I HAVE THE RIGHT...
- not to justify my existence in this world
- not to keep the races separate within me
- not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity
- not to justify my ethnic legitimacy
I HAVE THE RIGHT...
- to identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify
- to identify myself differently than how my parents identify me
- to identify myself differently than my brothers and sisters
- to identify myself different in different situations
I HAVE THE RIGHT...
- to create a vocabulary to communicate about being multiracial
- to change my identity over my lifetime - and more than once
- to have loyalties and identify with more than one group of people
- to freely choose whom I befriend and love
By Maria P. P. Root, PhD, the author of “The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier”