I never think of you as Asian.
Virginia,
Cambridge, MA.
I’m half Filipina. And I’ve always thought of myself as half. But one day at a faculty meeting a colleague told me I “passed” as white. It’s bothered me ever since.
Born white, Pakistani Heart, International soul
Marilyn Gardner,
Boston, MA.
Born in the United States, Grew up in Pakistan. Hold American passport. Birthed 5 kids on 3 continents. Now trying to make sense of a life in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
There’s more than what you see
Josephine Kim,
Cambridge, MA.
When it comes to race, we need our eyes to hear and our ears to see.
Mommy, why wasn’t I born white?
Victoria Finney
Cambridge, MA
I still remember how upset she was when I asked her this. Like I had said something wrong that I shouldn’t have. Like I had failed a test somehow.
“Tori, aren’t you happy with the way you are? You are beautiful; black is beautiful.”
Why is she saying this? Why does she look so mad? I just want my hair to be like my friends’ hair in my class… so nice and straight and flat and easy. I’m tired of people tryna yank it out every stinking morning.
“No, mommy, I just wanna be like everyone else, like my friends in school!” That is when I started crying. And mommy looked so helpless, like she had done something wrong. And for the first time I felt ashamed for wishing I was different.
“No, Tori. You were born the way you are and you can’t change the way you are. You have to love who you are.” This wasn’t exactly the easiest concept to teach to a six-year-old. I bawled harder and she just held me in that way that mothers do to make all the bad in the world go away. A few weeks later, we went to the hair dresser and I got my first relaxer. It burned. My best friend at school asked me how I got the weeds out. I was just happy to be normal.
It took a few more years of being *the token* for me to appreciate who I really was. I love my mother. And I love this colorful life that she gave to me.
Model minority myth perpetuates our oppression
Kristy Luk,
Cambridge, MA.
I am an Asian-American woman, and my racial identity is not to be used as a weapon of oppression against other people of color. My story, and that of my immigrant parents’, will not be held up as examples of how “some folks can make it, if they try hard enough.”
Black, Mixed, Metisse, Exotic, Afropino, Fulatto
Christina Lewis Halpern
New York City, NY
The strange thing about race in the western world is the strong need to put people’s identities into boxes. I have a complicated identity, which led to people helpfully telling me what category I fit in, including making up some words to describe me. I’ve chosen to describe myself as Black and Filipino. I am both and whole. Not half of each.
My “Black Experience” doesn’t threaten yours
Louisa Etim
Cambridge, MA
I often get frustrated with the notion (held by people of all races) that there is a single “Black Experience” and that by not fitting into this box of “acting Black” I am somehow shunning my race and orchestrating some malicious plan to intrude on a lifestyle that should not be attainable to someone of my complexion.
Multiracial: Acknowledge Every Part Of Me
Kayci Baldwin
Cambridge, MA
For more than 7 years I have worked as a Multiracial advocate with Project RACE and Project RACE Teen. One of the main goals of this work has been the appropriate inclusion of Multiracial people on any forms that require racial identification. Ultimately, my goal is to eliminate the resilient “or” from conversations regarding the identity of Multiracial Americans, allowing them to identify with every part of their heritage and to celebrate all of who they are.
