Being Biracial

I know this sounds next to impossible, but I’m trying to rid my act of cliché trite material. That’s not to say lowbrow, as I honestly don’t think that’s the problem. It’s more the tired use of a joke than its FCC classification. No matter the topic, from traffic to sex, if the joke can be personalized somehow, that’s what makes it honest and true, and that’s what makes it funny. No matter what the bit is about, if it displays something truly about who you are, then the crowd will get behind you. Obviously it still has to be funny, but it won’t be misinterpreted as stupid either. I’m starting to feel that disconnection, that loss of self, in the material I would classify as racial jokes.

I’m Puerto Rican and Jewish, and that makes people think I’m going to joke about how I’m biracial and thus follow a very beaten path, but I don’t need to, and I don’t want to. Biracial jokes are formulaic in that they take two opposing stereotypes, one from each parent’s race, and place them together in perfect synergy, but that’s not why I don’t want to tell them. And it’s not because Juan Epstein from “WELCOME BACK KOTTER” was Puerto Rican and Jewish thirty years ago, either. No, the real reason I don’t need to tell biracial jokes is because I’m from Texas. That’s right: My mother is Puerto Rican, my father is Jewish, and they conceived, bore, and raised me in El Paso, Texas. And I can tell that no one reading this column really harbors any prejudices towards me, because if you did, your head would have exploded by now.