Ursula: America is a melting pot and diversity is one of our greatest strengths
Aug 3, 2024, 10:00 AM
Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump participates in a question and answer session at the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention at the Hilton Hotel on July 31, 2024 in Chicago, Illinois. Trump fielded questions from Rachel Scott, senior congressional correspondent for ABC News, Harris Faulkner, anchor of The Faulkner Focus on FOX News and Kadia Goba, politics reporter at Semafor. (Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)
(Photo: Scott Olson, Getty Images)
“What are you, anyway?” It’s a question that I would get asked quite frequently when I moved to Eugene, Oregon from the Philippines in 1978. Sometimes, it was out of genuine curiosity and I didn’t worry about sharing my Filipino and German heritage. But, for anyone who is multi-racial, you know pretty quickly when someone’s intention is to make you feel “less than” and is not really interested in learning more about your ethnic background.
That was the case at the National Association of Black Journalists convention this week where former President Donald Trump questioned whether Vice President Kamala Harris is really Black or if she’s Indian.
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He suggested that she only recently turned Black to get votes. For the record, Harris’ father is Jamaican, her mother is Indian and she has always identified as being Black, even attending Howard University, a historically Black university. She is also proud of her Indian heritage.
Why is that so hard for Trump — or anyone else — to understand?
His ridiculous line of questioning brought me back to 1978. As a 13-year-old in a new country, I desperately wanted to feel like I belonged. Although I have a Germanic name, my outward appearance favors my Filipino ancestry. During my first decade living in the U.S., I would get questions like “Do you eat dogs or monkey meat?” or I’d hear racially-charged comments like “get back on the boat and go back to your country.”
It was painful! My natural response was to try to look and act like all my American friends who had lived here all their lives. I didn’t want to be different.
After graduating from college in 1988 and moving to Seattle, I felt more accepted. Seattle was a much bigger city and had more diversity than Eugene. In 1993, I gave up my German passport and was proud to become an American citizen.
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Over the years, I’ve found that the vast majority of people I encounter are accepting of my bi-racial background. It only makes sense. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of Americans who identify as two or more races grew to 33.8 million in 2020. VP Harris and I are among the 25 million U.S. adults who are children of immigrants. That is 10% of the adult population.
America is a true melting pot and I believe our diversity is one of our greatest strengths. We cannot afford to go backward by accepting such divisive and disrespectful remarks from the former president. We are better than that.
Listen to Gee Scott and Ursula Reutin weekday mornings from 9 a.m.- noon on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.
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