Susan Graham: California kids still waiting for ‘multiracial’ designation

What are you? A child born in California today might not be able to proudly describe themselves as “multiracial” when they start kindergarten.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB 532 into law last week. It was introduced by Assemblyman Kevin McCarty, D-Sacramento, who sought out Project RACE (Reclassify All Children Equally) when the bill was drafted. I spoke with McCarty by phone and explained why the term “multiracial” is important on forms that require racial and ethnic data. Everyone was in agreement that multiracial children who embrace their entire heritage need descriptive, respectful terminology just as a child of one race does.

As every multiracial person can tell you, at some point someone will ask, “What are you?”

They do not answer, “I am a person who selects one or more ethnic or racial designations on forms.” People who are of two or more races say: “I am multiracial.”

The wording is very important for multiracial children. Unfortunately, the bill was modified in a way that will hurt California’s multiracial children for the next seven years.

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget suggested that people should be able to check two or more races on government forms. The effective date for the new policy began with the 2000 decennial census. Most states followed OMB’s requirements.

The new California bill AB 532 has a must-do date of January 1, 2022. What?

California’s children will most likely not have the ability to even check two or more races 19 years after the rest of the country is using “check one or more” or “multiracial.” This is a serious setback for California’s multiracial population. Our community would have been better off without AB 532.

We know concessions are often made in the back and forth of enacting any piece of legislation, but these compromises gutted the essence of the bill. We were not privy to where the last-minute changes came from, but we know the state employs several people who do not want to see a true multiracial classification for a variety of reasons – mostly because of fear of losing their minority numbers to multiracial data.

Census 2000 and Census 2010 proved that would not be the case.

We proposed that this language be used in the instructions for race: “Check one. If you are multiracial, check two or more.”

The California Department of Education had agreed to our preferred wording. Multiracial Heritage Week has been championed by Assemblyman Adam Gray, D-Merced, and Sen. Anthony Cannella, R-Ceres, and we sincerely applaud their efforts on behalf of California’s multiracial community.

On behalf of the multiracial children of California, who cannot speak for themselves, I am disappointed in Gov. Brown and Assemblyman McCarty. The state of California should be out front and progressive about racial and ethnic nomenclature, not 19 years behind the times.

This story was originally published October 8, 2015 at 11:03 AM with the headline "Susan Graham: California kids still waiting for ‘multiracial’ designation."