Mixed Race People - Growing Like Crazy

The New York Times published a story about how college campuses have unprecedented numbers of multi-racial students. The Multiracial and Biracial Student Association at the University of Maryland is highlighted in the story.

I know about this--I live with a multi-racial college student--my son. His mother is African-American and I'm white/Jewish. This is a fine and attractive young man who is living in a time when he has something in common with the president of the United States.

Race is not necessarily ethnicity, as is brought out in the article and in my experience. My wife and I are not especially enthnically identified, which perhaps made marrying and living together easier. We have had nothing but acceptance and welcoming from both sides of our family in our 24-year relationship. We don't feel like anyone is looking at us oddly when we go places. Actually, I don't think a whole lot about it, unless I read a story in the New York Times and understand how much things have changed in the world.

Our son identifies himself as Black--and would likely be categorized that way by someone who meets him, but ethnically he's just a middle class American--not any particular color.

My other son is married to a beautiful woman who is half white and half Asian, which makes my granddaughter a quarter Asian. That's my all-American 21st-century family and I like it.