Creative Nonfiction Contest Finalist
Does Pumpkin Pie on Thanksgiving Make Me “Black•ish?”
The internal racial debate of growing up “mixed” in America
As I planned to cook for Thanksgiving, I felt a familiar pit in my stomach as I considered what I would make for dessert. Growing up, our family would eat pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, and this was a slight source of shame for me. I recall the echo of familiar words from my childhood:
Black people eat sweet potato pie; white people eat pumpkin pie.
I am “mixed” but not part white. My mother was Japanese-American; my father, African-American. The only time I’ve been labeled as white was when my Kindergarten classmate told me that her mother said that white people were pink and because I was pink, I was white. That was my induction into race in America, and the idea that I was different. It also started my yearning to fit in.
Being mixed•ish
Like young Rainbow Johnson on mixed•ish, I was keenly aware of the differences of my upbringing. I was raised in South Central Los Angeles. “South Central” was the dog-whistle for any area densely populated with Black residents.
