Sunday, November 15, 1998 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

`I Consider Myself Me' -- Kids Come In May Colors These Days And They'd Liek A Few Words With US

`I Consider Myself Me' Kids come in many colors these days and they'd like a few words with us

WHAT ARE YOU?

What a question.

Especially when you're a kid.

Especially when you have the blood of at least a couple cultures and maybe several continents running through your veins, you live on the Pacific Rim at the edge of the century and you consider and reconsider each time you have to decide which box to check where it asks: Race?

"What are you? People ask me that all the time," says 17-year-old Olivia Bowen, sitting in her family's suburban Shoreline kitchen. "I say: It's none of your business what I am! I'm human!"

Across the state in rural Twisp, 14-year-old Roscoe Smith watches the flow of his favorite stream past a quiet brown mountain, and says, simply, "I consider myself me."

Olivia, Roscoe and several other multiracial youths recently shared thoughts about race, culture, friends, family and what it is that makes them who they are.

They are a mixture of heritage, language, culture and hue. They like dancing, drawing, swimming, music, strawberry yogurt and having fun with friends. They experiment with hair color, eye color, racial identity. They are growing up.

They are also growing in number. In 1996, one of every six babies born to Seattle residents was multiracial. Statewide, one of every eight babies born was multiracial, double the rate in 1980. Seattle, like other West Coast cities, has a higher percentage of mixed-race kids than the rest of the country, though it's hard to say how much higher. (National statistics will be sketchy until 2000, when, for the first time, the federal census will allow people to identify themselves as multiracial.)

Official or not, mixing has been going on for a long time, long before the current boom of multiracial toddlers on Seattle's playgrounds, long before the Supreme Court struck down the last 14 state laws against mixed marriage in 1967. Still, things are different now.

"What most people forget is that race depends very much on the time and place," says Richard White, a Stanford University history professor. In other words, race is a matter of how people think about it.

Here and now, it is both legally and culturally acceptable for multiracial children to acknowledge more than one heritage. And who could speak more eloquently about the lives of these kids today than kids themselves?

Paula Bock is a Pacific Northwest magazine staff writer. Tom Reese is a Seattle Times staff photographer. Seattle Times news researcher Vince Keuter assisted with statistical research and analysis for this story.

---------------- `Skin, it just protects you and stuff'

Mika Rothman Age: 10 Home: Mercer Island Mom: Japanese American Dad: Jewish

Favorite things: Aunts, uncles, cousins. Basketball, baseball, soccer. Collecting stamps, sports cards, rocks, stuffed animals, Japanese dolls and Beanie Babies, of which her favorite is Peace Bear because her grandma was for peace.

MIKA:

I have brown hair. I have brown eyes. My skin is a teeny bit darker than porcelain. I like to play sports. My mom said that when she was a kid her dad didn't let her play sports. And some girls won't play sports. I like baseball, basketball and soccer. All three sports you have to do something to earn something.

I think all the kids in the world are mainly the same. I mean, a kid's a kid. They like to play. If they had a choice to do work or play, I think that they'd rather play. Actually, kids are the same as adults because adults don't like to work either.

What are the major differences between kids?

Maybe a kid likes math better than reading. Some kids like ice cream. I have pretty exotic foods that I like the most: lox sushi and Caesar salad. No other kid that I know likes Caesar salad! They liked pizza and spaghetti and meatballs and stuff. Food is one of the lesser differences. The real difference is what they believe in. My friend, she's Christian and she goes to church. And I'm Jewish and we go to synagogue. They believe in Jesus Christ and we believe in a God.

It's definitely not the color of your skin. The color of your skin is just the color of your skin. I know maybe back in the 1960s and stuff and before that, blacks and Indians and other minorities weren't treated as well as whites and the only reason was the color of their skin. But the color of your skin, it doesn't matter, because it's the inside that counts. Skin, it just protects you and stuff. Inside is what you think and what you feel - your heart. It matters if you're nice to people who have disabilities. The only difference between a kid and another is that maybe one was helpful to a kid that had some trouble in math and the other kid didn't help them at all!

