What’s in a DNA Test?

“Who am I?” This question is essential to finding our sense of identity, yet it is so complicated, as there are many facets to it. Fortunately, scientific and technological developments have made it possible to explore some of them. One prevalent method is ancestry tests. The MIT Technological Review reports that by 2019, 26 million consumers took one of these tests, almost doubling the amount from the year before. This number will continue to rise, as studies have projected that the DNA test kit market will increase by 16.1 percent from 2020 to 2030. These figures show that more and more people are becoming interested in figuring out their ethnic heritage.

I was one of these people. I had strictly identified as being half Filipino and half Russian my entire life, and I was enticed by the prospect of finding more to my story. With this newfound determination, I asked my parents to order DNA testing kits for my birthday. Just a few months later, the results came in. The entire time I only expected to find a few percentage points in my DNA that were neither Filipino nor Russian, but the results took me by surprise. Apparently, I was only 26 percent Filipino. The other 24 percent from my dad was Chinese. I was extremely shocked, as there was never any indication of Chinese ancestry from my dad’s side at all.

Everyone else in my family was just as shocked as I was, but they treated this information just like any online trend. For one to two weeks, they were all talking about it with their friends and each other, but their interest dwindled shortly after. However, this discovery sent me spiraling. I kept asking myself, “What do I say my ethnicity is now?” and “Am I less Filipino than I was before I found out these results?” I am not alone in my confusion. DNA test results have been shown to affect the way people see themselves, as those who have taken an ancestry test have been found more likely to self-identify with multiple races.

Some people may scoff at the idea of letting a DNA test affect the way you see yourself, as the tests are not completely accurate. This is definitely a valid concern, as even my own results tell me that my Chinese ancestry can range anywhere from 18 to 33 percent of DNA. Moreover, these tests are always expanding and changing their database, so my percentages have shifted slightly. Some test takers ignore their results to cherry-pick their identities, leaving out the ones that they are uncomfortable being associated with. For me, however, ignoring my Chinese ancestry was not the right solution.  My dad only grew up with his mom in the Philippines, and he never really knew anything about his dad. It was entirely possible that my grandpa had come from a Chinese background, and neither my dad nor my grandma knew about it.

So what is the answer? After many months of deliberating this question, I have come to a middle ground. I am still going to identify as half Filipino and half Russian, but not because I don’t think the results are accurate enough or because I have an antipathy to identifying as Chinese. It is because identification comes with social implications. We all now know that race is a social construct, but ethnicity partly is as well. Ethnicity is not only just about common ancestry. It’s about culture, religion, language, nationality, and more. When I say I’m Filipino and Russian, that comes with years of eating and learning how to cook Filipino food, visiting my Russian relatives, learning the languages, and making memories with both of my grandmothers who live with me. These aren’t necessarily the prerequisites necessary for my ethnic identity, but they are definitely factors that enhance it. Given that I only learned about my Chinese ancestry recently, I don’t think I can ever have those same experiences to truly claim that identity.

With the stigma of interracial marriages decreasing in America, it is very likely that in a few generations, children who take a DNA test will see a countless number of different ethnic groups on their results. Perhaps it would be more confusing for them than it was for me if they had to identify with every single ethnicity on that list. It doesn’t have to be that way. By taking a deeper look into the nuanced compositions of ethnic identity, we will be able to foster deeper cultural connections for ourselves as well as future generations and answer at least part of that existential question: Who am I?