What's your race?

You know how they have these forms for employment where you can complete a short survey with a question about your race? I can't count how many times I've filled out those forms, and I always indicated I was white. Never even gave it a second thought. No doubt whatsoever.

Then one lovely morning, as I was subbing for a 7th-grade teacher in middle school, one of the African American girls raised her hand and innocently asked "What's your race?" The question caught me off guard. "What?" Before then in almost 22 years of my life not a single person has ever asked me that question to my face. I didn't even know what to make of it. First thing I did when I came home though - looked in the mirror.

Alright, I wasn't clueless. I almost never need to worry about sunburn. Pretty much the only time I got to see women looking like me, was during annual celebrations of Ramadan next to the only mosque in my home town. But somehow I never thought of myself as being any different from the people around me. The whole notion of race was largely ignored as I was growing up in Eastern Europe.

Going back to our day with 7th-graders, little did I know that it was only the beginning of a very popular set of questions I get asked almost every day now (when not subbing in high school). "Are you Asian?" "Is your husband black?" Then probably the most popular one: "What are you mixed with?" "I like the color of your skin...What's your race?"

I smile and say "human".