MULATTO BILDUNGSROMAN: AN ESSAY OF RACE, IDENTITY AND CULTURE

 
I was wee when the Hudson still froze. We, my siblings and I, were bundled brown skin trudging across to The Bronx. Here, in Inwood, my family is not noticed; we are just a few amongst many. Anyone attempting difference is quickly reminded of the commonality of poverty; odds are we are wearing a neighbour's hand-me-down.

I've known Anne forever; I have no sense that there might have been a time when we have not been confidants. Green Gables was a dilapidated run down farm house in the middle of the woods when I was wee. Freda and I held hands and fancied ourselves kindred spirits as we traipsed through those woods wondering aloud if indeed we were walking the same steps as Anne and Diana once had. Freda made me kindred when I learned that she was a she in the midst of all boys: a configuration of family not unlike my own. Forty years later we still hold hands when we meet at airports or during a stroll out onto a pier.

I grew up in Spuyten Duyvil, and was raised on Prince Edward Island; from the spitting devil to Anne's land: I am both. I am black, I am white; no more one than the other. I am Canadian, I am American; I'm 'from away' on both sides of this 49th parallel. I am not a tourist in either place but I am made a foreigner wherever I go. I am often asked for my papers of identity - sometimes I am stripped searched before I am let go to carry on with what might have occupied me before the inquisition. Make no mistake: it is an inquisition in the truest sense of the word for the inquisitor's sole purpose is to gather information from me that will quench their odd thirst. The agenda seems always to be the same, and always I am discarded like the torn nylons of a whore at the end of a long night.

I recently read an essay titled, Orphans, Twins and L.M. Montgomery. It was written by one Elizabeth Waterston. I, like Genet, upon finishing Sartre's St. Genet, feel discovered and found out; laid bare by her words. Waterston writes: "...Millions who have grown up loving the story of the orphan Anne Shirley have found that it helped them move through some of the traumas of adolescence." This is a truth for me. Anne has always been with me and it was she that I have turned to while waiting for body and mind to synchronize. She was the one that sent words of courage and placed them lightly and sometimes ferociously upon my tongue. She gave me chutzpah and credence of self. Anne is with me when I have no words of my own; she sees me through the turbulence of my life.  She is so real to me that perhaps it is me that is the imaginary one.

In my room, as a child, is a white sewing machine, the sort that one needs to reach into, like the womb of a woman giving life through caesarean. This night I am washed, soft, and ready for bed. I scramble to the top of the machine to inspect myself in the mirror which hangs above it. At this age my reflection is a playmate; a friend to wiggle and twist with; someone who looks like me; who seems happy to do what I do. Mirrors are marvelous. When I was wee I spent all available time in front of the mirror. I was looking for things not seen. I searched my eyes for my soul. I longed to see the other side of myself. I wore my mother's lingerie, and socked fuller her brassiere in attempt to see myself older. I was Fay Wray wrestling with Kong. I was a glamorous smoker, a belly dancer, and a stripper. I was a magnificent mulatto strutting with myself.

There did come a time that my reflection became confusing. I so wish to know if this experience is had by all, or if indeed, this is what makes the mulatto a tragic figure in the imaginations of those not of mixed parentage. My reflection eventually became perplexing for it did not mirror my assumption of self; I thought I looked exactly like marion, ma mere. 

Ma mere, had waist length blond hair. I had spent many hours in the shower on the reverse side of a curtain shielded from prying eyes with a bottle of White Rain moulding my hair into the various do's of the day -- my mother's style being just one. I am Diana Ross with a starched flip, I have pigtails and when I am sure no one is looking I don the do of Barbie - the one I am forbidden to want or speak of, the doll that Marion is sure will lead me down the road to touching myself or thrusting my soon to be budding breasts into the faces of strange men. I long for Barbie's life. I can't wait to thrust and touch. I do not look like Marion in an obvious way and it is this truth that aligns me with Anne for it is then that I begin to fancy myself surely an orphan.

