Cool Forum! Intro's? - Page 5

[HipGal]

Yay! I'm so glad this forum got started!

My dh and I both have various European/Scandinavian roots. We have one bio son and one daughter who was born in China (adopted last spring). We are all trying to learn Mandarin. Looking forward to sharing more with you all soon.

[aprilushka]

Originally Posted by Beppie

I am interested to hear of other families with roots in India...

I am causasian-American, and DH is from southern India (Kerala). DH's entire family still lives in India, so that is hard on him. Dh will be applying for US citizenship this year. We have 2 little girls, who both have dark hair and dark eyes, but we've been surprised by how fair their skin color is, almost the same color as mine (German-Slovakian ancestry).

I wish DH would teach them either Hindi or Malayalam (his native language) as they grow up, but he's reluctant to do that. He says they should grow up learning Spanish, since so many people speak that here in the U.S.!
Anyone have ideas on how can I get him to change his mind?

I don't know about Malayalam, but I should think Hindi is actually very potentially useful in business and India will only be increasingly important as an economic power in the future. Since not that many American born speak Hindi (as opposed to Spanish), it actually could be more of an edge in the future jobmarket than Spanish. That's how I would sell it. It also obviously is a connection to the culture which is also important, although it's not the language of the hearth, so to speak. At any rate, having two languages from an early age will probably only make it easier for them to learn Spanish as a third later (or another language as a third). That's actually my plan -- Russian and English from toddlerhood, and a third language (I prefer Spanish since I know it myself, but it will be their choice) hopefully starting up later in elementary school.

[hhurd]

Hi everyone. My dh and I are caucasian and our 5yo ds is biracial (caucasian/afro-american). I'm glad there's a new forum to lurk in!

[marybethorama]

How'd they slip this forum by me? ;)

I'm already behind in posts. But that's okay. I'm so excited to see this forum.

I'm Mary Beth, married to dh for many years. We have three boys (now 11, 9, and 6). We live in Western MD where dh is a professor and I'm an adjunct.

[bigeyes]

Well...we're really not multi-cultural in action because ds's biodad split and he hasn't been exposed to his culture much, so I've kind of fallen down on the job there, I guess. But we're getting there. The rest of our household is caucasian mutts German/Irish/English/Dutch with some Native American thrown in but ds is half Mexican, 1/4 dutch, maybe 1/32 Native American and 31/32 German or something like that?

The mixture of races here has been great for us though. We have some friends down the road who are from Mexico, and ds is friends with their son who is teaching him Spanish. They have also introduced him to authentic Mexican food as opposed to what I call white people mexican food, which is really all he's known before.

He also has a friend at school who is teaching him some Tagalog and another who is teaching him Thai. There is a local TV show that has a Hawaiian word of the day, plus what you pick up just from daily conversation and between dh's work and the exploration we do by being new here we're learning a lot about Hawaiian culture. I've got one Native Hawaiian client who teaches me about Hawaiian folklore and religious beliefs, so we're getting a lot of information about a bunch of different cultures in a short period of time. I'm glad that he's curious and able to soak up all this stuff so quickly, it makes me feel a little bit better about dropping the ball so badly before.

[MillingNome]

O.M.G.

It here!!!

This will be a quick lil intro as I should be preparing for class.

I'm a European mix and the same goes for dh and ds. Dd is Black, Caucasian and a pinch of Native American. Without trying to make it seem like an effort, dh and I have worked to make sure she is surrounded by people of many cultures. The desire to be part of multi-ethnic communities figured prominently in our choice of her schooling and where we live. At 14 years old, she moves seamlessly between just about any type group of people. Maybe because of how and where we live, her exposure to bigotry and racism has been very limited. We talk about race issues as they come up and I do worry about what judgments will be made only on the basis of how she looks. I've tried at once to shelter her while still letting her know there may be a reality out there that is different than the world we have created within which we roam.

[FroNuff]

Wow, I'm so surprised, but happy to see this forum. It's been a long time in the coming.

