Do You Believe
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By Tene Abayomi
Since the beginning of American history, we have come across many cultures. Many of these cultures have introduced their language to this country such as: Spanish, French, and Italian; and they also have introduced many types of food like, Chinese food, tacos, lagusas, and even pizza. We have been introduced to different traditions such as the celebration of Halloween, the Mexicans celebration of the dead; but like many old tradition in this country, it has become a commerce holiday. There have also been different types of religions’ that have been introduced to this country such as: Buddhism and Islam, each had a big impact on American history in the 1960s and 70s.Looking at this as an overview, we can basically say we are living in a multicultural country.
There are so many cultures mixing with different ones, that there is no such thing as a pure Irish or even a pure African living in this country. Are we really ready to realize that just because your skin shade darker, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have African in yours blood. Are we really ready to defined our identity or some may define it as? “Our culture.” Do we really have a strong mind to learn that we “ourselves” are multicultural?
Learning about our identity can be acceptable for some, but others may not be willing because of the fact, people believe that if anyone that have an ounce of black in their skin they are considered African American or, in other words, Black. In the Kaplan article, Kaplan wrote about a fifty-one year old male name Wayne Joseph who had decided to take a test to see the percentage of African he had in his blood. When the results came back, he found out that he was fifty-seven percent Indo-European, four percent Asian and thirty-nine percent Native American. Wayne Joseph compared finding out that he wasn’t black to finding out you were adopted. Kaplan describes how he felt: “Color mark you, but your membership in black society also give you an indestructible “house” to live in and a “bed” to rest on. I can’t imagine growing up any other way.”
She goes into depth about how light-skinned people in the south married people with a darker complexion than them because they didn’t want their children to be raised in the white society. Soon Joseph began to question his mother and found out his grandparents didn’t want anything to do with their white side. At the end he decided to what he was accomused; an African American. He warned people of color not to take the test; he believes it will cause confusion.
After reading Kaplan article it had proved a point to one of my theories, that some people can’t handle who they really are especially the older generation. Joseph would rather lie and, convincing himself that he is an African American, instead of embracing his true culture. Although he did made an attempt to look up his background, he was too shaken about it and didn’t want to embrace it with a more positive