biracial – whatmamathinks

“That is your mom!! What? How?” – this question has been posed to my white passing biracial son since he was in preschool. I sometimes wonder how it made him feel. By kindergarten, he was so used to this question that as soon as I showed up to volunteer at kindergarten luncheon, he would preempt the question from his peers by announcing “That is my mom. Yes, she is brown. She is from India.”

Once I was waiting in the hallway of a high school to pick up Ryan after a middle school concert. He came out with a few other kids. One girl, upon seeing Ryan greet me and come towards me, exclaimed, “Ryan, IS THAT YOUR MOM?????” And then, with the insensitivity of a 13 year old, she followed up that exclamation with, “No way! But you are white!”

Ryan and I will continue to baffle this easily confused world but I hope one day, the world will integrate colors enough to exclaim less when it sees us together.

Last night, as Sahana, Sean and I tackled the New York Times spelling bee, we got talking about how perception of parents follow us in our lives. Sahana said, “Tell me about it. My friends have told me all my life your mom is so pretty. OMG! Who wants to hear that all the time? Leave my mom alone!” She laughed. I have heard her say that before and we have laughed together about it.

Here is the thing that amuses me – different standards of beauty in the two countries that I belong to. In India nobody would give me a second look. I am old now but even when I was young nobody looked twice. My experience was very different in USA, at least in the part where I live.

I read a few books about biracial individuals who try to find where they belong. Good Talk by Mira Jacobs is a great book to read on this issue.

I see my 16 year old daughter go through life with head phones plugged in her ears. One in, one out to let half of the world reach her consciousness. The other half is immersed in music. The worst thing I can do to her is take away her head phones – life will lose it’s luster. Even if she is not connected to music, she has one earphone plugged in one ear. I have hung up my boxing gloves and given up the fight. With so many issues to lock heads about, I have to be conscious of what is most meaningful to me and her.

A few days ago as we were driving back from a successful swim meet, I heard her sing along to – Balam pichkari jo tune Mujhe maari…… A Hindi song from a popular Bollywood movie. I do not keep up with cinema at all, so of course I was oblivious to the movie or the song. However, hearing her sing a Hindi song at the top of her lungs made me smile and took me back thirty years. I distinctly remember bringing home the latest Bollywood songs to my mother and she disdainfully shake her head at my taste. The songs were not profound or meaningful or classy, they were simply foot tapping fun. My parents denigrated the music of our times, 80’s and 90’s and eulogized the music they grew up with. I personally loved the oldies as well as ‘our’ music. Despite the mock disdain, I would catch my mother humming a modern ditty or tapping her foot to it while a local pujo pandal played the music at an unacceptable decibel level, repeatedly.

When I asked my daughter about this particular song, she said, “You won’t like it mom! It is a Bollywood song.”

I did not show mock disdain for the modern song though, I wanted her to share her playlist of Hindi songs with me instead. Why would I not want some foot tapping fun, zesty music, and hip shaking rhythm? I have my golden melodies to fall back upon and I want these movers and shakers when I sweat on the tread-mill to keep me moving. We are that lucky generation where we have the joy of it all- the past, the present and the future too.

Lastly, I was happy to see the ethnocentric tendencies of my non Hindi speaking, biracial child. She sought out these songs on her own perhaps to cultivate part of her roots, her part-ethnicity, what she can call her own if she chooses to?