I used to have a neighbor, Dee, who was a no-nonsense kind of woman. She and her husband were in their early fifties and had already raised their four children and they were, when I lived next door to them, in the process of adopting her sister’s four kids which ranged in age from two to ten years of age. The three older kids’ father was from Kenya, while the youngest one had a father who was Caucasian. I remember a conversation that I had with her one day and I started telling her about taking my girls back to India when they got a little older. I asked Dee if she ever planned on taking her children to Africa. She looked at me blankly and said, “Why? I don’t plan on taking them to Germany where their mother’s or my ancestors are from.”
I didn’t question or challenge her position, but something about it didn’t seem right, although I couldn’t pinpoint my unease. She had a point, after all. Was the kids’ African heritage any more important than their German background?
I think what bothered me then (and still does to an extent) is that those on the outside won’t see the German in them. It is their African ancestry that folks will respond to as they get older.
I ran into Dee at the grocery store over holidays and I asked her about the kids. She said something really interesting for it brought back the conversation we had all those years ago about taking her kids to Africa. Her oldest is now fourteen and had just finished the first semester of his freshman year. Although he had gone through a rough patch, things had settled down as he had a “mentor” in the African American community and the family was spending a lot of time researching not only African history, but the African American experience as well.
I was glad for her son, and even more glad that Dee seemed to be behaving more sensitively to her kids’ experiences than I thought she was capable of previously. Now that her kids are older and are stepping out into life more than when they were younger, I wonder how she might respond to my query about taking her kids to Africa. Something tells me that she might just reconsider that trip to Africa.
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THANK YOU! We have many people who think we should focus on our child’s caucasian and asian backgrounds just as much as her African heritage but what people see is her African American heritage and it is that heritage that she will likely identify with the most…what other people see will be reflected back at her….so we plan to expose our daughter to all aspects of her culture but we plan to very sensitive to her African American heritage so that she is proud of who she is and where she comes from…..it really is about racing well-adjusted children who are proud and comfortable with themselves…Thank you for your story and insight!