Multiracial meditations

How does one begin to discuss the experience of belonging to more than one “race”?

“It’s really up to the participants,” said Dr. Maude Hines, organizer of the Portland State and Multnomah County Libraries’ 2012 Everybody Reads project, which will hold a panel discussion titled “Growing Up Biracial” Thursday, Feb. 16, at the university’s Millar Library.

The discussion will focus on the panel members’ experiences growing up as multiracial individuals and will be presented in the context of The Girl Who Fell from the Sky (Algonquin, 2008) by Heidi Durrow, the novel that is the focus of this year’s Everybody Reads program.

The panel will include associate professor of the PSU Black Studies Department Dr. Ethan Johnson, graduate student Adrienne Croskey and undergraduate Kevin Thomas.

When asked about his experiences as a multiracial individual, Johnson said, “Most of it was around schooling and relationships.” Having grown up and studied in Oakland and Berkeley, Calif., he explained that his relationships and educational experience would be his main topic at Thursday’s discussion.

“In predominately white schools, I was identified as being a black person. In predominately black schools, I was identified as not being black enough,” Johnson said.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky tells the story of the daughter of an African-American soldier and a Danish woman in Germany. The protagonist, Rachel, spends years of her life among various parts of her multicultural family before finally ending up in Portland under the care of her African-American grandmother. The novel follows Rachel as her personal and racial identities change with events in her life.

“Part of the Danish aspect is that there’s a lot of Andersen’s Ugly Duckling about it,” Hines said of the book’s cross-cultural approach, referring to the 19th century fairy tale by Danish poet Hans Christian Andersen. “It is an experience that I think a lot of people of mixed race have had at different times historically in the United States…different kinds of perception in different environments.”

Each of the panel members will bring unique perspectives to the conversation, and Hines hopes the audience will weigh in as well.

“That’s why I think a panel discussion is so appropriate, because you’re getting three or four people with different perspectives,” she said. “Always the most interesting part is the Q-and-A. It would not at all surprise me if we end up getting a lot more perspectives from people in the audience.”

The range of perspectives on the issue can be quite wide, Thomas said. Elements of geography, time and gender can have a drastic impact on the nature of one’s experience growing up multiracial.

“If you are in a rural, isolated area, that’s going to be a totally different experience compared to an urban place that’s really diverse,” Johnson said.

He also highlighted Portland’s special role in the discussion.

“Oregon has one of the highest rates of interracial marriage in the country,” Johnson said. “I think it’s really interesting that here almost 50 percent of black people marry outside of their race. That’s something very unheard of in the rest of the country.”

The “Growing Up Biracial” discussion is just one facet of the 2012 Everybody Reads project, which spans the month of February and features multiple events and discussion groups, including upcoming discussions about child rearing and the Albina District, and a visit in March by author Heidi Durrow. The project is Multnomah County Library’s realization of the widely-adopted One City, One Book project.

“You all read one book and try to gather around the themes,” said Terrilyn Chun, public programs coordinator of Multnomah County Library. “All the programs are based on the themes of the book.”

Even today, the theme of racial identity can be particularly challenging, and often a sensitive one, in the multiracial community.

“It is consistent that my black and biracial students discuss race and identity as being something challenging. That can be from being denied renting an apartment to having negative experiences with teachers in schools,” Johnson explained. “There are many different areas that they’ve experienced challenges. We have a ways to go.”

But Johnson noted recent steps the U.S. has taken to move the race issue forward.

“The census now says that you can be multiracial,” he said. “It’s not just a cultural shift; it’s a real shift, a structural shift.”