Until recently, I had always checked the “Asian-American” box when asked to indicate my race.
Although my father was white, my mother was a Japanese-American and a native Californian who, because of her ancestry, was incarcerated in an internment camp during World War II. She named me Gordon Charles Hall because she wanted me to assimilate, but she also taught me the importance of civil rights and a Japanese-American identity. My professional career has focused on race, ethnicity, and culture. I have been elected president of national ethnic organizations in psychology, and I have championed efforts to culturally diversify the field of psychology. Checking the “Asian-American” box was an expression of my personal, political, and professional identity.
It was also a necessity if I wanted to reveal my Asian ethnicity, particularly before I added my wife’s last name, “Nagayama,” as an additional middle name when we married. Being counted as an Asian-American has been important in professional settings to help create a critical mass that deserves attention and a voice. When the U.S. Census Bureau began allowing respondents to indicate more than one racial group, I continued to check only “Asian-American” out of concern that checking more than one box might disadvantage the Asian-American population by decreasing its numbers.
But a few months ago, I officially decided to become white.
I requested that my institution, the University of Oregon, change my race from Asian-American to white after I learned that Asian-American faculty members were not considered underrepresented in the psychology department relative to their availability in our field. The implication was that if we had a job opening, other racial groups should be the focus of our efforts to diversify our faculty, and that more Asian-Americans would not bring more diversity.
Another implication was that there were too many Asian-Americans in our department.
Of the 28 tenure-line faculty members, the most recent institutional data indicate that there are 14 white men, eight white women, five Asian-American men (including me), and one Hispanic woman. Among all tenure-line faculty members at my university, the data show that 36 percent are women, 9 percent Asian-Americans, 5 percent Hispanic, 1 percent African-American, and less than 1 percent American Indian or Alaska Native.
The notion that it is not desirable to exceed a certain number of Asian-Americans seems like an invisible fence—a form of psychological incarceration. A white colleague remarked that no one seems to complain that we have too many white faculty members when we add to their numbers. The psychologist Alice Chang has characterized Asian-Americans as a minority of convenience: They are counted as a minority group when it is convenient (when they can enhance a college’s faculty-diversity image, for example), but not when it is inconvenient (such as when a department would lose out on resources aimed at increasing faculty diversity if it included them).
All that was required to change my race was my request. A university administrator told me my request had been granted and recorded in official records.
So what were the effects of changing my race to white? I don’t know if having one fewer Asian-American faculty member will tip the balance toward Asian-Americans’ being underrepresented in our department, but officially changing my race was at least a symbolic protest against an apparent quota system. Although the reduction of one minority professor may seem trivial, such a change usually does not go unnoticed in contexts in which diversity is limited.
The immediate personal effects of changing my race to white amounted to good-natured kidding from my friends. “Welcome to the world of privilege,” they said. One advised me that if I ate at an Asian restaurant I should ask for that metal-spring device that turns your chopsticks into giant tweezers. “This will affect your basketball game,” another told me (although it would be hard for my basketball game to get much worse). I also heard: “You can now tell white people apart.” And: “You won’t be ‘randomly’ screened at airport security.” Another colleague wondered if I could start a movement in which people of color deliberately checked “white” in an effort to get institutions to diversify.
Some will say that checking a racial box is trivial, and that I am making a mountain out of a molehill. A common criticism is that racial identity is much more complex than a single question and should be assessed more comprehensively. I agree. But I also believe there is merit in using a single question. A group of people who checked the white category would be different than a group who checked a different racial category. I know this from personal experience with both groups.
Another criticism is that asking about one’s race is an invasion of privacy. The motivation behind this criticism may be fear of discrimination. Will I be disadvantaged because I am white? Or because I am not? The most recent institutional demographic data at the University of Oregon indicate that 6 percent of our faculty and 2 percent of students do not report their race, which implies that the vast majority of faculty members and students do not see checking the race box as an invasion of privacy. Moreover, without race data, institutions would not be accountable for their hiring patterns.
What if I had checked the white box all along? Perhaps my life and career would have had a different trajectory. Perhaps I would have had different friends and colleagues, different research interests, possibly an easier life.
The decision on which box to check, however, has not entirely been my own. Although I have experienced acceptance among whites, sooner or later I get the question, “What are you?” This question communicates to me that I am different, don’t belong, and can’t fully belong because I am not white.
For those who may object to my experiences as atypical, I would welcome the chance to be fully included.
After all, I am now officially part of the white group.