Multiracial or Multicultural (Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages) Language Learning Forum

Multiracial or Multicultural
Tags: Etymology \| Colloquial Language \| Cultural Identity
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Language Learning Forum : Cultural Experiences in Foreign Languages

26 messages over 4 pages: 1 2 3 4

Trinigal
Newbie
Trinidad and Tobago
Joined 4270 days ago
1 posts - 1 votes
Speaks: English*

Message 25 of 26

27 August 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged

I am Trinidadian. Mixed ethniciity, but in Trinidad our desciption of people is more of an appearance than actual, ethnic heritage.

Nice to meet the diaspora.
1 person has voted this message useful

Chung
Diglot
Senior Member
Joined 6951 days ago
4228 posts - 8259 votes

20 sounds
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish

Message 26 of 26

27 August 2012 at 10:13pm | IP Logged

g0bananas wrote:

Being an Arubian, Chinese-Trinidadian, African-Trinidadian, Russian/Polish-Jewish(ethno-religious
group) American, I have been asked what I am by strangers all my life.

Are there specific terms to explain ones multiracial identity in different languages without having
to explain ones family backround? Is any term or phrase that you have come across that would
translate as the broad term, multi-racial/cultural/ethnic?
If you know the history of the term I'd love to learn about that as well.

zenmonkey's suggestion of describing oneself as a mongrel or mutt, would do the job for me.

g0bananas wrote:

I never want to leave any of my cultures behind, but not everyone wants to stick around for an
explanation- especially when I can barely stumble through/recall the pronunciation of the nations my
target languages. Personally, I'd like to know how to explain my ethnicity in Asian languages(mainly
Chinese, Japanese and Korean), for those are my target languages as of now but I'm very curious to
learn how the rest of the world expresses their multiracial identity in their native language.

Partially because of my studies in foreign languages, I've become so sick of apologetics or chest-thumping arising from geographical accidents for birth or ethnically-based containers (whether one distinguishes "patriotism", "nationalism" and "chauvinism" means little to me as I've found them to reduce to the same mess as the intra-similarities more than offset the intra-differences) that for a while I've been replying: "Does it really matter?" somewhat surily (or even smirking if I'm in a bad mood) when being asked about my ethnicity.

If I were you, I'd just say something like: "My passport and birth certificate indicate that I was born in America, and so I'm American according to some bureaucrat, but you can call me g0bananas. Ummm... What's for dinner?" TS if those asking the question can't reconcile it into some neat nationally/ethnically-derived pigeon-hole.
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