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I think of myself as American first, and my ethnic background isn't really anything more than an interesting topic of discussion, as it has no real impact on my life. I do occasionally get students in my class for the first time questioning whether I'm really Miss Nakamura because I don't look Japanese/Asian.
My wife, Grace comes from the most ethnically diverse place in the US, Hawaii, the only state IIRC that has no ethnic majority; everyone is a minority. The only majority there is that most people are of mixed ethnicity, Grace is Japanese/Polynesian. The population is about equal parts Japanese, Filipino, white (chiefly Scottish, IIRC), and Polynesian with two dozen other groups in smaller numbers. There does, in my experience, seem to be a tendancy to think of themselves as Hawaiian first, and American second, and a member of their ethnic group third.
Her pet peeve is the number of people who don't seem to realize that Hawaii is part of the United States, and she's a native of the United States just as they are.
Questions about her ethnicity, however, don't bother her at all. She likes talking about the blending of her father's Japanese traditions and her mother's Polynesian (or ethnic Hawaiian) traditions, and we practice many of the traditions she got from her parents in our home.
However, if you walk into our home and find someone wearing a Kimono or Cheongsam, it's gonna be me, cuz she's strictly a mainstream American fashion girl, while I like to experiment.
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I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.
~Steven Colbert
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