How do you know when people are seeing your inside instead of just looking at your outside?

When, if we're in a conversation, when they start to pause, then maybe they're thinking about my inside. You couldn't see a person's insides. You would have to, maybe, feel a person's inside. If someone got hurt and you saw a person go and help them, then you would know they have a good inside. No one can see your inside. You can't see it. It's just what you do.

------------------ `Can you tell by my handwriting?'

Olivia Bowen Age: 17 Home: Shoreline Mom: Chinese American Dad: Caucasian

Favorite things: Playing piano, listening to music.

OLIVIA:

My mom is short and Asian and my dad is a tall, gangly white male. When I was about 7 or 8, I was in Girl Scouts and I was the only Asian girl in the entire troop. That was when I first became aware of my being different because I wasn't quite like them, but yet I was. I had darker hair and darker skin, my nose wasn't pointy.

I remember selling Girl Scout cookies down at Albertson's, the grocery store, with my friends and their mothers. My mom didn't look like the other mothers. She didn't act like the other mothers. They're all chipper and perky, always smiling, and had pink skin and rosy cheeks and blonde hair. She's a lot more subdued and modest. She's always, "Don't be too loud, don't scream, don't climb in strangers' laps." The girls accepted me, of course, but it was really hard for me to accept myself because I always wanted to kind of be like them.

Now in high school, I still confront difficulties with my race on a daily basis. Y'know, the Asian kids are in one corner. The African-American kids in another. And the white kids in another. It's like, Where do the students of mixed race go? People ask me all the time: Are you Filipino? Are you Hawaiian? What are you? I say: It's none of your business what I am! I'm human!

My white friends see me as Asian. And my Asian friends see me as white. My friends of mixed race see me as, mixed race. Sometimes I feel kind of like a stranger. I always have to check the "other" box. The 10th-grade proficiency test asked for your ethnicity. It was then that I really sat down and I looked at the questions and I said, You know what? I'm none of these. I wasn't listed. It felt like I shouldn't be taking this test because I don't fit in. I looked at it and looked at it. Finally, since my last name is Bowen, that sounds pretty white, I checked the box that said Asian to represent that part of me, to kind of balance it out. When I got home, I thought more about it. Maybe I should have checked "other." Or written in: Can you tell by my handwriting? Now I do write in: "Can you tell by my handwriting?" Just to be cynical. I wrote it on the SATs and I didn't get any reaction . . .

My mom's upset because I dye my hair. She doesn't like that I've got green contact lenses. She felt offended, that I was trying to deny her being my mother because she is Asian. It was, actually, subversive rebelliousness against my mom. She's like: "Oh you look so cute with glasses and black hair," and I thought: "No, I'm tired of it. I don't want to be like every other Asian person down in Chinatown." I did it to say: "I'm not you, I don't belong to your culture, so back off." Now I just do it because I like it. I think it looks good on me.

At times, I feel like I'm betraying my father. We go down to Chinatown once a month for various reasons. Sometimes I feel kind of guilty. My dad's the only white person down there and they all look at him funny. So I feel like, Dad, you know, It's OK. It's OK to be white. More often, I feel like I'm betraying the Chinese culture because I do live in the American culture here. I have more Caucasian friends. We eat more "white" food. Hamburgers and pizza. But I also have Asian cultural traditions instilled in me that I'll probably instill into my children. Respect your elders. Don't talk back. Be loyal to your family.

Sometimes I feel like the puck in air hockey. Bouncing back and forth between cultures, bouncing off of walls and I've never quite settled. No one's gotten a goal yet . . .

