Urban Mama

This, That or the Other?

The other day my friend, whose children go to the public school E will attend this fall, told me the pre-K teacher said she was excited to finally get an Asian student in her class. It took me a few seconds to realize my friend was referring to the Schmoop. Of course I know that my son is Asian, but he's also Latino. I don't think of him as MORE Asian than Latino. To me, despite his obviously Chinese surname, he's equally both. I didn't mind the comment at all, but I am surprised that I reacted to the statement with a moment of confusion. If the teacher already considers him Asian, does that mean others will assume he's completely Asian because of his name? How will my children ever come to terms with being, as the husband and I call it, "Chino Latino"? Thank the heavens that our neighborhood in Brooklyn is the capital of interracial families, so my kids will have a lot of company in "other" land, but I wonder if E & D will grow up feeling closer to one culture than the other, or if they will embrace being half and half.

Right now, D's babysitter is a lovely Dominican woman. Between the sitter and Abuela, D is learning Spanish as her primary language. Even the husband, who understands much more Spanish than I do Cantonese, speaks to the Schmoopette in his adorably broken Spanish. I don't want to exclude the children from their Chinese roots, but yes, they are learning Spanish and not Cantonese right now. The husband and in-laws have taught the Schmoop a few words here and there, but mostly we keep him interested in his Asian heritage by reading Chinese-themed children's books. In case you're wondering (most people do), the Schmoopette definitely looks more Asian than Latina, whereas the Schmoop looks more Hispanic (well, more Polynesian, if you see him in  summer). Will looks play a part in how they self-identify? I remember the day on the subway, when D was an infant. An elderly woman told me she looked like a China doll, and then, from across the aisle, pulled at her eyes to make them look "Asian" while she asked, "Is she?" Why yes. And yet, not completely ...

She's SO Chinese

Since D was born, all I've heard from friends and strangers is: "Wow, she doesn't look anything like you." OR "She looks JUST like her Daddy." OR "Did E look that, um, Chinese?" It's obvious that all of the comments are because D's eyes are more almondy than E's, but as a newborn, E looked more Chinese than Latino as well. After about a dozen of these comments, I started to respond with a monologue about how in the animal kingdom young  usually look like their fathers. After all, mothers *know* they gave birth to said offspring, but fathers, well, we all know the mailman (or the handsome other lion with the thicker mane) always rings twice. Still, it bothered me that no one (except for my mother, whom I believe is biologically bound to say all of her grandchildren look like her children) saw any connection between me and my baby.

The growing list of comments ("Are you sure she's yours?"; "It looks like your husband spontaneously generated"; "She looks like a China doll!" etc.) began to annoy instead of amuse. I started staring at a portrait of myself at three months and then studying D's face to make my own connections: "She has my eyebrows/lips/cheeks!" Then, of course, I'd stare at my husband and think the exact same thing. I began to feel like a woman I babysat for in college. She is Jewish and her husband is African American. Their two daughters, however, looked light-skinned but not bi-racial. She told me once that she hated all of the: "Are they yours?" "Are they adopted?" "Are you the nanny?" comments she got at Upper West Side playgrounds. I thought her paranoid, or perhaps secretly -- gasp!-- racist. She knew the girls were hers, so who cares, right? Well, now I know how she felt. It's not that I'm offended by the remarks -- or disappointed that she looks Asian, because I think she's damn cute ifIdosaysomyself -- but the comments start to get old. "No, I'm not the nanny!"

So here she is, my smiling beauty. Apparently a carbon copy of her father, but my daughter nonetheless.