This month, we celebrate the mongrel, a word that means different things to different people. For some, it may bring to mind nonpedigree dogs, mutts that don't belong to a specific breed; in Japanese, the word is daken, which has the definite negative connotation of a "skulking cur."
But I want to celebrate mongrels in the sense that U.S. President Barack Obama meant it when he was asked in 2010 why he didn't refer to himself as "black." Obama — whose mother was Kansas-born white, and whose father was a black Kenyan — said African-Americans are a "mongrel people."
"I mean we're all kinds of mixed-up," the president said. "Now that's actually true for white America as well."
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