So, I just opened the book, and the picture staring back at me is a man named -- and this was entirely random -- Jan Matzeliger. This gentleman acquired a patent for something called a "lasting machine" that drastically reduced the amount of time it took to assemble shoes. The book lists Matzeliger as an African-American even though he was born, in 1852 Dutch Guiana, of a "Black" mother and a Dutch father. In his youth he learned engineering skills in the machine shops supervised by his father. (That would be the European father who raped his mother and then abandoned him, if I were to subscribe to common folklore). The truth is his Dutch father was married to his "black" mother. Matzeliger emigrated to Philadelphia, in 1873 and took up shoe-making. He died of a work related illness in 1886. By identifying him solely as "black," this history book effectively, and in spirit, erases the fact that Matzeliger's success in his profession was the result of the influence of his European father. Obviously, in Matzeliger's time he may have had no other option but to identify as "black" alone. Unfortunately, this type of prejudice is still being promoted, except the tables have turned and people of African ancestry are now, puzzlingly, often the ones advancing it.

Those who stubbornly cling to the social construct of single-race identities always tell us that "white" people will reject people who embrace a multiracial heritage. In the past this has been true in American history. European immigration from "darker" European nations, around the turn of the century, prompted a racist backlash that hit people of mixed race, as well as "darker" European immigrants.

Nevertheless, there are two large glaring problems with this "white people will reject you" argument. The first error is in assigning one's sense of self to the proverbial "powers that be." It is not for other people -- who are likely ignorant of your personal history and not necessarily concerned with your well-being -- to determine who you are. Leaving one's very identity in the hands of manipulative strangers is not the road to a healthy sense of self worth. It is emotionally destabilizing at best. The second mistake made by monoracial advocates, in this line of thought, is that "white" (as well as other ethnic groups) people are not oblivious to multiracials. They often do, indeed, note the rainbow of differences between persons of color who all proclaim themselves to be "black." My personal experience is to be observed by "Whites," "Hispanics," "Asians" and "Blacks" and approached with "You're mixed aren't you?" on a regular basis.

We live with a culturally enforced, racial identity schizophrenia. One voice commands people to be afraid of the political/social consequences of asking a "racial" question, to pretend we don't notice that someone is mixed until a different voice, someone braver (or less attuned to the social danger involved in the inquiry), walks up and says: "You're mixed (or "Spanish" or "Asian") aren't you?" Then one often finds oneself surrounded by people who admit they had all been curious about you as well. Obviously there are entrenched "white" supremacists who lump all people of color together as "inferior." Those are not the people to whom I'm referring, yet, in their sick way, they recognize differences in mix as well. The way they note it is to make absurd allusions to white ancestry being the only reason any person of partial African ancestry has accomplished anything in life. That is not my point in describing the partial European ancestry of an individual. My purpose was to point out that, in Matzeliger's case, historians have devalued part of the reason for his individual accomplishment by classifying him solely as the child of his mother.

Then there is the curiosity of people of mixed ancestry. Often part African, they sometimes employ the device of language or nationality (Arab, Hispanic) as a means of burying any evidence of African ancestry. Mixed people are often mistaken as being members of these groups, BY members of these groups. I knew a Bolivian woman whom people speaking Arabic often approached. People speaking Spanish or different Asian languages often address me. The other day an East Indian man approached me and asked me if I was -- I kid you not -- Greek and Indian. While I am sure there are many individuals of this extraction, it seemed odd to me because I was not aware of there being enough of them to constitute an ethnic group that the general population would note as recognizable. I said "No" I was not, and he explained that I greatly resembled a woman he knew who was part Indian and part Greek.

Ironically, it may take the influx of immigrants from nations with heavily blended populations to start to ease the grip of the monoracists on Americans of blended ancestry. The physical similarity of mixed-race Americans to themselves causes many of these immigrants discomfort. For a long time I insisted on identifying only with my African ancestry and have gotten into actual arguments with people (often immigrants but also mainstream "whites") about the validity of my claim to a monoracial identity. It appears that, however slowly, the changes in self-identification are growing and here to stay. It may just be that somewhere down the road people who are mixed will simply not be able to "get away" with denying their mix just as they formally couldn't "get away" with accepting it.

Also by Eleanora Hill: