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| Monday, May 12, 2008 | |
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Student Art Projects
 Become an American Today! I believe American identity and the concept of the "gray race" is an important issue that we often overlook. The goal of this piece is to question if multiracialism and blending cultures has a positive or negative effect. It conveys both points of the issue; the positive aspect, which is unifying our country and realizing we are "American". The other side being the loss of our unique individuality that every American has. If we were to become a gray race of combined cultures, how do we distinguish our selves from each other? Although the majority of our population is still white, multiracialism is increasing exponentially. For the first time, the 2000 Census gave people the opportunity to choose more than one race to describe themselves, and 2.4% of the country's 281.4 million people did. By 2050, 21% of Americans will be claiming mixed ancestry. That means in 50 years, the amount of multiracial people in America will be a little more than ten times what is today. In the United States marriages between blacks and whites increased 400 percent in the last 30 years, with a 1000 percent increase in marriages between whites and Asians. We have to take into account that many people don't answer ethnicity questions truthfully, which goes back to the main issues of the propaganda piece. Most people find it hard to choose more than one item, and often claim their race as what they are more familiar with. For example, I'm am Asian American, however I always claim myself as Asian without taking into consideration I am also Polish and German. So, when we reach the day when we are all interracial, would we just claim ourselves as American? We might be able to look at each other without seeing a difference of color or race, and could that be when we are equal. If we reach this day, of a jumble of race and culture, will we be able to distinguish ourselves from each other, would it even matter? I enjoy my family's several cultures, with all of its food, dancing, and traditions, because they make me different from other Americans. Multiracialism isn't just a national occurrence, but a local and communal one as well. In JCP itself, more than half of the students are interracial. It is hard to stand on either side of this issue, because I personally don't agree or disagree with either side. This issue is complicated, and this piece is only suppose to make the viewer recognize a topic that is often neglected. By Tammy Pheuphong |
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