The Stories and Faces of Being Multiracial
“You’re not black enough”
“Wow, you’re so Asian.”
“Oh yeah but you’re not even really black.”
“Wait… what are you?”
All my life I have been on the receiving end of questions and statements like these. And I know that I’m not the only one. Over the past few years, there have been two things that have intrigued me more than anything: photography and mixed-race identity. I’ve decided to combine these factors along with my degree in journalism to create this photojournalism project, Voices of Others.
If you’ve ever taken a standardized test or filled out an application, you’ve noticed a section to identify your race. Oftentimes, you can only choose one. Which one do you choose to identify with? Do you leave this section blank? Or, if its available, choose the “other” option? This project will focus on those people, the “Others”, who may identify with just one race or multiple. Their stories are too often overlooked despite their importance.
In 2009, I was working a high school basketball camp. At the end of one of the days, a mother, she was Caucasian, approached me and one of my best friends, who is also multiracial. She asked us for help with her son. The conversation we had crushed me.
She explained to us that there had been multiple times where she had caught her son, who is half African American, using bleach to scrub his skin. His mother explained to me that he was well liked throughout the school, but he still felt that he didn’t fit in. The school and town we were in was predominantly white and had very few students who were of multiple races. The mom, being white, didn’t know how to help so reached out to us to talk to her son.
Being sixteen, I didn’t know exactly what to tell him except that I too, was going through the same thing. The advice we gave him was advice I eventually took myself. We told him three things: One, we understood what he was going through. Two, he was loved independently of his skin color. Three, embrace being multiracial, it is unique and though it doesn’t define you, it is still part of who you are.