Being Multi-racial in a Mono-racial Body

by Guest Blogger

When I was six, I didn’t know what ethnicity was. All I knew was that my Mom was born in Japan and that my Dad was born in a typical New England town where I visited my Scrabble-obsessed grandmother every other weekend. It didn’t matter at the time of course, what race was, while I spent my days playing with earthworms and frolicking through backyards with my best friend. It wasn’t until my teachers preached about equal rights for all races and my friends pronounced that my mom’s fantastic Japanese cuisine was, “Ew,” that I started to realize that whether I cared to notice it or not, I was probably different from Mary, Jenny and Sarah. To begin with, my name sounded different from theirs. Although I have a “white”-sounding first and last name, my parents called me by my Japanese middle name, and so did my classmates.

biracial-familyWhat’s weird is that as I try to recall how I felt back then about my multi-racial identity, I can only remember key landmark events. In middle school, people I had gone to elementary school with called me by my Japanese name, but I started introducing myself with my first name. I didn’t feel divided really, and judging from the fact that I was the leader of our Black History Club’s Step Team, race didn’t seem like such a big obstacle. I joined the Asian Pacific-Islander Club too because of the weekly Asian restaurant field-trips. I remember being a clique-hopper—you know the kind of person that never stays in just one clique. But that didn’t bother me too much, because I would hang out with Group A when I was feeling bold, Group B when I was feeling artsy and so on.

But now is not the time to talk about my experiences in middle school. Why don’t I skip ahead a bit to when I was 13 and lived in Japan for a year–part of my mom’s initiative to help me “understand her roots.” It turned out to be the most enriching and meaningful experiences of my life, but I certainly didn’t think it was going to be that great when the kids teased and bullied me for my forward American ways. It’s good to keep in mind that 1) kids are cruel and 2) Japan is a conformist nation. As soon as the novelty of an American in their small Japanese village wore off (a week?) I realized how much I didn’t fit in, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. Wiping my tears away, I recall walking up to the boys who bullied me and demanding they tell me why they kept talking behind my back. Finally one boy was brave enough to tell me the truth—”you’re not one of us, and you’re so opinionated. You can’t have your own opinions when you’re new”.

After years of clique-hopping, you might be able to imagine how shell-shocked I felt. Months later, when I had blended in so well that I could have been a native villager, I asked my friend about my first month there. He told me that the way he and others had treated me was clearly wrong, but that perhaps they felt justified because I looked a lot like them, yet acted completely different.

Years later, an outgoing Caucasian girl I tutor at college was telling me about her study abroad experiences in Japan this past semester. I asked her about the first few weeks of her stay and if the students around her accepted her or not. She looked at me strangely and responded that “Of course they accepted me, why wouldn’t they? They were so nice to me for the entire time.” In retrospect, her response shouldn’t have surprised me, since prejudices stem from the different treatment of people based on their phenotype.

In hopes of figuring out my feelings of not fitting in, I have spoken to many other multi people since coming to college and have joined the college’s intercultural group. I even read academic articles on the topic. Annoyingly, the feeling of not fitting in that I have experienced is usually recorded as the result of looking like neither parent’s race. In my case, I look more Japanese, forcing the people around me to treat me like I am fully Japanese. I find myself crammed into a box of assumptions that are made about the way I should move, act, talk, behave, think, etc. It isn’t about how I feel, but how a Japanese woman should feel. I have also been the target of many men who have exotified my Asian-ness, even though I feel just as White as I feel Asian. In my childhood, the relatives I spent the most time with were on my dad’s side. With them, never did I feel like I was the Asian cousin, or the Asian niece. I was just me.

My experiences in high school were different though, since I was one of about 10 people with Asian descent. Most of us were Hapa (half Asian, half White), but we were clumped together as “the Asian Kids” and our classmates made jokes that seemed innocent enough until, well, I had had enough. But out of laziness and to avoid mispronunciations of my Japanese name, I went by my white-sounding first name. You wouldn’t believe the questions I got because my name didn’t fit my looks. “So, is ___the name you chose when you came over to the U.S.?” a girl with the most innocent look on her face asked. “Were you adopted?” was a less extreme question, but one that I was frequently asked.

When I was accepted by my college in the December of my senior year, I was one of many who joined the college Facebook group, a way for pre-frosh to mingle and get to know each other before we entered scary college-land. Of course, I didn’t think to change my Facebook name from my first name to my middle name before joining these groups, and therefore I had no choice but to use my first name in college. I tried to switch back in the beginning: “I’m _____…..or ______, whichever you prefer” I would tell strangers at the time, but after a few gave me confused stares, others laughed that I was carrying two identities. Some chose my first name because it was easier. I surrendered and went by my White name for all of freshman year. I continued to get questions about my White name, except with a veil of political correctness, which came with the type of people who attend liberal arts colleges. But I was tired of telling people that yes, I am actually half White. Would I lie to them? Of course not! My father is Irish and English. I am serious! Do ya see these freckles? They would laugh at my sense of humor for wearing a T-shirt that said “Everybody loves an Irish girl.” Granted, I wore it because I knew I didn’t look like the stereotypical Irish girl, but still.

So last summer, I decided to try something. At my summer job, I went by my middle name ONLY for the first time since elementary school. It felt so awkward and strange in the beginning, but it was only a matter of days until I felt completely at home with my name. A month and a half later, a few days before classes started up again, I announced to my college friends that I would be switching back to my middle name. I explained to them in a shorter version of this article that I didn’t feel in sync with my name because of X, Y, Z. The support I received was phenomenal, but regardless, the first month of the semester was rough because inevitably there would be people who knew of the name-shift, and people who didn’t. Sometimes I’d have to explain it to the ones who didn’t know, in front of the ones who did. Teachers would forget, classmates would forget too, and I would have to remind them—it’s _____. Or sometimes my close friends would call me by my first name (to which I would respond, because it’s still my name) but then they would beat themselves up about it a second later when they realized they hadn’t called me by my middle name.

Four months later, everyone has caught on and it’s such a relief. I explained to my cousin that my current name situation was the best for me because it represented both of my backgrounds: Japanese first name and White last name. Although, who knows how that will change when I’m of marriageable age—”Is your husband White or…?” Please kill me now.

The biggest challenge I still face is what I mentioned earlier—discrepancies between how I am perceived, and how I personally feel. Because no matter how Multi I feel or no matter how hodgepodge I want to act, it must all filter through my body, which is ultimately viewed as Asian. I can enjoy flirtations and propositions, but then I must step back and question whether the person is attracted to my Asian-ness, or my personality.

What should change then? Certainly people are entitled to their own opinions, and I am no stranger to judging people by the way they look either. As my cousin told me the other day, “You and I might judge people in the beginning, but if they’re not what we assumed they would be like, then we retract the judgment.” Though that may sound like a convenient excuse for our own judgments, I also think that humans can’t help but judge. We are creatures of opinions and we create folders and boxes of stereotypes to help us whittle down the huge universe into something more comprehensible.

Two and a half pages later, I still have a lot to grapple with. But hopefully I gave a little bit of insight to you, non-multi people and some food for thought to the multi-readers. While I am far from coming to any conclusions about my multi-identity, articulating my experiences and feelings are bound to make more sense of the deciphering process. Wouldn’t you agree?

- Hina

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Check out my cousin Hina’s other guest post on alternative menstrual products here. Please share your thoughts on this essay in the comments section! She’d love to hear from you all. – Dollface