The president is white. The government officials are white. Our senators are white. You see it on TV, all the white TV shows. I think my grandmother saw that and said: "This is what success is. This is what this country's all about. If you want to be accepted and successful in this American culture, then you have to date someone Caucasian." That was definitely passed down to my mom; it wasn't passed down to me. I've dated, actually, only white males for one reason or another. But, you know, you have little crushes on each other when you're younger: Asian guys, black guys, it never really mattered to me at all. I'm completely color-blind when it comes to things like that. Race doesn't matter to me.

When I see couples of mixed race walking or holding hands, it makes me feel good inside. I know this sounds really cheesy, but it does, it makes me feel good inside that people are changing now. Back in the '60s, well, in the '50s and the '40s, they might not have had couples of mixed race.

I wish the best for them. ---------------- `Being called names is not very uplifting'

Roscoe Smith Age: 14 Home: Twisp Mom: Hopi, Papago and Washo tribes and a teeny bit of Scottish-Irish-Danish Dad: Swedish, German and Canadian-French Indian.

Favorite things: Playing guitar and bass, listening to music, eating bacon cheeseburgers at JA's after school, swimming in the swimming hole, hanging out with friends.

ROSCOE:

I consider myself me. I don't really see a difference between races, I don't see why people would look at each other in different ways and personally, I don't.

Other people in my school, they kind of recognize it a little more. It's not that they're really prejudiced against me, it's just that they, y'know, recognize it.

Some of them I've known for a long time and they just changed. Maybe they got influenced a little bit by movies and television and other people. Sometimes they may think you're a great person, and they think you just fit in. But then they get influenced and somehow their thinking changes to: Who's this guy? This guy's different. He's of a different background, y'know, and they don't want to hang out with you too much and visa versa.

Roscoe told of how a few students "kind of joked around," describing him with a deeply insulting racial epithet.

After a while I kind of got sick of it and told them to stop. But they really didn't. So I just figured, OK, if they want to do that, I'll just not be around them. I think that's all right. Just as long as they don't try to lynch me or something. Well, I've kind of traded off on friends. I made new friends and evolved. Like everyone does.

I'm real proud of my heritage but when they call you things like that and look down on you like that, it's kind of hard to stand up to it, so it made me feel pretty bad. Playing music sometimes makes me feel better. Or listening to music. Drawing. Pretty much anything to take my mind off what I'm thinking about.

The two rivers come in here. The Forks. Pretty cold. It's kind of, what's the word I'm looking for? Indulging. It's refreshing. On a nice hot summer day and you jump in there: Ahhhhh. How nice. There's rocks on one face and it kind of comes down to a dropoff, an undertow thing. Then it comes up on the other side to a rock beach and it's kind of shallow and there's a nice level place where you can swim there, nice and calm. I go a lot with the guitarist and the friends that you saw me with. With them, it's just like a whole other world. They're so nice and into it, you forget about everything else. It's really a cool atmosphere. I like to just do things by the ear. Just do it how it comes.

Sometimes when I'm at school, when I'm around popular people, I'm not really myself. I feel kind of funny because everybody else is talking about different stuff than me, like, what you're going to wear tomorrow and what you're going to do on the weekend and stuff. A lot more people kind of look at me different. Where, say, like if I was hiking or something by myself or with just a couple friends then, you know, there's no one to notice it. And close friends, you know, they're not going to care. They're just going to have fun.

When did you realize you were more than one race?

It wasn't really that long ago, probably sixth grade. Up 'til then, when you're really young, people really don't care. It's just like: have fun.

But when you start getting older, sometimes in school we'll be talking about Native Americans on the coast and the teacher will say: Are you from the coast? And you'll say, What? Like what's he talking about? (I've never been to the ocean but it sounds real fun . . .) That's when I finally asked my mom what heritage I was and she told me.

Were you surprised?

I was kind of, at first, but once I took a look in the mirror I could kind of see it and I kind of noticed, Oh yeah, I am a little darker skinned and I do have black hair so maybe I am Indian.