I only pop in and out of MDC, in general, but I'll still introduce myself here. I'm Tia, mama to 3 girls, ages 5, 4 and 2 months. I identify myself as Black American -- my mother was Black and my father was Penobscot and Ramapough (which is a mix in itself). My husband is White American of Ukrainian and Slovak descent. We've been married for 8 years.

We live in a diverse area, however, it is not always fully embracing of other cultures and we still get stares from time to time. Our families are used to us, but we are still "different", not so much because of race but more because we're odd ducks who do things a little different than what's norm around here.

Right now, my cultural struggle is church/religion related since I'm the only Black person, or POC in our church and it stinks. The people are nice, but I wish there were another brown face to see, if anyone knows what I mean. We're at this church for the long haul, so I need to find ways to deal with this, rather than being negative about it.

Sorry for the novel!

[momof3ejs]

Hi! I'm so excited to see this forum!!!! MDC rocks!
Okay, I'm Judi (german, english, scottish, native, and everything in between), married to one great guy!!! (american black- self described, west indies, native, irish). Together we have 3 beautiful children- Erma 4 1/2, Elora almost 3, and Elmotie 13 months. We live in the midwest. We do our best to expose our children to all different kinds of cultures, races, lifestyles.

I am semi-crunchy, AP and my husband is pretty mainstream: He tries, but... He says its a cultural thing. All of the people in his family are VERY mainstream , and they give us a hard time. We live in a very predominantly white area, and it's hard for us to meet other families who are similar to us with children. It seems like most of the people around here with biracial children are older, a lot younger, or just not friendly

I look forward to talking with all of you and getting/giving some great ideas, advice, support, and comfort.

[rambunctiouscurls]

Yay! a multicultural forum!
ok.. so I'm half Somali (my mother) and half Yemeni (my father). H is white (a mix of German, Irish, and a dash of native american). I believe dd is a perfect mix of the both of us.
I'm trying really hard to speak Urdu(I grew up in Pakistan) and Somali with her but I get lazy most of the time . especially since I'm so fluent in English and have been here so long.. excuses, excuses.
anyway, I'm glad to have this forum for reinforcement.

[eepster]

Wow, I totally missed this forum.

I'm mostly Irish-American (with a little New Jersey Dutchy) and DH is mostly Chinese-Canadian (with a little Philipino.) DH is supposed to be teaching DS some Cantonese, but has been extremely lazy about it. For some annoying reason all the Chinese for children stuff is in Mandarin or Hunan.

[WC_hapamama]

I'm of Japanese (mother), French, Scottish, English and Dutch ancestry (last 4 are my father's), and my DH is Japanese-American (4th generation).

Neither DH or I speak much Japanese. Some polite phrases, food words, and some curse words. All but 1 of our 6 Japanese grandparents are/were second generation (Nisei)... my grandmother immigrated in the early 1950s. She met Grandpa when he was serving in the army in Occupied Japan during the Korean Conflict. My mother and her brothers all speak some Japanese (not exactly fluent), but my in-laws and their siblings don't for the most part.

My mother and her siblings are/were all married to or partnered with Caucasians, despite my grandmother making her opinion that they should marry other Nikkei quite clear... to the point of disowning my mother for a while after she married my dad (only her sister visiting from Japan made her change her mind).

My in-laws are much more culturally Japanese than my mother's family is, there have been some growing pains for us. I'm familiar enough with Japanese culture to where most things I'm used to, but occasionally there's something that comes up that throws me for a loop... like my in-laws having a butsudan in the house.

Until fairly recently, my oldest 2 didn't realize that my red haired, blue eyed father wasn't Japanese. LOL

[amitymama]

I am white American and my DH is English. We met in Germany and now live in London with our 22mo DD, and another on the way. Even though we speak the same language there are enough cultural differences to keep things interesting, to say the least.

