COLUMN: Aliens on our own campus

From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00 From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00We were treated like the subjects of a press conference. My friend and I were surrounded by what seemed to be a pack of eager reporters, each armed with questions meant to probe and investigate.From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00We were treated like the subjects of a press conference. My friend and I were surrounded by what seemed to be a pack of eager reporters, each armed with questions meant to probe and investigate. "Did you feel pressure to choose? Was it frustrating not fitting in either group? How did your parents balance multiple cultures? What did you check for the Census?"From Alan Lowinger's, "The Rest of the Story," Fall '00We were treated like the subjects of a press conference. My friend and I were surrounded by what seemed to be a pack of eager reporters, each armed with questions meant to probe and investigate. "Did you feel pressure to choose? Was it frustrating not fitting in either group? How did your parents balance multiple cultures? What did you check for the Census?" In essence, "What is it like to have parents of different races?" It seemed daunting at first to give my very personal answers to a bunch of strangers. My participation was part of a graduate-level education seminar in the Programs for Awareness in Cultural Education and, being an alumnus myself, I was eager to assist. And for what seemed like an hour, we expressed the deepest and most secret aspects of ourselves to a small class of about 20 students. It was both thrilling and complimentary to hold the attention of an audience by discussing personal stories of struggle and non-struggle alike. For every one response we would give, it seemed that two more hands would shoot up. And then, the smooth flow of question and answer was broken by a peeved voice in the class: "I just feel like we are treating these people like they are not one of us. What are these people, aliens from another planet for us to examine? What are they, outside the world of race?" It hit me. It hit my fellow panelist. And it hit the rest of the class. A flowing, educational dialogue had for a time covered up the truth -- that even in a class with many of Penn's most liberal "diversity-seeking" students, people of mixed heritage are still seen as being foreign, even possessing a certain mystique. In my subsequent reflection, in the waning moments of our Q&A; and after, I found the words "outside the world of race" reverberating in my head. It wasn't much different during last week's interracial dating forum held by Check One, a group to which many in Penn's mixed-race community belong. Although the general feel from the crowd would have indicated that interracial dating is perfectly legitimate, I knew that believing so would be to ignore the fact that many of us have found comfort in Penn's liberal bubble. And like all bubbles, this one must eventually go the way of nature -- and burst. In our little world, where we claim to ourselves that the human race is on the verge of turning multiracial (the infamous Time cover story in hand), I can't help but wonder if that is all a lie. "People who are mixed are simply beautiful, so exotic looking," some claim. "It must be so exciting to be multiracial -- you get the best of both worlds." And thus goes the romanticization of the multiracial individual and experience. Other racial stereotypes, such as those of the African-American male or the East-Asian female, have become glorified and sexualized. These notions, however, do not cover the fact that prejudice exists against both groups. The heart of the matter is that those who are mixed are the offspring of parents who "broke the mold." It is important to remember that only in their lifetimes was interracial marriage officially taken off the list of "illegal things to do" in parts of this country. But even legal sanction did not remove age-old taboos that stigmatized their families and themselves -- taboos that persist today. Rules aside, however, there are still many Americans who see the mixing of different races -- and ultimately, different genotypes -- as vulgar and unnatural. Even many well-educated and self-proclaimed "tolerant" people cannot help but slip into the notion that belonging to more than one race constitutes something foreign. The only thing those of us in the multiracial community all seem to have in common is that we don't seem to belong anywhere else. But don't be led to believe that we constitute some mysterious, "foreign" element. The truth is that I look the way I do, and you look the way you do. I have my story, and you have yours.