One of The Pumpkin's little friends from the kiddie gym had a party for her second birthday on Saturday. There was a wading pool, a pinata, lots of toys and other kids to play with, and, of course, cake and ice cream—babygirl had a blast. And I had a good time too. So far, I've experienced my current town-of-residence as a pretty conservative, segregated, homogeneous place, but this weekend I got to see a side of it I hadn't experienced before, a side that felt, to a guy raised in a multiculti city and an interracial family, like home. The Pumpkin's birthday-girl playmate was internationally adopted from China by her white mom and Filipino-Mexican-American dad, both natives of this town. At the party, there were white people, Pinoys, Chicanos, racially ambiguous folks who could've been any combination of the above, and you couldn't tell who was related and how. I think that we were the only people there who weren't family or long-time friends, actually. It was nice.
But, of course, I have to tell you about this (and I already told the birthday girl's mom that I was gonna blog about it): Not long after we first got there, and everybody was ooh-ing and aah-ing over The Pumpkin's cuteness, a young Latina (who, again, I have no idea if she was related or just a family friend) commented on her adorableness to me. Then, she goes, "So, did you guys go over there and get them together?" Took me a sec to register what she was talking about, and another beat for me to stammer out that no, they were friends from the kiddie gym. I mean, I know she's 3/4 Asian and I'm hapa, but she still looks like me, doesn't she? Heh.
2 comments:
diasl - at least people assume you're the parent! i always get mistaken for the nanny.
once, a woman came over to me at the park and in the s l o w e s t speech she could muster said, "hello...i'm...looking...for...someone...to...watch...my...child...are....you...a...live...in... or... live...out...nanny?
to which i replied in the thickest filipino accent i could muster, "i'm very happy with my employers. i don't think you can afford me."
I keep waiting for this question. I've gotten people who assumed we're Latino, and I've had people who asked about her father, since she looks "exotic" (this was an African-American woman), but so far no one has questioned her parentage. Out loud, anyway.
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