Other

Are you:

a. Caucasian

b. African American

c. Hispanic

d. Asian

e. Other

Chinesehawaiianrussianspanishitalianfilipinopuertoricanturkish

Is there a bubble for that? Let me shade

a pie chart instead of this scantron.

Am I Chinese because someone I never met

lived in Shanghai two hundred years ago? Or

should I label myself white because I can

trace my DNA to three different parts of Europe?

Call me a bastard

because my birth broke my father’s first marriage.

Masochist, because I’ll let you hit me

just so I can kiss you back.

Sick because I coughed,

Tired because I yawned.

Happy because I smile

and you buy it.

Classify me with a bunch of half-true lies;

I’ll leave your survey blank.

I wrote this a while back, and though I’m not very proud of the quality of writing, I still feel strongly about the content. Very few things get a rise out of me, positive or negative, but surveys and profiles that request ethnic/racial information but provide limited options have always bothered me. When I wrote this poem “Other,” my frustration was directed at college surveys, standardized tests, scholarship applications, etc. I don’t mind providing my ethnic information as long as I can provide it in its entirety (see below).

Funny side fact in an otherwise serious rant: apparently I’m not even really Chinese. I’m Scythian, which basically means I come from a tribe of nomadic Mongolians that pillaged the borders of China, Russia, and Turkey way back when. My 1/8 Russian comes from another source, but because there’s no way to tell how much of the Scythian was Turkish, it’s not part of the graph.

My irritation with the ethnicity question doesn’t flare up often, but recently, I’ve heard the phrase “of color” used several times in a professional environment. The first time, I flinched and shrugged it off. Before then, I’d only heard the phrase used in Dave Chapelle and decades-old archival footage. Surely, it must have been a fluke.

Then the phrase came up at another meeting. And another. Now more people are using the phrase, and I wonder if they understand the meaning they create by using those two words. They don’t want to say black, Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, or go through listing every possibility in fear of forgetting someone. I get it. But “of color” translates directly into “not white,” and doesn’t that just emphasize the divide between Caucasians (who are often mixed anyway in that most are Euro-mutts) and everyone else? It also groups all non-whites in a single blur of any-shade-will-do; pretty counterproductive when one is trying to be politically correct.

When I first had to answer the dreaded ethnicity question, I asked my teachers what to do, and they told me to fill in the bubble for whatever I’m the most of. My two biggest chunks are equal parts Chinese and Spanish, but there's room for consolidation by continent, right? Take a closer look at that graph and do a little math--I’m technically more white (7/16 or 43.75%) than anything else I could mark (37.5% Asian, 6.25% Hispanic, and don't get me started on the remaining 12.5% being Hawaiian vs. Asian Pacific Islander vs. Native American), but no one looks at me and thinks white.

So what do I count as? Am I just a functional minority, a little bit "of color” tinting all my paint? When I was first hired full-time, the HR director asked the mandatory question of my ethnicity for paperwork purposes (apparently for a staff survey, but is that even legal?). Before I could say anything, she guessed Chinese, but I told her I was also part white, among other things. She flat out laughed, did not believe me, and asked what she should really put me down as. If I can’t check more than one option, and if there’s not a “multiracial” option, I have to go with “Other.”