Meghan hat sich nicht daran gestört, dass sie es nicht ankreuzen konnte, sondern dass Menschen in die Kategorien eingeordnet wurden. Und da gab es für sich nichts zum ankreuzen. Schlussfolgerung war aber nicht, dass sie es gern angekreuzt hätte, sondern dass man den ganzen Zirkus, Menschen in solche Schubladen zu stecken doch bitte unterlassen sollte. Abgesehen davon war sie ein Kind und da möchte man einfach irgendwo dazugehören. Aber das sind eben willkürliche Kategorien.
Fast-forward to the seventh grade ... There was a mandatory census I had to complete in my English class – you had to check one of the boxes to indicate your ethnicity: white, black, Hispanic or Asian. There I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do. You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other – and one half of myself over the other. My teacher told me to check the box for Caucasian. 'Because that's how you look, Meghan,' she said. I put down my pen. Not as an act of defiance, but rather a symptom of my confusion. I couldn't bring myself to do that, to picture the pit-in-her-belly sadness my mother would feel if she were to find out. So, I didn't tick a box. I left my identity blank – a question mark, an absolute incomplete – much like how I felt.
When I went home that night, I told my dad what had happened. He said the words that have always stayed with me: "If that happens again, you draw your own box."
“There are many ways you can establish your own path,” he said, sounding very much like the teacher he is. “The reason I love my catch phrase, ‘Make it work,’ is because it is not just about what is happening in the workroom, it is about life. Taking the existing conditions, the things we have available to us, and rallying them to ascend to a place of success.” (Tim Gunn)