Is Double Better Than Half?

Today was the retreat for the English Speaking Society. It was actually enjoyable. It became more enjoyable after I finished my speech and could focus on what the others were saying.
There was a family from Nepal that was invited as English speaking guests. They were so nice and so friendly. I really enjoyed talking with them.
I really enjoy my time at the ESS events, because the people are so genuine. They are very kind and accommodating. My locals are kind, too. It's just that I live in kind of a country town and my adult students are more apt to ask or say things that are a little rude.
Anyway, I had a good time listening to the speeches, enjoying dinner, and then enjoying small group discussions with the ESS members.
The first discussion was easy for me to debate many angles. One member even pointed out as part of his argument that Japanese are not trained to be good debaters. He mentioned that the ease with which I could support an argument for either side of our conversation was proof that Japanese can learn something from our education methods (go figure).
The most impressive part of our conversation, was when we were talking about whether it's an advantage or disadvantage to grow up speaking more than one language. One man used the example of Japanese men marrying American women and then coming to live back in Japan when their children are about 7 or 8. Mr. Toyama pointed out that a lot of people would label these children as "half", but he likes to refer to them as "double", because they have two cultures, two language, and they are usually envied for being able to speak two languages with such ease.
I've been thinking about that all night. That comment really made me just step back for a minute. I mean, what American adopted this policy? "Double" seems richer and more humane than saying "half". Would it change things if the connotations sounded more positive rather than negative? "Half" sounds less than human, but "bi-racial" or "multi-racial" doesn't seem right either, because we are all still part of the human race (one race), so maybe something like "double", not necessarily "double" would be a better choice. (Wow...that was quite the run-on sentence). It's certainly something that I would like to ask others about. I want to know their thoughts on this.