Legislation was introduced in California (SB 1615) on February 24, 2006 by Senator Joe Simitian. It was a bad piece of legislation from the start, and was made even worse by various amendments. The bill in its original form did not contain the word "multiracial" (not a good thing). It made it possible for state forms to allow people to check more than one box (a good thing if done without reallocation to one race and with the term "multiracial"). In other words, California forms would simply mimic federal forms and federal reallocation schemes.

Project RACE suggested wording based on our experience with state legislation for multiracial people. Senator Simitian and his staff added the term "multiracial," at our request, but not so that anyone would know. We pointed out that children don't usually read legislation, so it would be meaningful only if "multiracial" was used on the forms themselves. Senator Simitian refused to further amend the bill so that it would actually mean something to our community.

Legislation usually goes through many changes and amendments before it goes to a floor vote; it's part of the process. We have done this plenty of times before and other states seem to understand the give and take. We attempted to compromise. We tried to make this a win-win for everyone.

Let's not mistake exactly who was behind this legislation: every Asian organization ever heard of (and some never heard of), Mavin (the organization that takes credit for everything everyone else does, anyway) and the Association of Multiethnic Americans (not multiracial Americans). Oh, and Mavin uses the terms "mixed" and "hapa" almost exclusively. They even have that multiethnic organization using those terms. Supporters included a California based man who wants to do away with race altogether (and we thought we would never see AMEA and him on the same side!), and a guy in Sacramento who wrote some very nasty e-mails to us telling us he was an internationally recognized "authority" on multiracial issues. Interestingly, the main supporter was one of Senator Simitian's own legislative aides who has a history of support to exclusively Asian causes and caucuses like the Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Staff Caucus.

The bill should also make historically black organizations happy, since it would allow them to hold fast to the one-drop rule and have the majority of multiracial people counted as "black." Still, most state organizations that could have supported the bill took no position on it rather than to recommend it as it was written and amended.

In the early 90s when we started planning our strategy for the 2000 Census hearings in Washington, one of the high-up decision makers in the US Census Bureau made this comment to me: "We can't do anything until your community picks one name for itself! Is it Multiracial? Interracial? Mixed? Hapa? Biracial?"

There was a need for consistency. We polled the membership of Project RACE and put out the question to the community at-large as well as the other organizations in existence at the time. They came back with the overwhelming (but not unanimous) consensus of "Multiracial." It was more inclusive than "biracial" and comments were made about "mixed" bringing "mixed up" to mind and that it also lent itself to "racial purity" comparisons of people who were monoracial.

So what happened? The backers of SB 1516 (the same groups that played "Let's Make a Deal" with the feds) and the egos of Senator Simitian and his aides got in the way. When the bill passed, the first subcommittee backers prematurely danced in the streets of Sacramento, held press conferences, and declared victory, certain that they would sail through committees and floor votes.

Meanwhile, we realized that Senator Simitian and his staff were closed to any further dialogue that might reach a compromise. Project RACE had no choice but to oppose the bill as it was written. SB 1516 died (it was put in the suspense file, which is the same thing) on May 25 in the Appropriations Subcommittee. This was partially because of our efforts to make the legislation meaningful, partially due to our contacting influential individuals and organizations that do not see why the multiracial community should merely follow what the current administration in Washington wants, and partially because Senator Simitian's staff and backers of the legislation did not do their homework on important issues such as fiscal ramifications, progress of other states, legal implications, etc.

Here is a list of just some of the problems with SB 1615 as it is currently written:

1. The bill follows federal guidelines, which calls multiracial people "people of more than one race." The United States Census Bureau published a series of "We the People" reports including: "Asians in the United States," "Hispanics in the United States," "Black Population in the United States," and "People of More than One Race in the United States." Why conform to federal guidelines that call multiracial children and adults "people of more than one race" and puts them back into single race categories when they are tabulated?
2. SB 1615 is also titled The Ethnic Heritage Respect and Recognition Act. Why just ethnicity? Shouldn't it be titled The Racial and Ethnic Respect and Recognition Act?
3. With a few minor changes, California really could lead the nation in progress in classifications by properly using the term "multiracial." Instead, the current bill is designed to hide the term on forms. If the term multiracial was really obvious in the bill, why would a newspaper use this headline "'Mixed race' option on state documents clears senate panel" the day after the first subcommittee vote? That's how well SB 1615 hides the term "multiracial."
4. SB 1615 is designed to uphold the one-drop rule (one drop of black blood and you are reassigned to the black category), which is dangerous on a federal level and would be equally dangerous on a state level.
5. SB 1615 has a companion bill, AB 2420, which may be what this is all about anyway. AB 2420 would do the following: Requires any state agency, board, commission, community college, or California State University that collects demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians to use separate collection categories and tabulations specifically for Bangladeshi, Fijian, Hmong, Chamorro, Indonesian, Malaysian, Pakistani, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Thai, and Tongan, other Asian, and other Pacific Islander. (Current law requires tabulation specifically for Asian Indian, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Guamanian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Native Hawaiian, Samoan, and Vietnamese).
6. Some groups and individuals that testified at subcommittee hearings used mental instability of people of more than one race as a reason to pass SB 1615. Honest. It's public record. They cited "medical studies" that apparently found that multiracial people have a wide array of psychological problems because of...well, we're not quite sure of exactly what. How is this in any way positive for our children? There are plenty of positive studies available. Anyone in this community who buys into the "mixed race is mixed up" mentality and then voices that opinion as our "leadership" is doing a great disservice to the multiracial population. We at Project RACE are still shaking our heads over this.
7. The deal that certain multiethnic groups made with the federal government in 1997 so that they would be put on government "working groups" for mono-racial people was that they would spread the same scheme to the states. They can't very well disagree with federal policy when they are working for the federal government. Does this make it right for states to follow suit?

Senator Simitan, his staff, multiethnic groups, and individuals supposedly representing multiracial children and adults need to stop building walls and start building bridges of true compromise, not compromise with the federal government. Isn't it interesting that the Senator's Web site never even mentioned SB 1615? Isn't it odd that the "supporters" pretend that it never even happened since it failed? Legislation for multiracial people in California has a long way to go and Project RACE will be there. We'll see what happens.

Susan Graham
Executive Director
Project RACE