I bleached it. So that's why it's red. But I do have black hair. The beginning of summer I used this stuff called Sun In where you just spray it in and then you go out in the sun. More of a lightener than a bleach. I dunno, it's OK. I like my black hair better I guess. Couple other friends, we did it just before the big end-of-the-school-year dance. Just for a change. Be different. My dad, he was kind of like: What the heck did you do to your hair? But he accepted it. My mom was OK with it. She knew it was just a little phase and that it'd grow out again.

What's best and worst about being multiracial?

I like to know that there's something kind of intriguing behind me, y'know, the whole Indian heritage and stuff. My great uncle from Arizona, I think he's full Hopi, told me a lot of Indian stories about things down there. Like how the coyote came to be and different Indian fables like that one. It was really interesting to hear it from a real Indian because you know you read 'em all in books and stuff and it's not really the same. A cousin of his makes jewelry and so he told me stories about the jewelry, too. It was really uplifting to me because I've never met anybody like that before.

I dunno what I don't like about it (being multiracial). Maybe being called names, I guess, is not very uplifting. I did a report on the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Sioux tribe when the cavalry murdered 200 innocent women and children, unarmed. It kind of upset me. It made me kind of mad and stuff because you can kind of picture it, all the people screaming and the little kids crying out and it's really, really hard to take in, that our civilization could be so cruel like that. ---------------------

`Some people are more attracted to more different colors of people' A conversation between friends

caption: Julie Howard, left, Naomi Jefferson, center, and Julian Hunt

Julie Howard Age: 16 Home: Seattle Parents: Caucasian Birth mom: Caucasian Birth dad: Chinese Favorite things: Music, soccer, downhill skiing, dancing and golf.

Julian Hunt Age: 15 Home: Seattle Mom: Chinese and Jamaican Dad: English and Welsh Favorite things: Basketball, soccer, music, old-school music, dancing, driving, having fun.

Naomi Jefferson Age: 15 Home: Seattle Dad: African American and Cherokee Mom: Japanese American Favorite things: Music and dancing, basketball and sports.

Julian: I don't think of myself as one more than the other. I have never thought of myself as more Chinese or more black or white than anything else. I've always thought of myself as mixed. Certain times, I feel left out. Not left out. But it's like you know that you're different.

Julie: Maybe it's like, I was raised in a white family around a majority of white kids at school since sixth grade. It's not like my personality is different or that we don't have a lot of things alike. It's that I know, physically, I'm different. Being with white people, I recognize more that I am also Chinese. You recognize more that you're different. You feel . . . semi-tan out of all the white people.

Naomi: I never had a problem with who I was. But when I first went to (a private school), it's like all of a sudden I felt awkward not being white. I had trouble adjusting to everyone else and I thought it was because of my race and I thought it made things harder because I wasn't white. Everything they did, talked, acted, seemed so different from what I was used to. So I'd feel uncomfortable to be me. Then I grew out of the phase.

Does race matter when you're making friends?

Julie: To me it doesn't matter. But you feel more comfortable with people who are like you. Like I feel like I can open more to people who share similar backgrounds or are going through the same things as me.

Naomi: I'm friends with all kinds of people (in the public school she recently transferred to). A girl in one of my classes dresses in Gothic. Sometimes I was thinking: Oh, that's kind of weird. But you know, I'm like, that's so cool. I'm going to school with someone who's not dressed like everybody else. When everyone's different, you can take a little bit from them and learn more from being around them, their views, even if it's not something you agree with, you learn from it.

Are you able to understand more races of people because you are more races?

Julian: Well, yeah!

Julie: I don't think it's necessarily your race that makes you able to understand. It's more how you're brought up. Normally, a lot of people with two races in them, they've been brought up with two different cultures. That way you can relate to different types. But people who are all one race are brought up in one culture and that way it's not as easy to relate to other people. So that's why I think Julian can relate to both white and black people, because she was brought up with white and black parents.

Julian: Maybe.