Through Anne I learned to love myself. Anne was at my side as I came to terms with my curly hair not being foot length and blond like ma mere's, the woman once known as Marion.

There are all sorts of orphan's I suppose; I don't know what sort I am for both my parents are alive. When I was wee marion was known as Jeanne; she changed her name when I was sturdy and grown. In department stores Jeanne often lost sight of me, and like many children I was taken in by clerks who soothed my brow and fed me treats while ma mere's name was broadcast over a PA system. What if she had changed her name while rummaging for fabrics?

In Pokemouche Freda hears what I hear: She hears Jeanne's own cousin say that Marion once, when approached by this cousin, denied to the cousin that it was she. Some of us want to be orphans; others yearn for eternal anonymity. I could have been lost to her forever; I should have been taken home by the clerks whom were so much better at soothing my brow and feeding me treats.

O, all it is,

is just another reason to hold one's head high;

never matter,

O never mind.

It is not easy for me to be bi-racial - my configuration seems to exhaust everyone else. I have often been asked if I feel like the light skinned Negro character, Sara Jane Johnson, depicted in Douglas Sirk's film, Imitation of Life. So often have I been asked about this film that curiosity finally caused me to go out and rent it. I'm not sure what I expected but I was rather appalled that anyone who claimed to have known me would ever get the idea that I was anything like that film. I had expected to view a film that perhaps depicted some of the feelings or experiences that I have had. It was upsetting to think that others thought of me as a confused, lost and miserable woman who felt ostracized by life and the burden of my skin colour. To think that others thought I had no niche, and therefore floundered, was disconcerting.

I have encountered skepticism throughout my life from individuals who can not fathom some of my varied and sometimes bizarre encounters. But it has given me great solace to learn that others who identify themselves as bi-racial have had similar encounters.

In Lise Funderburg's remarkable book, Black, White, Other, she asked all of the participants for her book to name any and all people they could think of who might be bi-racial; everyone was  able to mention, Imitation of Life. I interpret this to mean that I am not alone in having had that film thrust upon me for it was always in the context of the 'tragic mulatto'.  I have yet to meet any person of mixed heritage who views themselves as tragic. It is only those who do not live in our skins that can not understand the concept and therefore deem it as some sort of tragedy.

I must talk about this film for a moment for I think many misinterpret this film and what it is truly about. The only aspect I wish to address in, Imitation of Life, is its depiction of a character who desperately tries to pass for white. Sara Jane's mother is darker than her daughter but there is no indication that Sara's father is white. The film begins when Sara Jane is about nine or so, and she and her mother move in with a white woman. This woman's daughter is about the same age as Sara jane. Sara Jane's mother is soft-spoken, well-spoken, and extremely kind, yet nothing that she does is acceptable or tolerated by Sara Jane. Sara Jane's sole goal in this film is to get as far away from her mother's skin colour, and to be known, and accepted as a white woman. This film asks one to assume much, the biggest assumption being that those of us who can pass are doing so because we wish to be white; a theory which I disagree with.  I posit that white theories that imagine blacks wishing to be white are theories based upon the belief that power and whiteness will always be inextricable. I believe that passing for another race is more a desire to have the same privileges and opportunities of that race than having anything to do with wanting to change one's race. I am not dismissing internalized racism, but rather excluding it; for the moment I do not think it relevant.

In any case, Imitation of Life, is not a film about me, nor can I read into it any feature of being bi-racial. Yet, over and over, I am asked if this film depicts my experiences. I struggle to understand what it is about this film that makes some make this leap for me. The leap that skin colour is somehow connected to being bi-racial. I always come back to one conclusion: Jim Crow.

