Article February 10, 1997 Issue

What is your race? (Check one)

Jo Ann Gerber

I was in seventh grade when the issue of race was first brought to my attention. On the first day junior high school in my homeroom class, we were given forms that asked us to identify ourselves as white, black, Hispanic, or Asian. The question made me stop and think. My mother was Mexican-American, my father, Norwegian-American, which made me—what?

I explained my predicament to the homeroom teacher. She told me to select the group with which I mostly closely identified myself. I found the choice difficult to make for two reasons: (1) I had honestly never thought of myself in such terms before; and (2) I found the choices to be very limiting, as I was being asked to identify myself with certain physical characteristics. I looked around the classroom and had to admit that I wasn't really "white" compared to other students. On the other hand, I wasn't purely Hispanic either. I was just me, the child of God—an identification I had learned in Sunday School.

Until that moment, I hadn't really thought about the deeper implications of this statement. But suddenly it came to me with great meaning that my identity came from God. It didn't come from the way I looked on the outside or from the language I spoke. Many of the qualities I identified myself with were spiritual, including artistry, goodness, and intelligence. These had nothing to do with skin color or ethnic characteristics. And there was nothing limiting about them, because I saw that they came from an infinite source, from Spirit, God.

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Identity and race—a spiritual journey