I often get asked the following:
Where are you from?
What's your parents' background?
What is your last name?
What are you?
If it's not these words directly, then it's some derivative. If it doesn't happen within the first couple of minutes, then it happens eventually. Being asked questions like these my entire life has instilled a sense of Otherness into me, a feeling that I'm some sort of exotic commodity.
Exotic.
That word makes me cringe.
Being called exotic makes me feel like some sort of rare and endangered species - like a parrot on a British travel show, or a collector's edition item that you can order in a catalogue. I am neither of these things, and I don't take lightly to being dehumanized.
What are you?
I'm a person.
The weird thing about being mixed is that your identity is obscured and showcased at the same time.
In spite of identifying as mixed, I am lumped into monoracial categories. I've been perceived as a range of identities: the white girlfriend in an interracial relationship, the overachieving Asian student, the white ally with no personal understanding of racialization, and even the token 'ethnic' voice within a largely white space.
It's not so much that none of these identities bear any truth - it's just that the truth bears more complexity than is expressed by the label. When the complexity of that truth isn't acknowledged, I feel erased. I feel an impulse to reclaim space that was never given to bodies like mine in the first place.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, people like to use mixed race individuals as proof of a post-racial and multicultural society. In order to do this, you'd have to overlook a long and tenuous history of anti-miscegenation. Much like white supremacy, anti-miscegenation isn't a relic of the past. In fact, it cannot exist without white supremacy.
At its most 'benign' (because positive stereotypes can still cause harm), this fetishization can manifest in people finding mixed race babies 'cuter than normal babies.' At its most malevolent, it can manifest in unwanted sexual attention. I have a vivid memory of going out with my friends one night in second year and meeting a non-mixed person that told me he found me attractive because I was “the perfect mix.” Later that night, he kept putting his hands on me and kissing me, in spite of my very noticeable discomfort and lack of consent.
Fetishized rhetoric breeds harm because it exoticizes, rather than normalizes, the wholeness of who I am. It's not fair or respectful to deconstruct whole bodies into rare and strange parts.
I am not an ambivalent Other, cultivated in the likeness of a white, western Self. I am not half-Other and half-Self.
I am whole.
Affirmation #3: While not all space is or should be mine to take, I own the space that I occupy.
I recognize the large degree of privilege afforded to me. My skin is light enough that I can pass for white. While this privilege is conditional, it would be a grave disservice if I were to assert that my experiences were at the same level of harm as that experienced by folks with darker skin.
In many situations, I do allyship.
Even then, my experiences don't make me the perfect ally. I'm constantly learning and unlearning. It's an arduous process and there's a lot of room for error. I fuck up often, and I fuck up a lot. I've enacted harm onto myself and other people, and I've been complicit in harm, watching speechlessly when it happened.
Many times, I've helplessly perpetuated harm with no idea how to stop it, no confidence that I'd be heard if I were to use my words.
I realize that a lot of my hesitance to speak up in situations is a result of the way that my identities intersect. I have internalized layers upon layers of shame. It is a lot easier to perform a caricature of myself than it is to call people out. It's not always safe to disagree, but it's always safe to peacock positive attributes that people generally associate with being mixed.
When I try to speak sometimes, I fumble and falter and get talked over. Other times I am straight up silenced, despite speaking with the strongest conviction. I struggle to feel empowered in the space I take.
I'm still working on feeling entitled to space.
I don't get to control how or when I will be marked. My difference has been and continues to be reinforced. Regardless of how I present and perform, I don't get to choose to be seen as similar.
This causes me a great deal of anxiety. I don't know where I fit in the world. I have trouble gauging where I stand in relationships. I generally feel confused, and whether intentional or not, I work hard in a lot of spaces in order to prove that I have a right to be there.
I constantly seek external validation, and I've been taught that value is something I need to earn, not something that's inherent to my existence. Not something I deserve. Not something I'm entitled to.
I'm not the only person in the world that has ever felt like this. I'm certainly not the only person I know who feels alienated. I find that inspiring. There's a lot of strength in solidarity, and a lot of power in support.
I've had a lot of incredible support in my life, and I've been lucky enough to give support in return. It's through this process of giving and receiving that I feel connected to particular people and specific spaces. My connection to these communities is proof that I belong.
I can't express how incredible it feels to write those words down.
I belong.