To be able to 'pass' is to suggest that Jim Crow fails in its attempts to keep each side separate. It further suggests that the white society that created the institution is losing the ground of power. The bi-racial is visual representation of that ground being lostr - whites witnessing their eventual demise of power. The irony in all of this is that the power had by those that created the Jim Crow system is the same power that created the 'passer' and the bi-racial. Black women under slavery did not have control over when and how they might reproduce offspring. This irony, I wonder if, is internalized racism for whites, for how does one emotionally part with one's own children, sending them to such a plight as slavery? I can't believe that internalized racism is a dilemma for African American's only. Further, I believe that the "What are you? questions that are leveled at me are a direct holdover from Jim Crow: Blacks having to carry papers which whites could scrutinize at any time. 

Jim Crow was constructed by a white society that needed to ensure that blacks could never become white no matter how white one might appear. This became the 'One Drop Rule', a rule that is fostered, and in effect to this day very day. So what is the connection between the mulatto and one that might make additional opportunities in passing? If one can pass, it is assumed that one is light-skinned enough to do so. If one is bi-racial it is assumed that one is lighter than the parent that is the black one -- on the road to passing perhaps. Passing for the one that can, as I said before, is done to attain the privileges and opportunities of the race that has the privilege, in this case and at this time, white society. So what might this all mean to a white society that constructed Jim Crow? In a simplistic explanation we might assume that Jim Crow keeps one side with the goodies and the other without the goodies, one up one down. But what of you can no longer tell by looking what side one is on? I think this produces a fear in whites. Passers have the potential of infiltration; for achieving opportunities. Once the line is made vague and indistinguishable, power becomes vague and indistinguishable.

In, Possessing the Secret of Joy, Alice Walker gives the following dialogue to the character Adam: "... I remembered when we first arrived in America. His excitement to be, finally, 'safe' and back home. And his shock at being constantly harassed because he was black. No, no he used to correct me. They behave this way not because i am black but because they are white". I am always reminded of this passage when I am stopped, and asked to explain myself. I have to always remind myself that I am not being asked  this nonsense or being treated this way because I am black but rather because they are white and have created a legacy that they, separate from my being, are physically working out; are ridding themselves of their internalized racism. It is Althea Prince, whom in her essay, Stop Calling Us Slaves, nudges me, and reminds me that I am not a descendant of slaves. I am a descendant of Africans -- free ones to boot.

I encountered a whole range of emotions while reading lawrence Hill's, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. I dived into the book with high expectations and finished with the belief that I had stumbled upon a living 'tragic mulatto'. I admire anyone for laying bare their guts, through words, for the entire world to see, but I felt sorry for Mr. Hill. I wanted to befriend him and hold him near for he seems so lost. It needs to be said too that I have held the belief and perhaps the fantasy that life in Canada is a finer life for those of us that run the hue spectrum of tawny. Lawrence Hill demolished that thought. But I ask myself  why? What made his book so very different from Lise Funderburg's? Both books incorporate the format of interview alongside autobiography of author. Both keep the subject's limited to individuals with one parent being black and the other being white. So how did so profoundly different books emerge? How did mulatto's below the 49th parallel emerge with so much gusto and those north of the border seem so isolated; going through life without a road map?

I think some of the clues are that Funderburg interviewed sixty-five subjects and Hill thirty -four. To a certain extent this tells me that there are fewer bi-racials to be found perhaps in Canada. What struck me the most however about Hill's book though was how insecure and out of place he felt in his own skin. Mr. Hill recounts a story about changing his barber, who he had gone to for years, because the barber was not black and Mr. Hill therefore felt he was being disloyal to his blackness. I can't relate to this on any level. Almost all of his interviewees seemed angry, preoccupied with the colour of their skin, and the texture of their hair. Mr. Hill made me feel thankful that here in America we had many more years of practice at being bi-racial and had moved beyond those types of concerns.

My perspective is not better, merely different. I have never felt certain that I knew what a person felt like who was not bi-racial. It is because of the questions that I am often compelled to answer, that I make the leap, and assume, that not being bi-racial is perhaps something to be considered differently; I had thought we were all the same, though I have never felt compelled to intrude into the lives of others in ways that I have often been expected to tolerate.

