The Power of Triracial Mystification

Guy says he can't wait for me to blog about this, so here it goes.

The other day we had someone in the house trying to repair our washing machine. He was an elderly white man with one of those verra verra gentle Jawja accents. As usual, Sunny was in and out of the house playing with his friends.

At one point, his friends burst in and collected him to go outside and ride scooters.

As he was walking out, the repairman looked at Guy, and then looked at me, increasingly more mystified.

"Excuse me, but I'm wondering... those kids... they're black... and you're Chinese... and you're Caucasian..."

Me: "I'm not Chinese, I'm half-Japanese and half-white."

"I thought you were Chinese."

Me: "I'm not."

Guy, in a cheery voice: "Well I'm 100% white!"

"Your kids... they're black... and you're... and he's..."

I finally soothed his mental anguish by communicating that two of the three kids were neighbors, and that Sunny was adopted. He was quite relieved, and immediately launched into a rambling anecdote about a couple from his church who were both white but their kids they had adopted were both black. Then he made his awkward exit.

I'm used to being called Chinese. As long as people accept my correction gracefully, I don't get angry. I reserve getting angry for those occasions when people actually ARGUE WITH ME after I correct them.

Surprisingly enough, this is the first time I have had to answer awkward questions about race when it comes to Sunny. I think a lot of people assume he's my biological son, or else they're just way too polite to ask questions like "Is he adopted or did you cheat on your husband with Tiger Woods or something?" Guy also doesn't really get a lot of questions. A Japanese-American woman he met in a doctor's lobby ended up quizzing him once, but that was understandable, since Sunny had been telling her about his ojiichan.

Sunny is going to get a lot of questions as he grows up, but I'm not that worried about him. He seems less vulnerable than most kids because of his unique combination of self-confidence, extroversion and stubbornness. He's the kind of kid that's always telling jokes and bossing other kids around too much and in general taking things too far... but who is still incredibly popular because he's so dynamic and fun to be around. Kids are always knocking at our door asking to play with Sunny, even though all of them are actually older than he is.

It reminds me of an anecdote an adoptive parent couple told us during training. The father was black, the mother was white and they had adopted two black sons. Their very different personalities led to very different responses when classmates asked them, "why is your momma white?" One would say, "Because God made her that way" and the other would say, "Because she IS!" I'm more of the introverted type who wants to communicate the reason. Sunny is the type who doesn't have that priority, it just is what it is, and if you have a problem with that, well then... hey look over there, it's something shiny! Watch me do a backflip!

I think we'll all have it pretty easy until Sunny hits the teenage years and starts having a racial identity crisis, but I've got a good therapist on speed dial for then.