Not quite one...

BY AMARA BAKSHI Staff Reporter

Sometimes I forget there is another side to me. In the mirror, I constantly see a white face. I don’t see a South Asian complexion. I see frizzy, curly hair, different than everyone else’s. Different from my friends, family, and people I see around me.

I’ve always had difficulty taking surveys, especially when I’m asked to identify my race. I see all of the options. I keep scrolling. Hopefully, I will see one that fits me. I click “two or more races,” even though I only look like one. White. If I check one box, I feel like it doesn’t fully represent who I am. But if I click a second, I’m constantly questioning if I have enough of that heritage, enough to check that box. Then I’m in the middle of an identity crisis, not knowing which box to click.

When I tell people I’m half Indian, they look at me like I have two heads. The DNA test I took when I questioned the differences between my parents to myself confused me too.

I feel like a fake.

Everybody talks about White, Black, Hispanic, Native, and Asian people when thinking about one race. What about the people in between?

I guess it’s just me not knowing why I only look like one parent and am constantly questioned about my race, even called a liar when I try to tell people who I am.

Our environment and experiences mold our identity from the day we are born. For some, ethnicity plays a large part in who they are. Although it seems the line is apparent, some people with multiple races– in a world that is so strictly divided can feel stuck being forced to choose a side. Family members and social interactions can cause pressure to fit into one category, not having room to explore other parts of their identity. As someone who identifies as biracial, it’s hard to understand how people see “mixed” or “multiracial” as unusual.

“Really holding on to that one percent,” strangers and even people I know tell me.

I think back to everything I wish I could do. Speak the language, wear the clothes, and even eat the food without complaining about how spicy it is.

Ethnocentric ideas, or the belief in the superiority of one culture over another, causes pressure in biracial individuals’ minds. Being forced to choose which stereotype to be a part of that day creates a “hazy” way for multiracial people to define themselves.

“I’m not white enough for my mom’s family, and my dad doesn’t even visit his own; he feels isolated. Meanwhile, I don’t even speak the same language as the South Asian side,” junior and biracial student Joyana Saha said.

We’re not allowed to be one race because our skin doesn’t look stereotypical to others. We can’t be the other because we get made fun of, too “exotic,” or we’re lying. The “black sheep” of critical consciousness trying to educate others on how there isn’t one way to look from a lineage, and constantly having to prove ourselves worthy enough to be a part of both cultures.

“I am biracial. So I’m not fully one [race].

And I think for a while, [about] my African American side. I felt like my skin should be lighter. Hair should be blonde. And it’s taken me a while to realize that I don’t need to be that way,” sophomore and biracial student Jada Crockett said.

I quickly learned that there are specific experiences I can and can’t discuss with different groups of people. Growing up and living in here in the Bay Area, I looked like the other white kids but was biologically diverse. I lived on the same streets, but I knew inside was a completely different situation.

“Growing up, I wished I had more exposure to some of my [Grandpa’s] traditions and experiences… When he came to the United States in the ‘30s and ‘40s, he [assimilated] to American society and culture, so he lost much of his identity. That definitely carried over to my dad and eventually to me too,” Hannah Singh, a multiracial teacher said.

The lack of introduction and acceptance toward biracial children causes them to lose their sense of identity and to belong by not being exposed to traditions and experiences that others of the same culture have.

Biracial people don’t see themselves as messengers of racial harmony. We don’t want people telling us everyone will look like us in the future. Interracial couples and the mixedrace children that come from them will not solve racism. Biracial and multiracial people are the in-between of “black and white,” and each of our own experiences is incredibly unique, depending on whom we are raised by, where we were raised, and how we look.

Mixed Colors

by Amara Bakshi

Everyone walks around with their special color, each one different from the other, but what happens when you don’t have one of your own?

You feel alienated, the only one with a different tone. Too white for some, too “ethnic” for others, the family is divided, between sisters and brothers. They ask, “which side do you like better?” like your race makes you some type of trend setter?

When being pulled over by the cops I know I’m safe, knowing others in my country are being bombed and strafed. The box they put us in gives me so much self doubt, I hide it, using my own “white out.”

I am my ancestors, both white and asian, And I’m finished hiding it, for the comfort of a nation.