Most people just assume that I’m Asian. I guess I don’t blame them, I mean I do have light brown/tannish skin, dark brown hair, and dark brown eyes. But just to address the elephant in the room, my eyes are average-sized. Regardless, I don’t hold a grudge against people for assuming that I’m Asian. It’s when people ask things like “What are you?” (Gee, maybe a person?) and I give them an explanation of how if I identify as multiracial that things get tricky.
Ethnically I’m half Chinese and half White, but I never really thought about how I actually identified until I had to check a box on a pre-administration AP test form. I’ve grown up in America (hence a very White culture) all my life, but I’ve also grown up in a traditional extended Chinese family. I remember asking the administrator what box to check if I was of multiple races, and she said to pick the one I identify with more. That’s when I realized I didn’t identify with either more, so I checked “Other.” I’ve checked “Other” on every standardized form I’ve filled out since then because there has never been a “Multiracial” option.
The best way I can explain to people what identifying as multiracial feels like is by using the analogy of the color purple. Purple is made out of a combination of two distinct colors, red and blue, and yet we don’t call purple “half blue, half red,” we call it purple. Purple is capable of being its own unique entity despite coming from two established colors (this is the same analogy used to explain bisexuality, but I’ll save that for another article). I can’t speak for all multiracial people, but at least for me, I recognize the ethnicities that I’m made of without leaning one way or the other.
The reason why I feel the need to write about this is because of the comments I get on a daily basis about my race that make me insecure about my identity when I shouldn’t have to be. I know people don’t intend to make me feel bad, but comments like “You’re not Asian enough,” “You’re not a real Asian,” or “You’re not White enough” make me feel like I don’t belong anywhere. A lot of the times multiracial people are treated like they are watered-down versions of their races, and this can be incredibly alienating and hurtful to that person. Mocking someone for not fitting into a box, whether that box is gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation, causes someone to feel like they need to conform to the status quo instead of celebrating their unique qualities.
The good news is that the number of people who identify as multiracial seems to be growing, most likely as a result of the growing number of interracial couples. And a lot of my experiences that I cited earlier happened in a city where the population is overwhelmingly white. I’ve actually had much better experiences with how people react to my racial identity in Portland, which is definitely a much more diverse city. Multiracial people and the struggles they face is also starting to gain representation in mass media, most notably in the character ‘Soso’ on "Orange is the New Black." Hopefully, we will become represented more so that we are not judged for the way we identify, just as no one else should be.
