Were one discussing the racial identity of the child of a naturalized Englishman who was the son of an Italian father and a Spanish mother, and who had married a Portuguese wife, it would be unwise to dogmatize overmuch as to the child’s nationality, but the Arabs of Kordofan, whose antecedents are of an equally chequered order, are entirely unabashed in glibly arrogating to themselves pedigrees which if correct would mark them as a race unrivalled in the history of the world for nobility and purity of descent…
-Harold MacMichael, The Kababish- Some Remarks on the Ethnology of a Sudan Arab Tribe, Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, January 1910
It took a bit of explaining my lineage in light of my full name, Louis and Werner coming from my father, one of my middle names coming from my maternal grandfather and the other from my paternal grandmother. Add to that my mixed (as the Arabs perceived them) ethnicities- French, English and German via the American heartland- and they were totally confused. Jinsiyyatak Eh? What is your Nationality? If they were looking for the short answer, they should have just asked, Inta Mīn? Who are you?