My children are, in the common lingo, “mixed”.  Or, if they want to be hip when they grow up and get into identity politics, they can call themselves Hapa, or, indeed, whatever the hack they want.  If they want to call themselves a mutt, the way Prez. Obama did, fine with me too.

But despite my wish to chant along with “We are all the same deep down inside” and “We are the world”, reality always sets in when I fill out forms for the kids, especially when I register my kids for school.

Ethnicity:

White.

Black.

American Indian.

Asian.

Hispanic/Latino.

“Other” is not an option provided. Even if it were, I probably wouldn’t have chosen it anyway: There is no way I would self-identify my children as “Other”. The school district needs to recognize them for who they are. They are not OTHER, thank you very much.  (Edward Said would be very proud indeed…)

For 7 years, I checked TWO boxes, and inadvertently, there was only one check left when the form was returned back to me to “check for accuracy”.   The funny thing is, sometimes “White” was selected, and sometimes “Asian” was selected: the school system can’t seem to make up its mind.  I guess it depends on what my children looked like on that particular day… I would stubbornly check BOTH boxes again and send it back.

That’s why I was so excited when I was filling out this form below: Has got to be the most PC form I’ve ever seen.

I do wonder though: Now that “Multi-racial” is a choice, under what kind of circumstances would one select “Other”?