Describe What You Are by Graham Hardt

Uncommon.  Interesting. Fascinating.  These are all adjectives that others use describe the type of mix I am after I tell them.  Why do I even tell them? Because of the questions that arise from the “otherness” of my life experiences, and because my mixed heritage is made more complexly heterogeneous by the many places I’ve lived.  Explaining that I’ve lived in Barbados, The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, The Bahamas and the U.S.A. and mysteriously have a Florida Driver’s License usually creates an air of exoticism around my persona. 

Without this long-winded delineation, people I know from school or work identify me and sometimes box me in as South Asian, usually Indian.  Why is this? Could it be that my skin tone is brown, I have soft thin dark hair, and I’m built like a cricketer? (I do, in fact, play cricket)  Why did I get placed in the Asian American Ethnic Counselor group freshman year at Yale instead of the group for one of the 2-3 other boxes I checked on the Common App? Based purely on physical appearance it’s understandable to a degree, but come on, my personal data section on the Yale SIS website reads as follows:                                                                        Other                                                                                                                         Black(non-Hispanic)/Af-Carbn: Jamaica, Trinidad                                                                                  Asian/S Asian(please specify): Chinese/Indian                                                                        White(non-Hispanic): British, Scandinavian, German, French

I could throw Native Caribbean (Carib) into the mix, but the limit of boxes is three.  Now, I know there is no way that I could have a flashing neon sign above me announcing my genetic and cultural background, but should having certain physical attributes equate to a news ticker about race for anyone?  My answer is no. The reason? Migration.  I descend from a lineage of German and English immigrants to America on my father’s white side, and English, French, Native, African, Indian and Chinese immigrants to the West Indies on my mother’s side.  Diplomatic migration has made me who I am today, as I have picked up languages, dialects, and cultural cues from Europe and the Caribbean from my experiences living abroad.  I feel that in today’s way-too-connected world, migration really makes all talk about differences in backgrounds obsolete, because anyone with wi-fi is no longer isolated enough to develop completely distinct cultural or racial identities. 

I welcome people asking about my heritage instead of assuming that I’m Indian or Pakistani.  At Yale, I have reached a point in my identity (which I’ve had to contemplate in response to so much questioning) where I feel I should not be judged, nor obligated to judge “what” others are.  I can understand when people get confused.  I confuse myself sometimes.  To questions such as “what are you?” I give my life spiel to those willing to listen for more than a sentence.  In the back of my mind through, I want to respond with words formatted in a parallel structure to those of The Rock: “IT DOESN’T MATTER WHAT I AM!”  People shouldn’t need race to act as a measuring stick to judge oneself against, but they still ask for it.  Ironically enough, after such a great answer to the “what are you” question, people are shocked, disappointed and underwhelmed at my answer to the million-dollar query: How many passports do you have? Just one from the United States of America, with diplomatic benefits of course.