Obama, Race, and Identity

The crowds present at Barack Obama's victory speech last night was the first time I have witnessed the most powerful manifestation of America's collective subconscious. Bush and his cronies seriously underestimated the damage their policies have done to the population at large, so in psychic terms, yesterday's election results represented a cleansing—the passing of the old guard and a step into the future.

Obama brought together a powerful coalition of voters that is coming into its own and supplanting the old order: ethnic minorities, youth, independents, and netizens. I didn't have time in my 2,250 word essay that I wrote in under four hours to do more than touch on the significance of what will be the most important legacy of the Obama era: race. In the coming years, I hope to write more extensively on this premise.

In the year 2000, at the dawn of the new millennium, I was there as part of Census 2000—the nation's first multicultural and multilingual census. I served on the regional media team on the staff of regional director Arthur Dukakis and as a press advance for the national director of the Census Bureau. For the first time in history, respondents to the census questionnaire were given an opportunity to self-identify their ethnicity. In the past, there were only a few boxes to check off: for example, bi-racial people had to choose between being black or white. In many ways, it was like choosing between one of your parents in a divorce case. In terms of identity politics, the decision was simplistic: if you were dark-skinned, you were black, and if you were light-skinned, you passed for white.

I would argue that Obama's historic achievement would not have been possible but for the rise of multiculturalism in this country and its celebration among America's immigrants and its youth. Assimilation is no longer preferable to acculturation for ethnic minorities as it was in the decades I was growing up. Yes, Obama is a light-skinned black and considers himself an African-American; his base is in the African-American community. However, he was raised and strongly influenced by his mother and maternal grandparents—all of them white. Culturally, his formative experiences took place among Asians and in Southeast Asia: his vaunted cool and serenity is extraordinarily Asian in temperament...very disciplined, very Zen (am I the only one who has made this connection?). Obama doesn't have the hell fire and political resume of a Jesse Jackson and would not have succeeded had his image and campaign been seen in the same light. Psychologically, as a blank slate, voters could project something of themselves onto the candidate. This is the first time in my lifetime that I can say we will have a president who truly represents the diversity that is America.

Millennials, multiculturals, intellectuals, independents, intuitives, and netizens understand this and, as voters, viewed Obama as someone who transcends race: a planetary citizen. When people see me for the first time, they see a woman who looks like a college student despite her age, a person of Asian descent; some might guess that I am a Filipina. Sometimes I am underestimated because I am stereotyped as a young and submissive Asian female. This is convenient and laughable essentializing. The reality is that I have for all my life identified myself as a global citizen, an evangelistic warrior and precursor of a future where there are no barriers of gender, race, or ethnicity: this is why I have easily mingled in many ethnic, social, cultural, and artistic milieus. In similar fashion, President-elect Obama has a thin line to walk given the huge and sobering task of governing a heterogeneous United States.

Of course, the Obama administration will deal with race, giving the issue the depth it has long deserved. But if he is to govern effectively and to deliver on the promise for a bright and inclusive future for all Americans, a President Obama must remain a bridge: an eloquent and transcendent figure.

As for the question: "What were you doing when Obama was elected president?" My husband, our Shih-Tzu, and I settled on the sofa in front of the television and watched split-screen election coverage from 4pm on. I had made buttermilk-soaked fried chicken and baby greens salad for dinner in front of the tv; we had snacks and drinks well-stocked. We're not political professionals or pundits, just deeply engaged and highly informed netizens (my husband started his high tech career with Lotus Development, and I used to work in television news…as an intern, I saw Peter Jennings—my tv news idol—in person every day; Peter would have loved this 2008 campaign). We predicted the election would be determined early, by 10pm the election would be called in Obama's favor and McCain would concede shortly afterwards. I also predicted the win would be a landslide, but that the election would be closer than expected: I was right on both counts. It was an electoral landslide, but the popular vote was much closer, only by 6% of total votes cast. At 10pm CST, as polls closed on the West Coast, all the major networks broke the news of Obama's projected win. Everything played out as predicted, and I stayed awake practically the entire night and well into morning watching and reading news updates.