Location, Location, Location

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Posted on 11th May 2011 by Tunde in Families |Identity

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Location, Location, Location

Recently my son’s school held an International Day where they could dress to show their heritage/culture.  As my three children sat at the table and discussed the best way for my son to accomplish this I observed how “comfortable” they were with being part of two cultures.  They were equally excited to help my son capture both their Black American heritage as well as their Puerto Rican heritage.  They do not claim one more than the other and they identify with both.

I often hear about biracial and multicultural children who only identify with one culture, have a hard time “fitting in” to either of their cultural backgrounds, or just struggle socially all together.  I thought about how my children’s experience may be different from these children .  I came up with lots of possible reasons.  There are the obvious things like, they are being raised by parents who encourage them to be proud of both of their cultures, they are loved and embraced by both sides of their families and they are taught that all people are the same regardless of their heritage or culture.   However, there was another reason that I kept coming to and that is (more…)

Uniquely Blended

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Posted on 15th January 2011 by Tunde in Families

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How wonderful it is when you and your partner decide to start a family and you are blessed with a child.  When people of the same race have children, chances are the child’s appearance will be similar to the general appearance of others in that race.  Yes, it is true that there is no one set of features for any given “race,” but we have come to expect certain general features associated with certain races.

So a black couple will tend to have children that have appearances that reflect their parents and other black individuals. However, when interracial couples, especially those with very different appearances, have children genetics can sometimes result in uncommon features that lead onlookers to wonder about the child’s racial origin. (more…)