THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 22, 1995 TAG: 9506220010
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Letter
LENGTH: Short : 34 lines
The front-page article ``Can you choose one?'' (June 11) was quite interesting to me from both social and personal perspectives. My son, who is multiracial (mother, Korean, and me, a white American), has experienced similar situations right here in Virginia.
One day about five or six year ago (I think he was in the fourth or fifth grade), my son came to me and asked what he was - Asian or white. I asked him what he wanted to be. He said he wanted to be like me. So, I asked, what's the problem? He replied that when filling out a questionnaire at school, he marked white under the racial categories and that the teacher, a black female, insisted he change it to Asian.
The hang-up wasn't with what my son saw himself to be but with a society that his teacher represented to him. Here was a boy who was identifying with his dad, but the teacher couldn't accept it. Let me tell you, I was ready to march right down to the school and raise a stink, but my son asked me not to.
You see, it's always the grown-ups with the problems. Children normally work things out. It's sad, but children do a better job of judging others based on character and honesty than do adults. We are afraid to give other races a chance because it somehow makes us feel ``less than.'' I'm talking about all races, not just white.
JOHN A. LEWIS
Portsmouth, June 12, 1995 by CNB