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Cool Forum! Intro's?

13K views 167 replies 150 participants last post by  Swan3 
#1 ·
I just wanted to be the first to post. lol But this is a topic very near and dear to my heart, I thought a round of intros might get us started.

I'm Joy, I'm interracial (part black, white and native). I married a white man, we have two sons. A two year old and a 7 week old. Both boys are pretty light skinned, light hair and in my DS2's case, blue eyes, but that may change. As it stands now I'm pretty much raising two kids who don't share my skin colour and have been assumed as the nanny before *Grrrrrrrrrr*. However, I'm okay with their skin colour, and have to let them form their own identities. My father was bent on me being black and American (I was born and raised in Canada and love being a Hoser) so I know not to force the issue with my children and that chances are, they will celebrate their whole identity if not identify completely with it. I don't know if that makes sense, but I have a 7 week old so I'm sure you'll give me some latitude. *G*

We also live in Toronto, which makes being interracial and a multicultural family pretty easy, despite a few morons assuming me as the nanny, but on the other hand, if that's the worst I receive, I'm pretty lucky in the larger picture.
 
#103 ·
I'm very happy to have found this forum!

I am a white American, raised without religion (unless folk humanism is a religion?) married to a Lebanese guy (raised in a liberal Muslim family) who moved to the US as an adult. We live in the US.

We are planning to have a baby within the next year or so, and I think a lot about how to pass on my husband's culture to our child. We speak mostly English to each other, and some Arabic. We're veg*n and have our own hybrid culture that includes includes music, food, dance, literature and values from Lebanon as well as from the US. (In reality, I guess all couples have a unique hybrid culture, regardless of cultural origins.)

One of the biggest challenges we face in the "outside world" is just total lack of understanding of and too many assumptions about his culture. I worry a little about the racism any child of ours will face in the US and the West. Yet overall I feel our diversity will enrich our child's and our lives.
 
#104 ·
I just noticed this forum was here today.

I'm half Puerto Rican, a quarter Native and a quarter French. DH is Irish and Norwegian. Our DS has blonde hair and green eyes like his daddy and DD has brown hair and darker skin like me (too young to tell what color her eyes will be yet).
Most of DH's family is very rascist and didn't always accept me entirely (with the exception of his sister, who is married to a man of color and is a very close friend of mine). We don't see that part of the family or allow them around our children.
My father was born in Puerto Rico and moved here when he was 5 with my grandparents. He learned to speak english when he was in his teens.
I speak French but not much Spanish. We all spoke English growing up in my household and I took French for 7 years in school.
Nice to meet you all.
 
#106 ·
I'm so glad this forum is here and hope to get to know you all.

I am white American and my DH is African-American. We've got two beautiful kids: 4yo DS and 2yo DD. We live in Portland, OR, an accepting but not so diverse city, IMO. However, we moved from NJ seven+ years ago and our families are far away on the other coast.
 
#107 ·
Hi there! I'm WilliamsMama from NYC and I'm glad to see this forum here on MDC! I was beginning to wonder how much diversity was here on MDC.

I'm 37, half Korean and half Black and DH is Assyrian and Scottish.
Our DS is a wonderful mix of both of us, although he does look mostly like me.

I grew up in very multicultural environments and am glad that my son is, too.
 
#108 ·
Hi

I'm Canadian, my partner is Turkish and my son, C. (5) is American. I'm an expat living in the USA. My son was born here (USA). Partner is currently in Turkey. We have spent several month long vacations in Turkey, but that is all the exposure he has had, well, besides being with his father and another turkish friend.

Partner doesn't speak Turkish too him, at least not as much as I would have liked him too. Son tells his French teacher that he can count in Turkish and then he makes up words. Its cute.

At one time I found a thread on MDC discussing parenting and multi cultural families and was very interested in reading other peoples experiences so am happy to see this forum finally got approved!

ttfn
 
#109 ·
Howdy all!

I'm white and DH is Japanese/chamarro (Guamanian). DH was born and raised on Guam and came over to the states when he was 15. His mom is Japanese and his dad is half Chamarro and half Japanese. His older sisters were both born in Japan.

We have two kids that look multiethnic. They have the Asian eyes but lighter hair instead of DH's family black. They have darker skin than I do but in the summer they turn a lovely brown shade due to having pacific islander in them.

I bugged DH for a long time to only speak to the kids in Japanese but he gave up early on. I guess he expected immediate results ha ha! All the Japanese the kids know I taught them
. My FIL (MIL passed away) visits from Japan once a year and the kids get all kinds of fun treats.

My DD loves the new Ni Hao show. It kind of bums me out that there are no Japanese kid shows.
Yikes! I'm writing a book!

