{"id":41041,"date":"2015-05-06T16:12:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T16:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=41041"},"modified":"2015-05-06T16:12:59","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T16:12:59","slug":"welcome-to-seattle-public-schools-what-race-are-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=41041","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Seattle Public Schools. What race are you?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Seattle Public Schools. What race are you?<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Seattle Globalist<\/a>
\nSeattle, Washington
\n2015-05-05<\/p>\n

Sharon H. Chang<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to Seattle Public Schools!\u201d<\/strong> it reads happily. I\u2019m cheerfully advised to use a checklist following to help me enroll my child in kindergarten.<\/p>\n

Okay, I think. No problem. My eyes scroll down the checklist: Admission Form, Certificate of Immunization Status, Special Education Form, and School Choice Form. Got it.<\/p>\n

I start filling in the Admission Form. It doesn\u2019t take long to get to page 3, \u201cStudent Ethnicity and Race\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cINSTRUCTIONS: This form is to be filled out by the student\u2019s parents or guardians, and both questions must be answered. Part A asks about the student\u2019s ethnicity and Part B asks about the student\u2019s race.\u201d<\/p>\n

I heave a huge inward sigh and put the paper aside for the day. Maybe I\u2019ll come back to that one tomorrow, I reflect. But I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t come back to it for at least a week. Actually probably more like two weeks.<\/p>\n

This is part of the process of enrolling your child in Seattle Public Schools<\/a> (SPS). You have<\/em> to state your child\u2019s race and ethnicity.<\/strong> It\u2019s not optional. And there is an entire one-page form dedicated to that declaration, which in my mind shows the clear significance of labeling a child\u2019s so-called race and ethnicity to the district.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Given that my partner and I are both mixed-race identifying and have endured a lifetime of checking boxes that (hold your breath) might or might not fit, I find these types of forms exhausting. One, they never fit anyone and everyone just right<\/strong>. Two, they are generally and perpetually confusing. Three, they are almost always deeply racializing \u2014 they make us feel our bodies are \u201craced\u201d whether we want to or not. And four, they are pretty suspect in their intentions.<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to Seattle Public Schools. What race are you? The Seattle Globalist Seattle, Washington 2015-05-05 Sharon H. Chang \u201cWelcome to Seattle Public Schools!\u201d it reads happily. I\u2019m cheerfully advised to use a checklist following to help me enroll my child in kindergarten. Okay, I think. No problem. My eyes scroll down the checklist: Admission Form, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,414,8,20],"tags":[5409,13480,20028,14613,16773,13479,2685],"class_list":["post-41041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-family","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-seattle","tag-seattle-globalist","tag-seattle-public-schools","tag-sharon-chang","tag-sharon-h-chang","tag-the-seattle-globalist","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41041"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41041\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}