Ghanaian | Filipino
I identify as half-Ghanaian & half-Filipino, also as an American as I was born and raised in the US. I am also straight. My mum is from the Philippines and my dad is from Ghana. There was never a specific moment that I recognised I was mixed race, but when I was growing up I remember being out at the grocery store with my mum, for example and no one ever realising that she was my parent. I grew up alongside the Filipino side of my family as well, mostly, so I noticed I didn’t look exactly like them. Personally, growing up as an American child it was difficult for me. I felt very American to begin with, but I also resented the fact that I would always be seen as ‘Black’ first. Even back then, filling in forms there was never an option to pick multiple races, the only other thing I could choose apart from ‘Black’ or ‘African American’ was ‘Other.’ Being mixed-race is such a big part of who I am, it definitely has given me so much to think about and affects how I move through the world and express myself. I think there are a lot of assumptions made about mixed-race people about their heritage, there are a lot of questions that people feel like mixed-race people have to answer about who they are. We’re exoticised so much as well, especially in the media and social media (thanks Kardashians!) that it can all be very overwhelming. I think there’s a real expectation for mixed-race people to almost be some kind of racial go-between. Much like the royal wedding between Meghan Markle and Prince Harry was viewed as this kind of point in history for a racial harmony, where it’s like, actually the fact that she is mixed-race, and he is White is the least interesting thing about them as a couple. Not only is it not unusual, but it’s not nuanced - all of our experiences are so different. If I had the opportunity to be reborn I would be comfortable coming back the same way, that’s what I know and what I’ve grown to know and love over so many years. It would be different I think growing up knowing what I know now and have come to learn and be comfortable with in myself, but I wouldn’t change it. I’m proud of it.
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