Mixed race

[Doubtfuldaphne]

A silly question really..
Aibu to tick 'mixed race' on my dd's forms? My dh is half Asian half English .. He always just ticks 'white' but I feel a bit sad that he's not acknowledging his Asian background. For my dd I usually tick 'mixed'
It's not all about box ticking.. It's more acknowledging my dd's heritage..

agree with quesadilla. know somebody who continues to describe herself as coloured as it is the only label that strikes a chord with her. I wouldn't use it but she does. She's not dark skinned enough to feel she can call herself black, although other people would describe her as black she wouldn't like that I think! She was adopted by paler skinned but non-white parents, and her precise and exact genetic make up is uncertain anyway.

I don't like those boxes either. I couldn't decide if I was white or irish! both? hmm, which is a more key part of my identity? is there a medical reason to distinguish? which is more important to the GP, and why? and if being irish is more important to me than being white (which i guess it is) then how come the british people can't tick 'welsh' or scottish or english rather than white or british. OH my head was spinning.

Actually though, as Irish people have a one in 17 chance of carrying a cystic fibrosis gene, it is important information. So I did tick Irish rather than white in the end.

FS, there is a wikipedia entry on race and ethnicity in the US census. Sorry, I can't do links right now. I agree with your description of how a lot of US people perceive it, in my experience. Their official categories do sound like the old 18th century science race categories, but they don't mean it in a scientific way anymore. They're now getting confused in the news explaining how the Boston bomb suspects are not Caucasian even though they're from the Caucasus region, which shows the bizarreness of calling people Caucasian, mongoloid etc.

I am like your DH, half white, half Asian and would never not acknowledge my Asian heritage, sad he does that . Wonder why....

Depends how big an influence it was on a person's life thoguh doesn't it. It mightn't seem like denying a huge part of yourself, it might feel like 'oh yea that'.

two boys in my year at school, both half italian. The one whose dad was italian, had an italian sur name, he couldn't speak it, he just brough ham sandwiches on sliced white pan to school.. the boy with the italian mother though, he brought interesting foods into school, he spoke fluent italian, he had an italian first name to make up for his english last name! different lives, different parental roles, different attitudes entirely wrt whether or not they were half italian.

Sorry, read the whole thread now and see why. So sad .

DH is North African and I am a Welsh / Irish mix. I quite often tick white other for the DS on a form because I don't really know what else to tick. My children are British (they have dual nationality like DH) and follow British culture but they are also muslim, have arabic names and speak Arabic to DH. I wouldn't want that aspect of their identity to be totally overwhelmed by a "white British" label.