Naomi: Anyone can learn to understand other people as long as you're around them and educated about them. But you tend to understand people after you relate to them because then you have a chance to talk.

Julian: But the thing is, I was never really brought up in a black community. I've never gone to public school in my entire life.

Julie: But Julian, I still remember I used to go over your house. You'd be like, Hey mom, talk Jamaican. You'd say stuff like that. At least you have more of a concept or you're around that everyday. And your Mom, she did act, a little, you really were, there really were two cultures.

Julian: That makes it easy for me to relate to people. But a lot of my friends are white. They don't have a problem with me. I mean, they know I'm different.

Julie: It's not with having a problem with someone. It's more like, being able to relate to people and whatever. Your background when you're a child has a lot to do with how you relate to people when you're older. If you're able to.

Julian: I understand what you're trying to say. I don't know if I agree with it completely though. I'll just be friends with someone, like, as long as they share the same interests with me, which is basically having fun in the ways I want to have fun, then I don't care what they are.

Julie: Dating. It's not necessarily about your race. It's more about what you like. . .

Julian: What you look like . . .

Julie: What you prefer in a person.

Naomi: People can say: Oh, it's not a girl's looks or a guy's that makes them attractive to someone . . . but what's the first thing that you notice? When I first meet you, I'm not going to be like, Wow, he's got great personality. It's like you notice their physical appearance and then after you get to know them, you're kind of like, you're cool or not . . .

Naomi: People stereotype Asians to have small eyes, black people to have big lips and noses and stuff. But it's not like I have big lips, a big nose or small eyes!

Julian: It's not like race, but I'd rather go out with a white guy who's tan than a white white guy, you know?

Julie: It is! That's color!

Julian: You guys know what I'm trying to say.

So the tan look is in?

Julie: Not for everyone. It's just that some people are more attracted to more different colors of people.

Naomi: It's kind of like, the American little ideal. Tall, dark and handsome. What's the point of tanning salons otherwise. I know guys go there, too. It makes people look better, usually, unless you can tell they're fake and bake.

Julie: A lot of society is based on looks.

Julian: Look at the blond-haired, blue-eyed stereotype for girls. Now it's starting to get the more exotic look.

Naomi: I'm more attracted to minorities. I just feel more comfortable around them. Not to stereotype white people as off-beat, but more minority people like the kind of music I like and can dance. Every kind of guy I've ever been attracted to can dance. I don't care what race you are as long as you can keep a beat. But if you have trouble keeping a beat, you're just a homey.

Julie: For me, it's more personality. It's more, if I can have a good time with that person than, oh, he's cute. If I think someone's booty, y'know really ugly, and I think they have a great personality, I'm not going to go out with them. But I'd rather be with someone I can have fun with and enjoy being with . . .

How about race?

Julie: I really don't care. Race, no . . .

Julian: Height is kind of important in guys. Height and build and stuff.

Naomi: If a guy is my eye-level or shorter, that's automatically out! I'm only like this tall and if he's this tall, too, then it's not working!

----------------------

`My cat is pink and red and purple and blue'

Devon Lecksiwilai Age: 4 Home: Seattle Mom: Guatemalan and Caucasian Dad: Chinese and Chilean

Filling out forms: "When I tried to register her for kindergarten, the woman said, `Pick one, honey, you gotta pick one . . . So I picked Chinese just to have something. It doesn't bother me. I just want to her to be aware of both cultures and incorporate them both in her life . . . She's aware her dad's Chinese and she also has Latina. She's just started speaking Spanish." - Devon's mom

Favorite things: Animal stickers, strawberry yogurt, Disney movies, bunny, Barney and a bear named Sammy who likes eating noodle soup.

DEVON:

Flowers are the most beautiful thing in the world.

Red and pink and blue and purple.

People are different colors, too.

Some people are white and brown and some people are white by itself and some people are brown by itself.

But I'm white and chocolate.

That's my outside.

