On Race In America...

As an American I am forced to acknowledge the existence of race. On a recent trip to the hospital I was given a questionnaire where I was asked to identify my race. As a light skinned American born Cape Verdian, Scottish, French Canadian, Sioux with a bit of German by way of the American South, I chose “Other” and wrote in “American”. Ten minutes later my paperwork was returned to me and my race was listed as “White”. Try as hard as I may, it seems impossible to escape race in America.

This idea of race only exists in a few nations. In a large portion of the world if I were Italian, Japanese, or Jewish I would be identified by my nationality or ethnicity… not my race. However, in America Italians are white, Japanese are Asian and Jews are well… they are still Jewish. Of course American culture tries to hold on to our ethnic past by making up such creative titles as “Italian-American”, “Asian-American”, “Arab-American” and my favorite “African-American”, but should one of these ethnically diverse Americans take a trip to their mother land, they are quickly labeled “American” by the native people.



above: White People in Brooklyn, New York, 2007.

I was born into an ethnically and racially diverse family. It all started sometime in the 50’s when my white grandmother met my black grandfather. And so my childhood was spent surrounded by a loving multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-sexual, family. Race was never an issue until the day my 4th grade classmates asked if my mother was the maid.

Thus, I feel it is my duty as an American to produce artwork that both celebrates and condemns the American Racial Construct while questioning the viewer’s perceptions of racial, ethnic, and national identity.