[kimiij]

I'm west indian (black american) and my bf is white. We're not married yet, but looks like it might be heading that way . Very excited about this forum

[Quate]

I too just noticed this forum, since I usually hang out on the TTC boards. I am a northern European blend, identify as white American. DH is Chinese (we think with a little Russian mixed in) and is supposed to become a US citizen very very soon. Hoping for kids, and hoping we can raise them bilingual, which means I need to work on my Mandarin! Also hoping to move to China for a while in the next couple of years.

[imahappymama]

Yea!

Originally Posted by chicaalegre

I speak English to dd, and dh agrees that he should speak Spanish to her, but he often forgets or just speaks English anyway. It's frustrating, because his English is far from fluent and my Spanish is far from fluent, so I really want us both to speak our native languages so she learns them correctly. I guess I'm not that worried about it, but I don't want her to be confused.

In terms of culturally mixing our families, we plan to celebrate American and Mexican traditional holidays, foods, customs, etc. I would really like to find other Latino families in our area so that dd has other Spanish-speaking friends, but dh tends to be very mistrusting of other Mexican immigrants and doesn't want us to.

Interesting. My dh and I have had these same issues. I'm from the US and he is Mexican, or rather, was, as he is now a citizen here. We've been together 12 years and have been very flexible with respect to language and the kids. They learn bit by bit and have a tendency to speak in the language of the speaker to respond. We travel to Mexico every year and they learn heaps while we're there. We had to learn each other's languages, which took a long time, but we did it! The suspicion that your husband has of other Mexicans is so Mexican, if that makes sense. We don't associate with others for the same reason. I have discovered that there are reasons for that, but I don't want to hijack the thread!

[tranmama]

Great forum!

I'm a white American with mostly European ancestry (English and Scottish, primarily). My husband is American-born Vietnamese. I have an older son by a previous marriage to a white man. My "forever" husband and I just had a baby daughter together 5 months ago. Joe and I have been together ever since my son was a year old, so he's "daddy" in my son's eyes, though my son does have a good relationship with his biological father, too.

So, we have a mix in our family. There aren't many families like ours in the area where we live. We do have friends (2 other couples) who are like us, though: white and Vietnamese with mixed children. I don't notice looks when we're out-and-about, but my husband does. I guess I don't care enough what people think to notice their looks!

I am looking forward to the trip to Vietnam that our family will be taking in 2 years. Part of me would like to wait, though, until DD is old enough to remember it. But, I'd like my son to see where part of his baby sister's roots are from. And DH has never even been to Vietnam, so he'd enjoy it immensely. I'm sure we'll go again one day when DD is older, too.

DH is going to buy Rosetta Stone Vietnamese for DS and I to use during homeschooling (we're going to start this summer with a "trial run", then will probably do homeschooling "for real" at the start of his 6th grade year). I think it would be fun for DS and I to do together. I've tried to learn in the past, but Vietnamese is SO DIFFERENT! I've always been horrible at learning other languages! Wish me luck!

[cyndimo]

Quick intro...
DP and I are both white american -
I'm Jewish, been in US many generations, generally from eastern europe;
She's Catholic, and her family refers to themselves as wester european mutts... mostly they think of themselves as being from St Louis.
DS is African American and came into our family through domestic adoption.

Looking forward to adding this forum to my regular MDC rounds!
- Cyndi

[Halfasianmomma]

Yay for this forum!

About moi:
I'm bi-racial, born in Québec. Mother is québécois French with a smidge of Irish in her heritage. Father is Vietnamese with a smidge of Mongolian somewhere in his heritage. I grew up speaking French, but having been thrown into English daycare, I quickly became bilingual. In a way, I grew up at the cross-roads of three very different cultures: the Québéecois, the English Canadian culture and the Vietnamese. It was always very tough for me, especially with the Vietnamese culture, because I really felt like I didn't belong (I still don't speak the language except for food and baby talk!).

My DH look like a regular white dude. His mother is Tchekoslovakian gypsy, and his biological father was French, but his adoptive father was Norwegian. He definitely identifies more with the Norwegian culture than with the French (in fact, he's got a bit of bias when it comes to the French!), most likely because he spent over a year living in Norway when he was 16.

