When you are Caught in Between

What can a person do when they feel they are on a median between two worlds. Not worlds related to professionalism or business, but on a more personal level. What can possibly be done when they feel a syndrome of color blindness marks their path?

I often feel so lost and confused and unable to decide how I should live my life. Its like a tundra of unclassified decisions. Should we go this route or the other one. This of course is all situated around color and what it does to a mixed family. On one side you have your African American heritage and on the other you have the Caucasian heritage. Which do you choose? Or should you simply live your life the way it was meant to make you happy? Can you really be happy when your faced with questions day in and day out? Questions like, "What nationality are you?" Or, "Your Mexican, right?" What difference does it make? And what do you do when you have your spouses side criticizing you for how your raising your children and how they think you should teach them to choose their racial side? It is unending and more than anything else, it is wrong. But the fact remains that criticism reigns and it seems that the decisions that are made are never good enough.

The fiercest arguments me and my spouse have had have been over how his family views us and how they react to our living style. They believe because we have African American heritage our children should automatically choose they are black. Not mixed. I don't think this is fair and I also don't believe it is their decision to decide for anyone else. I've taught my children that color is not an obstacle, but your own individuality can be. They should not have to pick sides and this issue should not be something to haunt them for their whole lives. But is it going too? Society is so fickle and in laws are even more so. Ultimately though, I believe anyone with mixed heritage should be the one to decide what ethnic background that they want to choose on any forms they are confronted with. Even though this should not be an issue, it is.

However, the point is, if you feel self assured in who you are and what role you want to have in life, then this other petty stuff about color, etc; should not have that big of an effect on you, yet it does. It's very difficult when you feel you can't even have total acceptance in your own family. If this is the way it is, how is a child suppose to feel when they try to gain acceptance in society? This is something that all mixed race families should stop and consider. How do we change it? Is it avoidable and will we ever move past it? One can only hope that this type of ignorance will simply vanquish and a normalcy will take its place. People are people and color is only a color when society or an individual in particular wants it to be.