Anyway...

I'm so glad this forum finally made it!!
 
#110 ·
Great to see this forum and the huge diversity around!
I'm Dutch, dh is Philippino. We met in the US and lived there for 10 years (not all of it together), ds1 was born there. Then we moved to Belgium, where ds2 was born.
At home we speak mostly English, although dh's Dutch is getting much better. Now he's even studying French since he works in the French speaking part of the country. Ds1 is bilingual with a preference for Dutch. Ds2 says about 5 words in each language, definitely understands both. Dh tried to speak Tagalog with the kids for a while but didn't keep it up unfortunately. We'll be visiting his family this summer - I wonder if they'll pick up some. They all speak English pretty well, tho, so maybe not.
Looking forward to seeing more on this forum!
 
#111 ·
I just want to give a brief intro because I am happy to have this forum. Myself, I am a heinz 57 (at least that was my mom's nic-name for my sister and me.) On her side, her father is straight up white blonde scandinavian, and her mother is lapp, or Sami, "eskimo" from the northern tip of scandinavia. My father's side is Jewish with his father's half from eastern Europe and his mother's half from the middle east.

Either way. I have never identified as a white american person, and based on all the ridicule I faced growing up, no one else identified me as that either.

My first husband was native American. But we are divorced now and he lives a block down the street. My current husband is ****** mcwhitey and we struggle a bit, but I am growing and learning to understand and love this part of my life.

I live in a very multicultural area (by choice) and feel uncomfortable in other places, but some of these other places I hope to be more comfortable with because I don't want to live in this house forever.

And yeah MDC for finally giving in and giving this forum!!
 
#112 ·
Really cool forum! I am Bulgarian, came to the US at 20 with my family and now a US citizen. DH is Chinese American, and also 1/8 Vietnamese and 1/16 Japanese. We have 3 bio kids who look very half-Asian and look more alike than like either of us, and one adopted DD who is Bulgarian Roma (gypsy) but looks a lot like both of us (has DH's skin tone and my features).

I tried to speak Bulgarian to each of the kids for their first few years but gave up when they became increasingly fluent in English, and in fact, DH who is extremely fluent in Bulgarian, persevered further before giving up too... We have been living in an area with very few other Bulgarians so it would have been hard to have any sort of immersion. We go to Bulgaria every couple of years but somehow our kids manage to find other English speaking kids or teach their Bulgarian cousins English...

Culturally, we incorporate traditions from both. We think it is fun for the kids to do this. DH knows more about the current Bulgarian culture than I do. He keeps up with music developments, politics, etc. My mother said not too long ago that he is more Bulgarian than we are...


Nice to meet so many other mixed families!!
 
#113 ·
This is so nice!!
I'm Afghan/Azeri(Azerbaijan), I was born in Kabul, actually, i was the last child of my Afghan family to be born in Afghanistan, by late 1984 all my paternal family established in Uruguay and Paraguay, my younger siblings where born in Montevideo. I grew up speaking Dari and Azeri at home and Spanish outside. We had the one parent one language thing. My family converted into Christianity in 1987, but we where raised to love and respect our roots, I'm proud to be Afghan, and al my maternal family is in Azerbaijan and growing up we visit them 2 or even 3 times a year.
In terms of how i look, i'm blonde, some people don't believe me that i'm the mix that i am becuase i'm blonde
: hmm, they are even red headed people in Afghanistan. I have green eyes, they're big you know bushy blonde eyebrows, gotta love them!!!

My DH is South African, he has Afrikaans as 1st language, English as 2nd language and Zulu as 3rd, his mother taught him Zulu even though she's actually of Dutch herritage.
My babies where all born in Namibia, they are fluent in English(with that cute accent), Afrikaans, Dari and some Azeri here at home, while in school my older girls speak mostly German with her peers(as German is a main language in Namibia), while in classes they have English and some Spanish, the twins will eventually pick German when they go in school. I mostly use Dari with them and some Azeri for fun, though it should0t be for fun, DD1 tells me that we should speak Spanish to eachother, she says she like my accent.
So,
I'm glad there's this multicultrual forum!!
 
#114 ·
I am a white Canadian and my husband is Filipino (born and raised in the Philippines - I was at his Canadian citizenship ceremony when we were dating!). Our daughter Aly is the perfect blend of both of us looks-wise. Because my husband only speaks Tagalog when he talks to his family (once/week), he's not planning on teaching Aly his native tongue. We try to incorporate some Tagalog words into our day-to-day life, though, just for color!
 