DH has a son whose mother is Caucasian, and we're expecting a little girl who'll be a true blue blender mix of cultures. With DSS, we've tried very hard to expose him to different traditions and cultures. We celebrate Têt, the Lunar New Year, and DSS is very comfortable eating all kinds of Viet, Chinese, Thai, and Japanese food.

For our daughter, we plan on using the OPOL technique so that she learns French from me and English from DH and DSS. She will be attending French school b/c of the laws that exists here in Québec, but I would like to have her learn as many languages as possible, if she's so inclined. Being bilingual (there was a time where I danced/taught tango and spoke decent Spanish), has opened so many doors for me; I want my child to have those same opportunities.

tranmama...good luck learning Viet! It's tough one to learn but in a way, it's simpler. The verbs are all imperative with suffixes or prefixes to indicate tense!

[AladdinsLamp]

I'm so excited about this forum!!!

I'm white and american but still have family back in the old country (england). My dh is filipino american (half and half) and his parents divide their time between the US and the PI.

We are raising ds spanish/english bilingual (I speak spanish, dh does not) and are hoping for a third language (mil's filipino language - pampangan) to get some traction in our home in the future. Dh does not speak his mom's language, and that loss makes us very sad.

We are hoping for ds to be fully bilingual, native spanish and english speaker, and fully literate in both. We would be thrilled for ds to be conversational in pampangan.

[gethane]

Oops, I ended up doing an introduction post on another thread so I'm double posting.

My three oldest are biracial (black/white). We live in rural Nebraska (town of 12K, county seat, but still pretty rural). I met my exh at college. After college we moved to Kansas City. But after I got pregnant with my 3rd when my first was not even 3, and my exh got fired from his job that provided health insurance, we moved to nebraska to live with my parents until we figured out what to do.

We didn't really expect to stay in this rural area, but my exh got a job in a town just 30 min from my parents, we ended up qualifying for a loan from the Rural Housing Development, and voila, here we stay. Once my kids started school, I didn't really want to move them. Yes, there isn't much diversity here (though they aren't the only biracial kids, there are some AA kids, + some asian kids), but they've grown up with the people they go to school with. People don't think of them as "those black kids that just moved in" which would be my fear if we moved. My oldest, almost 17, has a great set of dreds and has been asked in a nearby bigger town if the girls he was talking to could take a picture of his hair. It's very weird.

We STILL get comments. We do still experience racism. After I remarried and had 2 lily white kids the differences I experience depending on which "family" I'm out with are striking.

And though I'm a huge Obama supporter, I'm afraid to put up an Obama sign or bumper sticker for fear of vandalism. And I don't want to put my teenagers through that. At our local caucus I overheard someone shouting "A vote for the darkie is a vote for McCain," and "If Obama was meant to be president it wouldn't be called the White House." Oh, so clever. Hah. Obama still won my local caucus.

My challenges as a parent of biracial kids is different than it was when I was also part of an interracial relationship. It was much more in my face, I felt, when I was married to a black man. Now people assume my kids are adopted, at least, that's what many people ask.

I worry about my teens future. They are not familiar in any way with black culture. My ex has never taken them to meet his family (an 8 hour drive). They've grown up with a white mom, white step father, white step siblings, white grandparents. I do my best, but I've never been out of the midwest myself so .. well. ya know. I'm not the best source of info either. My oldest daughter (15) worries too. She's told me that she worries that when she goes away to college she's going to be pigeonholed.

Life's a changing though. My dh, my 2 youngest, and my 13 year old (maybe) are moving this summer because I'm going to law school. My two oldest want to stay here with their father and my parents to finish high school (can't say I blame them) but they'll be visiting me in my new, hopefully more diverse, area (unsure where that'll be just yet).

Sorry bout the book. I'm really excited to see this forum! Not sure how I missed it was here for 3 weeks!