I wonder how many people out there have ever been asked this question. I've been told that I don't look like any specific race or nationality. I guess it bothers some people more than others, and that's probably why I get asked from time to time. As a kid I didn't really care what my heritage was, but as I've grown older it's become more and more of a bother for me to be asked those three words. I mean, any other question about myself I've never had trouble answering confidently, but when I got thrown that one I had nothing. If I say "I don't know" then someone will immediately choose a racial label for me and say something like "You're definitely part Cherokee. I can tell," or even more annoyingly "Why are you asking her that, she's just white!"
Avoiding answering the question is hard too. I used to just cop-out and say something dumb like "I'm human, what are you?" I also used to just tell people "Creole" which basically means "native born" and could be a mix of any number of races (though many people think falsely that this means only people of African mixed descent).
Well this year I decided to change things. I wanted to toss off these arbitrary labels and discover for myself what people of this world gave rise to my existence. Using my prior knowledge of my family tree as well as autosomal DNA tests I came up with this list which I would like to share with anyone who would have asked me in person were we to meet face to face. They are in order of greatest to least percentage.
Irish
Russian
Polish
Scottish
Scandinavian
British
Belgian (Flemish)
Mestizo/ Hispanic (Argentinean, Venezuelan, Colombian, Costa Rican & Brazilian)
Romanian
German
Hungarian
French Canadian (aka Acadian, aka Cajun)
Austrian
Slovenian
French
Italian
Portuguese
Serbian
South Asian
Xinjiang Chinese
You'd think that knowing all of this would change what I say to people when they inquire. Heh heh, not really. I still don't tell them. Most people that ask don't want a list this long. They just want one or two ethnicities tops. I just like to keep it simple and say "I'm me."
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