harris’ historic nomination for vice
president on the Democratic ticket is
challenging America’s emphasis on
identity and labels.
While her dual heritage represents
several slices of the multicultural and
multiracial experience, many have
puzzled over how to define her — an issue
people of diverse backgrounds have long
had to navigate.
Harris has long incorporated both sides
of her parentage in her public persona, but
also has been steadfast in claiming her
Black identity, saying her mother — the
biggest influence on her life — raised her
and her sister as Black because that’s the
way the world would view them.
“My mother instilled in my sister, Maya,
and me the values that would chart the
course of our lives,” Harris said in her
speech at the Democratic National
Convention to accept her party’s
nomination. “She raised us to be proud,
strong Black women. And she raised us to
know and be proud of our Indian heritage.”
A 2015 Pew Research Center study
found that multiracial people in the U.S.
were growing at a rate three times faster
than the general population. A majority
said they were proud of their mixed-race
background, but had been subjected to
racial slurs or jokes. And about 25% said
they were bothered by people making as-
sumptions about their racial background.
Harris herself has lamented how others
feel a need to define her, despite how
comfortable she is in her own skin.
“I didn’t go through some evolution
about who am I and what is my identity,”
she said in a June interview with the Los
Angeles Times’ “Asian Enough” podcast.
“And I guess the frustration I have is if
people think that I should have gone
through such a crisis and need to explain
it.”
For others from multiracial back-
grounds, however, the journey can be
fraught. On her Instagram account,
Amanda Neal proudly declares that she’s
“HELLA BLACK, HELLA PINAY,”
referring to the demonym for a woman of
Filipino descent. But the 30-year-old voice
instructor in Chicago says it’s taken much
time and self-reflection to fully embrace
both sides of her racial identity.
As a young girl, Neal said people often
tried to make her choose one identity over
the other because her mother is an
immigrant from the Philippines and her
father is an African American who grew up
in Chicago and Hawai‘i. And she said some
Filipino relatives told her to avoid
sounding or acting “too Black.”
“It turned into an anti-Blackness that I
didn’t even know I had,” she said.
Sheila SatheWarner’s two sons are
Black and Asian, just like Harris.
SatheWarner is Indian American, and her
husband is of African Caribbean descent
via St. Croix.
While one boy looks more Indian and the
other more Black, SatheWarner said she
has stressed their Black heritage, much
like Harris’ mother. She encourages them
to embrace the natural texture of their
hair and reminds them to never play with
toy guns for fear of them being targeted by
police.
“We’ve always talked to them about both
their heritages. We have been committed
MULTIRACIAL EXPERIENCES. Benjamin
Beltran, 26, poses for a portrait in Washington. For
most of his childhood, Beltran identified with his
dad’s roots as a Filipino growing up. At times, that
made his white mother worry he was forgetting her
ancestry, which traces to Scotland and Ireland.
(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
to visiting St. Croix,” said SatheWarner, a
middle-school principal from Alameda,
California. “They are both Black.”
The subject is inextricably linked to the
“one drop rule,” a legal principle rooted in
slavery that anyone with even a drop of
Black lineage could not own land or be free.
Today, it manifests itself in the way people
visually categorize others and the social
hierarchy between races, said Sarah
Gaither, a Duke University professor
studying race who herself is Black and
white.
No one carries the same experience or
should serve as “identity police,” said
Gaither, who stressed the importance of
allowing multiracial, multicultural people
to define for themselves who they are, and
accepting that a biracial person’s identity
may evolve.
Officially, the U.S. census claims that
about 3.5% of U.S. residents identified as
two or more races in 2018, up from 2.4% in
2000. But when Pew conducted its own
survey, its number increased five-fold
when accounting for people who identified
as one race but said that at least one of
their parents was a different race or
multiracial, as well as people who had at
least one grandparent of a different race
than themselves or their parents.
And though respondents were allowed to
identify as more than one race in the U.S.
census beginning in 2000, the race
category options still are not all-encom-
passing.
Continued on page 12
Japan’s “flying car” gets off ground, with a person aboard
Continued from page one
view.
The SkyDrive project
began
humbly
as
a
volunteer project called
Cartivator in 2012, with
funding by top Japanese
companies
including
automaker Toyota Motor
Corp., electronics company
Panasonic
Corp.,
and
video-game
developer
Bandai Namco.
A demonstration flight
three years ago went
poorly. But it has improved
and the project recently
received another round of
funding, of 3.9 billion yen
($37 million), including
from the Development
Bank of Japan.
The Japanese govern-
ment is bullish on “The
Jetsons” vision, with a
“road map” for business
services by 2023, and
expanded commercial use
by the 2030s, stressing its
potential for connecting
remote areas and providing
lifelines in disasters.
Experts compare the
buzz over flying cars to the
days when the aviation
industry got started with
the Wright Brothers and
the auto industry with the
Ford Model T.
Lilium of Germany, Joby
Aviation in California, and
Wisk, a joint venture
between Boeing Co. and
Kitty Hawk Corp., are also
working
on
eVTOL
projects.
Sebastian Thrun, chief
executive of Kitty Hawk,
said it took time for
airplanes, cellphones, and
self-driving cars to win
acceptance.
“But the time between
technology
and
social
adoption might be more
compressed for eVTOL
vehicles,” he said.
Chisato Tanaka contri-
buted to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — The annual light
display honoring victims of 9/11 is back on,
according to officials, who said New York
health officials would supervise this year’s
tribute to ensure workers’ safety amid
concerns related to the coronavirus
pandemic.
“This year it is especially important that
we all appreciate and commemorate 9/11,
the lives lost, and the heroism displayed as
New Yorkers are once again called upon to
face a common enemy,” governor Andrew
Cuomo said in a statement.
The announcement came days after the
National September 11 Memorial &
Museum cancelled the Tribute in Light
over concerns the coronavirus might
spread among crews creating twin
columns of light to represent the World
Trade Center in the Manhattan sky.
Alice Greenwald, president and CEO of
the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, thanked
former New York City mayor Mike
Bloomberg, Cuomo, and the Lower
Manhattan Development Corporation “for
their assistance in offsetting the increased
AP/Henny Ray Abrams
Cuomo: Health workers to supervise annual 9/11 light tribute
costs associated with the health and safety
considerations around the tribute this
year.”
“This year, its message of hope,
endurance, and resilience are more impor-
tant than ever,” Greenwald said in a
statement.
The Tunnel to Towers Foundation
recently decided to hold an alternative
9/11 Never Forget ceremony after the
National September 11 Memorial &
Museum announced family members
would not read the names of the nearly
3,000 victims because of the pandemic.
The foundation’s tribute will be held just
south of the memorial plaza and relatives
will read the victims’ names, with
mask-wearing enforced and podiums
sanitized after each speaker.
A legacy to honor,
roots to remember.
Your life is filled with love, honor and rituals that will be passed
through many generations. Dignity Memorial ® professionals can
assist in helping you pass them on. We are the largest and most
trusted provider of funeral, cemetery and cremation services.
Let us help you plan ahead so that your personal legacy lives on.
FINLEY SUNSET HILLS
Mortuary & Sunset Hills Memorial Park
6801 SW Sunset Hwy. | Portland, OR 97225
503-292-6654
LINCOLN
Memorial Park & Funeral Home
SKYLINE
Memorial Gardens Funeral Home
11801 SE Mtċ Scott Blvd.
4101 NW Skyline Blvd.
Portland, OR 97086
Portland, OR 97229
503-771-1117
503-292-6611
DignityMemorial.com