Again, this blog has been vindicated!
After that interview, we went into the records office, and Miki asked to file a form to get her son’s birth records. While she was filling out the form, I happened to overhear a woman who was sitting at a desk say something about the “race” field on a birth certificate she was preparing. I asked her if this was the office that responsible for filling out the birth certificate information for babies born there, and she said that it was.
Because she had just asked something about the “race” field on the birth certificate she was working on, I asked, “Back in 1961, would anyone have ever entered ‘African’ as the race of a parent?” She said, “No, back then they probably would have listed a black person’s race as ‘negro.’” I asked, “So, the word ‘African’ wouldn’t have been used, because that is a nationality and not a race, right?” And she responded, “Right. Nowadays we can use ‘African American’ though.” To which I added, “But, the word ‘African’ by itself has never been used as an entry for race?” And she simply said, “No. Never.”
And there you have it . . . from the folks at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children.
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