Inside of me, there's food.

What is race?

You 'rase your paper if you want to do something else.

If you want to color one more time, that means you need to 'rase it again.

I like to draw me and my dad and my mom and my brother.

I draw with a color and pencil. I use pens. I use pink and red.

My favorite color is red. Apples are red.

My mom is white. My dad is kind of white and chocolate, like me.

My cat is pink and red and purple and blue.

You know my friends, one is Jordan, one is Juanito, one is Jaime.

Jaime is brown. And Jordan is white and brown. And Juanito is white and brown.

I like to play with them. I like to color with them. I like to play with blocks with them.

I like hide-and-seek and I like coloring and I like playing outside.

Sometimes when it's hot, I like drinking water.

------------

`I've got a part of you inside me, y'know?'

Milki Abdullahi Age: 14 Home: Seattle Mom: Oromo of East Africa Dad: Oromo of East Africa Languages: Oromo, Arabic, English

Favorite things: Playing basketball with friends, Tommy Hilfiger, Eddie Bauer, Polo, YMCA camp, swimming, kayaking, river rafting, spider webs on the clothesline, the movie "Titanic."

An understandable mix-up: Milki Abdullahi for a long time mistakenly identified himself as multiracial even though both his parents are Oromo from East Africa. It's easy to understand the confusion. Milki was born and raised, until age 6, in Saudi Arabia, where he spoke Oromo at home and Arabic with friends. Then his family moved from the Middle East to Seattle, where Milki attends school with students who have come from all over the world, speak several languages and are - as a group and individually - a mix of cultures, ethnicities, races and hues. "I'm mixed, aren't I, Mom?" Milki said. "It's like, here, in America, I'm mixed just like everyone else!"

MILKI:

My school has lots of kids: Black, Asian, all different configurations. Some kids are two races, some kids are just pure. In time it will gradually change. I think it's gonna be like: Everything's going to be the same, more mixed people.

Five generations from now, my great-great-great-great-grandchildren, I know they'll have Oromo in them. I know they're going to have other races in them, too. A lot more races. I know they'll still look like humans, but besides that, I don't know.

If you take 10,000 people and put them into space and you bring them back 100 or 500 years later, I guarantee you, you wouldn't see pure white or pure black. You'd see mixed, mixed, everything is mixed. Because, like, everybody would have to depend on different kinds of people for life to go on because if you stick with one kind, it will eventually go extinct.

If you go back to the prehistoric age and you look at the cave men and stuff like that, you never see no Asians, no Blacks, nothing. Everybody just looks all alike. They look like these huge giant gorillas and stuff that had hairs all over their body. And as time went by, all these gorillas started splitting apart and they went to different parts of the world and when they try to go back the same way they came, those places were cut off. When the Indians went down to South America they couldn't go back through Asia because that old capsule of ice was gone and they didn't know how to swim across or anything. It was too far. So they had to just stay there and make their own tribe and as time went on, they changed. Same with the Asians. Same with the Africans. And Europeans. That's the only thing that made people different all these years. Everybody stayed in their separate part of the world with that climate, that humidity and gradually, they had to adapt to that part of the world. Their color and stuff changed but that doesn't change what's inside.

Say if the president were mixed and everybody else was mixed, there'd be so many mixed people and they know they have part of this culture in them, but on the other hand, they've got another mix in them, so they wouldn't start no war. I've got a part of you inside me, y'know? Everything would be peaceful. ------------------------------- 1980 STATE Percentage of state births that were multiracial: 6

Percentage of multiracial babies born to:

White fathers: 2.5

White mothers: 3

Black fathers: 33

Black mothers: 8

Native American fathers: 50

Native American mothers: 47

Mexican/Chicano # fathers: 27

Mexican/Chicano # mothers: 18

Asian/Pacific Islander fathers: 26

Asian/Pacific Islander mothers: 37

# The state Health Department changed the definition of this category in 1988.