"R"andom Things-- Rain, Respect the Shoes, Race

Weather's been weird the last few days. The temp can't seem to rise past double digits. It'd  be raining for the most part of the day, then it would kinda' stop in the afternoon, and the sun would come out just long enough to remind us that it's still there. So at the end of the day, deciding whether to walk home or not, you couldn't really tell if you'd be caught in the rain or bask in the sun.

A bit of sun shower tonight, for example, during the walk home.

Once I get home, a way for me to relax is to go the computer (yes, I apparently don't spend enough time in front of the computer at work) and get a dose of my blog reads. One of my fave blog, respect the shoes, (I love how her posts are so engaging) talked about her childhood and how her heritage played into that.

Which made me remember this documentary I once saw when I was just randomly flicking thru' the channels. It was a film about family, racial identity, inter-racial marriages. From where I stand, the creator of the film might as well be talking about me and my family, or what my family could potentially look like a generation or 2 down the road, give or take. My family plays a big role in my life. My family is an immigrant family. I'm in an inter-racial marriage. So is my sis, which makes my nephews and niece "half-races".

The most interesting part I found in that film was the part when the film creator "interviewed" his younger cousins, kids, and asked them the question "What are you?" (or something to that effect, it's been a while since I've seen the film). Most of them had these confused looks on their faces. One of them, I think, actually answered something like "I'm a person(?)". And when he posed the same question to his older cousins, in their late teens/20's, they all practically started their response with their race, as in half Japanese/half white, or part Japanese/part Irish/part something else, you get the idea.

(Of course, like I said, it's been a while since I've seen the film but you get the gist...)



That's quite telling, no? And very interesting...

A friend at work, who's Caucasian and married to an Asian person, once told me how the daughter was asking if she's mixed and how (because that's what she was asked at school), and the friend told her how she should respond the next time she's asked. That she's "shaken, not stirred". HAH! Love it!