I am sitting on Sutter Street, on my stoop, in The Fillmore District a million miles from Rustico. I am lonely. Lonely and feeling flyaway, like a Tibetan prayer flag; all too susceptible to things blown in on a whim. Prone to being carried away to places I do not wish to go. I am quiet inside. I pray that my confessions are carried on winds to ears that listen. I miss Freda. Everything is sexualized here: my clothes and hair, the colour of my skin, the way that I speak. Everything draws me to the attention of others. I am amused at times but mostly I feel an urge to cover myself. One dresses for others here; never for utilitarian means. 

had I ever worn something down to here, or up to there I'd have been taken to task by a whole community. Here is am taken to task for looking so retarded -- dressing, as I am told, like sloppy white people. I am at that age where they might succeed with my emotional demise, for they seem always to thrust a dent or two into my psyche.

I spend time in front of the mirror again only now I practice to be anything other than what I am. All that I am is wrong and needs to be retranslated. I must work on my speech, my accent. My reflection is only as deep as what others might be allowed to see. I must find a cigarette to smoke that does not draw attention and that I can inhale without feeling sick from the flavour. I draw the line at menthol - no way am I going to smoke menthol's -- inhaling the Swiss Alps -- I might as well quit. Anne suggests that I do things with flair; she says: don't let the troops get you down. Someone I admire, a mentor, smokes Sherman's so I take up this brand later learning that the great Garbo smoked this brand too.

How do I describe what it is like to pull out a box of Sherman's as a teenager, in a primarily black attended school bathroom filled with Kool smokers? I might as well have pulled out my breast for a lick. No understanding or curiosity here. No, "Can I get one off ya?" I am glanced at askew as though my breast has taken to travel on its own. I have left the real black girls speechless, and they, in unison, and in single file, leave me to the empty stalls of a high school bathroom; alone with the drip of ancient sinks. They have defines me: I am a high-yellow-half-bred-bitch-white-cigarette-smoking-thinks-she's-better-than-everyone-else. I still do not understand this compulsion to define others to my way of thinking. I don't know what this fear of difference means to some. I say to myself: Garbo smoked Sherman's: what do they know? And like Garbo I will become metamorphic and change from awkward foreigner to the woman the world stops breathing for when sighted. Thus I am welcomed back to America.

In America when I am young and slim; tanned and exotic, everyone wants to be close. Black men desire me because I am high yellow. White men because i am not too dark; they say I am exotic. What they don't say is that I am still dark enough for them to leave my feelings and concerns out of the equation. I am reduced to a thing to place another thing into; a receptacle. I am no longer a person that has any meaning beyond her genitals. This pisses me off. When I exert my wanderlust and my tree climbing abilities I am abruptly taken to task, I am asked, "Why do you act so white?"

What would Anne do? Anne would open her box of Sherman's and find gumption. She would light it and let the scope of imagination fill the air. Yes, this too shall pass.

There is something about my appearance that upsets some people. I am not sure if upset is the right word to be using here. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say something about me unnerves. Too, something about me makes people feel free to degrade.

The other day, while looking at an apartment to rent, I was once again asked to divulge my racial identity. If truth be told, I find this question boring, extremely impolite, never asked for any good reason and a good indication that the requesting party is a bigot. This is what happened: After laying it out and being asked to repeat it because he needed to get it straight he informed me that I was a mongrel and that he was not a racist. This is what I thought: If I tell him he is a racist or if I had told him that my ethnicity was none of his damned business I would be prevented from seeing the apartment. He would also, more than likely, have considered me a hostile person. I judged him to be in his seventies, and that told me that he most likely grew up seeing signs of segregation and that he probably though he was liberated. My upbringing instilled in me a respect for my elders so I said nothing to this man.

(To Be Continued...)