#115 ·
I am a dark skinned black Caribbean(jamaican, st. thomian, bahamian, dominican) woman and my DF is a Mexican man. I am preggo with our #1. Both my sig other and I speak English and Spanish(he more fluent than I) but i also speak some Russian from my previous engagement, and some Japanese which i just started learning. When the baby gets here i want it to be well rounded and educated in its speaking skills and understanding me. I tend to switch between English, Spanish and Russian, depending on the mood im in!! Does anyone think that this will confuse the child? Maybe they wont speak it and thats fine but i want them to understand me with no problem. Am i worrying too much?
 
#116 ·
DH (US born) and I (French born; 20+ yrs in US) cover just about every country in Western Europe in terms of heritage. I am literate in French, English and Italian and DH English only. We use the OPOL method with DS; I try to remember to use only French with him and DH naturally English. This will compartmentalize French, oh well. I wish I could toss Italian in the mix, but there is only one of me


I found this neat site with articles among which raising bilingual kids if anyone is interested: http://www.omniglot.com/language/articles/
 
#117 ·
Great forum!!! It's so cool to chat with mamas from all over the world!!!

Dh is full Sicilian, born and raised in Morocco, first language being French. Me,being adopted, I thought I was Italian and German up until a year ago when I found my biological parents. I'm actually Sicilian as well!! And Cherokee with a bit of Irish in the mix. My DC's look mostly like me (strong genes)
. Especially the high Cherokee cheek-bones. DH is teaching all of us French.
I enjoy reading everyones stories.
 
#118 ·
Well this is just great!!!! Multi-ethnic families really are becoming closer and closer to the norm, it seems from my vantage point!!!

I am a white American of Scottish descent raised by non-indoctrinating Mahayana Buddhists, and my wonderful DP is Dominican, raised by slightly more-indoctrinating Catholics!

DP has a 1/2 Dominican 1/2 Puerto Rican daughter who is 6 and GREAT and we spend lots of time with her, although she doesn't live with us full time. She speaks fluent Spanish, as does his whole family including about 10 aunts and uncles and 25 or so cousins that live really close to us!!!!! So I am learning fast, having studied Latin and Italian in school, it's pretty easy!

We are expecting #1 6/02/08 and can't wait to see what he or she looks like!

Oh, another thing, my whole crew of friends from college (we all live now in NYC so I still see them a lot) was a very multi-racial group- Black American, Latino, many many half white/half black, two Latinas adopted by single white women, and more... As a result, racial/ethnic/cultural identity has always been a huge and ongoing topic of discussion for all of us with our diverse backgrounds.

I love multicultural learning!!!!! I can't wait to hear all of your voices.
 
#120 ·
I'm so glad I found this forum! I've been a heavy lurker of MDC forums, but not a big poster. Hopefully that will change.

I'm Amanda - I'm a native Minnesotan (very much white-Scandinavian background!) and my partner, Rey, is from Barbados and is of African-descent. We have one daughter, Marley (20 months), who is biracial and beautiful! We are consciously raising her biracial (of course!) and am so glad to have another tool & springboard to utilize in this journey.

 
#122 ·
omg, i feel so dumb for not realizing we had this forum eariler


I'm lena, bi-racial(white/black...but raised with a white family) american born and raised married to dh Abdul who is Somali(born and raised, has lived in the us for 10 years now)

we have 1 dd Iman,and maybe more beanlets down the line


i look foward to chatting with all you here
 
#125 ·
hi! I'm an American...born and raised in New England and my dh is Filipino...born there and moved to US when he was about 9. We have a ds (23 months) who is a good mix of us both but definitely has the features of his dada. Dh speaks to DS primarily in Tagalog and I'm slowly picking up on some words/phrases as well which is helpful since DH family all speak tagalog when we're together. Glad to have found this forum!
 
#126 ·
My name is Liza and I'm Russian-American, dh is Russian. Dh's stepfather is half Somalian and half Yemeni, but a citizen of the Emirates. Brother in-law's wife is from Ethiopia (oh yeah, tons of evil eyes between fil and sil
) and my stepfather is Filipino. DD is two and a half and was born in Russia, but has lived in America and here in the United Arab Emirates (where we live now). She is currently speaking tons of English at the moment, a lot of Russian and a little Arabic.


 
#127 ·
Hi! I'm Robyn.
I'm white, DH Max is white, and our son Jackson is black & white. Jack is adopted, via an open, private domestic adoption. We have a relationship with his birthmom, who lives in another state. We are in California, in the SF Bay Area.
I've been on MDC for awhile now - since just before Jack was born, and he's 2 now. I just found this forum last week, looking for something else. It will be great to have another resource.

Cheers!
 
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