Alyssa
This is usually asked after I play dumb to the first question – where are you from? and answer with – New Jersey! As someone whose heritage is half Northern Asian Indian, half Southern Italian/German my features and coloring are just light enough, and just dark enough, and just confusing enough that people can never resist pressing the issue to try and fit me into a racial box. When I’m feeling really tired and irritated I will answer the second question with “My family is Italian” and change the subject. I’ve been told people “know” I’m Sri Lankan, asked if I’m Persian or Pakistani, mistaken for Maltese in Malta off the coast of Italy, and in Eastern Europe (my husbands home) I’ve been perceived as Roma and followed in stores. Further complicating the issue, I grew up cut off completely from my Indian heritage, my own mother (the Italian/German) asked me when I decided I identified as diverse rather than white as if it was a choice I could make. My blond-haired, blue-eyed half-sister recently called me and apologized for not ever asking, or trying to understand, how different my experience in the world might be from her’s.
I often end up feeling like an interloper everywhere, My skin is so oddly fair I have to buy ivory makeup, does that mean I’m not truly a woman of color? But the racism I’ve experienced has made it very clear that I’m not fully welcome in the white world either, and it took my 35 years to find a hairdresser who knew how to cut my Indian/Italian curls. With other elements of my identify firmly fixed – female, the B and the Q+ in LGBTQ+, dyslexic, I click so many of the D&I boxes, but my racial identity continues to elude a clear definition.
However, I have tried to, at least for myself, reframe this as just another one of my superpowers. While the moments when I felt unsafe because of my racial makeup ( from a pub in Northern Minnesota to taking the tram to dinner with friends in the Czech Republic) stand out starkly in my memory, I can also blend in places where others stand out, and most importantly, although I can’t imagine the level of pain experienced by the Black Community I can empathize with those who experience that fear for their safety based off how they look every single day.
