I wish I had kept track of how many times I've been asked, "Wait, what are you?" When you don't fit the stereotypical expectations of what people think White, Hispanic, Asian, Black, etc. should look like, you are confronted with some pretty interesting questions and situations. If you've experienced all or most of the following, congratulations! You, too, are ethnically ambiguous.
1. You get called "exotic" a lot.
If I recall correctly, I was about eleven when someone first told me I was exotic looking. Initially, I took it as an insult. At eleven years old, all that meant to me was that I looked weird and stuck out from everyone else - and in my mind, I did. As an eleven year old girl, that's pretty much the last thing you want. My tan skin, dark brown eyes and hair and full lips didn't really match the features of my parents or anyone in my family, for that matter. One day, my mom helped me to realize that being called exotic is a compliment - and I never thought twice about it. Who wants to look the same as everyone else, anyway?
2. People assume you can speak another language.
Whether it's that annoying guy on Tinder who has a thing for foreign girls, your Spanish teacher in high school who always swore that you're accent had to be authentic, or the man checking in your luggage at the airport in Colombia who insists on speaking to you in Spanish, it never fails. People almost always assume that your facial features or slightly tanned skin indicates your fluency in a foreign language. While I wish I could say that I'm fluent in Spanish, the truth is that I can only talk about food, my emotions and the weather.
3. People always ask if you're adopted.
No, but really. I've been told so many times that I look nothing like my parents and must be adopted that there have been times that I've actually started to believe it too. This assumption is often accompanied by the question, "Well if you're not adopted, then where did you get your full lips from? Why do you look so Hispanic?" The truth is, I don't know the answers to these questions and I probably never will, so I'll just embrace these qualities and move on with life.
4. You can travel to foreign countries and actually feel like you fit in.
One great part about being ethnically ambiguous is that you fit in many places when you travel abroad. Unlike my friends with blonde hair and blue eyes, I can travel to South America, Latin America and Europe without people gawking at me. Traveling can be intimidating enough, so it does help when you can fake it and pretend like you fit in - although in reality you have no clue what you're doing.
5. People can never figure out exactly what you "are."
I've been asked if I was half-Black, Asian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, Hawaiian, and even Native American. You get used to the fascination and the guessing games after a while; however, it never gets old when I tell people that I'm just an average white girl - a mix of Italian, Irish and German - with uncharacteristically full lips and dark features.
