Identity Crisis

How do you classify children of multicultural families? Something to ponder....

I work for Cultural Care Au Pair as a Local Childcare Coordinator. In this role I have started to befriend the au pairs and host families assigned to me. Recently, our family was invited to a Chinese New Year celebration. The crowd was interesting and multicultural and the food was excellent. Our family (including our kids) had a really nice time, and at the end of the day my husband had a discussion with Lightning (our son who is 4.5 years old). My husband is Chinese and the discussion was about Lightning's ethnicity. The conversation went something like this:

"Lightning did you know that you are both American and Chinese?"

Lightning offers a loud belly laugh and says, "No I'm not! I don't speak Chinese."

"Actually, you are. You know that Mama and Papa are Chinese and so am I. This means that both you and Ginger Snap are part Chinese as well. Both of you are also part American, like mommy."

Lightning pauses to take this bit of information in. Then his face lights up and he says, "Yes, yes, I am Chinese! Daddy listen - azul... rojo...uno. I CAN speak Chinese!"

Now it's daddy's turn to laugh.

And so, my son now knows his true identity... or at least most of it. You see, my children are also Dutch (my side of the family). To make things more complicated, although my children are 50% Chinese, we do not celebrate Chinese New Year. However, we DO celebrate the Feast of St. Nick (Dutch Christmas) and the All-American Christmas. Dutch Christmas (we call it "little Christmas") is held on December 6th. So, the month of December is both fun and busy.

So, back to the big question: how do you classify children of multicultural families? In regard to our family I have heard the terms Amerasian and Eurasian. On television a half-Korean, half-American model referred to herself as a "Halfie". Typically on forms, we claim our children to be "Asian/Other". Just for fun, my husband and I decided to create new titles for our children in regard to their ethnicity. Here is what we came up with:

American + Chinese = Americhi

Asian + Dutch = Asdutch

Dutch + Chinese = Duchi

Dutch + Chinese + American = Duchinerican

We finally settled on:

Chinese + American = Chinerican

The truth... our children's ethnicity is not important. The fact is that our children are beautiful, plain and simple and we are lucky to have them.

Any comments?