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In America we live in a self proclaimed melting pot society where people from many different countries, races, and

religion have come together to form the diverse country that we have today. However a true melting pot takes all the colors of the world and dissolves it into one generic color. America is far from anything generic, we are a coalition of colors, traditions, and unique personalities all living under one banner. We are a people who fiercely fight to protect who we are and where we are from. America is the very opposite of a melting pot, in fact our country now more than ever is fighting to protect our racial identity to the point where there is continued racial strife in our country. However in my family racial identity takes on a entirely different form in how our family interacts with each other, how society has viewed a family as racially unique as mine, and how it has shaped my own biracial identity. In my family the melting pot theory is a proven entity. My parents adopted 21 one children from all over the world. We are composed of Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Caucasions. The United Nations has nothing on us, in fact Im sure we argue far more and get less done than even they do. However where my family differs from the United Nations is that we are not divided by color or culture, our family is united over who we are, not where we are from. With a family as racially diverse as ours many people would ask what its like having so many different races within our family. The answer is that in our family we are color blind, we dont see the difference in the color of our skin or where we may have originally come from. We simply see each other as brother and sister. My younger brothers Noah and Isiah, are like two peas in a pod, they do everything together from playing video games to fighting with each other over who has to take out the garbage. The only difference between the two of them is that Noah is black, and Isiah is white, but they dont see that way. They see things the exact same way any other normal blood related brothers would see each other. This is because in our family we are not divided by color or culture, we have successfully proven the melting pot theory by the fact we have melted into one generic color in how we see each other. We are not family that is defined by how the society thinks we should be defined, rather, we have defined ourselves. My mom (who is white) has had countless experiences of awkward reactions when she would be out in public with my infant black siblings. She says people would stop her and ask if her husband was black. She would reply with Then my child would be brown dont you think? I would experience strange looks when I would go to a elementary or middle school to pick up a sick sibling, particularly when it was one of my white siblings. Because we live in such a predominantly white state my family sticks out like ketchup on a white linen suit. As a result the patterns of perception in the community around us has always been a challenge. While racial identity may not of mattered within our family it sometimes mattered a great deal to others in our community. My brother Adam was adopted from Calcutta, India and had extremely dark skin and noticeably unique facial features that caused him to stand out in both positive and negative ways. Girls thought my brother was extremely handsome and getting dates was never his problem. However gaining acceptance from the parents of the girls he was dating was an entirely different matter. Although he only spent a few of his early years in India and was fully assimilated into American culture in how he dressed and spoke, he could never quite convince the parents of his girlfriends that he was normal. He was subjected to a much shorter leash than

most teenagers his age when it came to dating and this type of attitude from others continued even during his first marriage. His perception of his racial identity was different from the labels that others wanted to place on him. He felt he was American, but others felt he was not based simply on looks. However times are changing and the racial diversity of my family is not as unique as it once was. According to a Oct 12th 2011 New York Times article In Strangers Glances at Family, Tensions Linger, One in seven new marriages is between spouses of different races or ethnicities, for example. And among American children, the multiracial population has increased almost 50 percent, to 4.2 million, since 2000. While this may be the case my family has had to deal with the slow growth of social acceptance outside the walls of our home. Within our home our families racial identity is as generic as apple pie, however its the outside world that wants to highlight the rainbow of colors that is my family. Even in a family as diverse as mine I stand out in one very unique way, Iam the only biracial child in my family. My biological father was Chinese and my biological mother Caucasion. However I must have inherited a large amount of genes from my biological father as I look mostly Chinese. In fact I tend to disappoint many people when they ask where Im from and I respond, Ogden. I think they are expecting a more exotic locale. During my formative years I never felt like I was different within my family or at school. It was during my teenage years that I begin to understand that I was biracial and that it stood out to those in my new social circles. I didnt go to the same middle school as the rest of my elementary school classmates, due to boundary restrictions I had to start a new school on my own. It was here that I went through a cycle of understanding about my biracial roots. In the textbook Intercultural Communications in Contexts on page 180, it talks about the different biracial identity development stages. Awareness of differences and resulting dissonance. Awareness that they are different from other children. Sense that they dont fit in anywhere. I went through each of these stages during my middle school years. I knew that I was biracial but I didnt know that it mattered to other people. During my first day of gym class in my new school I remember fielding a kickoff during a football game and taking it all the way back for a touchdown. However instead of getting congratulations my classmates made comments like, Look at Bruce Lee out there, and I didnt know Asians could run so fast. This was all new to me as I had never experienced anything like it during my elementary school years. Over the coming months I began to recognize that I was indeed different from my other classmates in how I looked and how I was treated. In many cases I was no longer referred to by my name but as the Asian kid. For the first time in my life I felt different and it got to a point where I felt embarrassed to eat Chinese food as it seemed like a stereotype. The textbook also talks about how a minority identity often develops in different stages on page 181. One of the stage it refers to is Resistance and Separatism, where it talks about a period of dissonance, or a growing awareness that not all dominant group values are beneficial to minorities. I reached this stage in high school when I decided to stop trying to fit inl and instead decided to separate myself from the dominant group of people in my school who didnt accept me because I looked different.

I became a very isolated person with an extremely negative attitude towards anything that I felt was conformity and I resisted anything that was normal because I felt I was not. When my peers would tease me I would respond with both verbal and sometimes physical force. After a while people stopped teasing me but the result was extreme isolation during my high school years. Years have passed since then and I have long since developed what the textbook refers to as self acceptance and self assertion. I know that I have a unique look but I no longer think that Im different because of it. I realize that Im half Chinese but I do not feel any association to that culture. It was somewhat ironic to me that when I visited China in 2011 I found that I looked nothing like the people there and in fact was treated like any other American tourist. My personal experiences with being biracial and growing up in an extremely diverse family have helped me to discover my racial identity. I finally understand how unique my family is, not because of we are all adopted and of different races, but because we dont see each other as different. My family is the melting pot in its purest form. I have realized that America is also the melting pot that it claims to be but not in definition. We are a nation of different races and cultures all thrown together into one pot where things dont always melt or mix together. Instead within that pot is where America is still defining its racial identity and that product is far from finished.

References
Oct 12th 2011 New York Times article In Strangers Glances at Family, Tensions Linger, by Susan Saulny

Communication In Contexts Sixth Edition, by Judith N. Martin and Thomas K. Nakayama Pages 180 and 181

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