Growing up, I had a lot of people staring at me, trying to figure out what I am when it comes to race. They would look at me as though I’m some sort of anomaly that they can’t place and are more than determined to figure out. Other people come from a multicultural background can relate, especially when you’re with one of your guardians and people are trying to decipher if you’re even related to them.
Whenever I go to look up people’s experiences being a multicultural person, I also tend to run into those who identify as Wasian (Half White and Half Asian), or they are half White, Half Black. Very rarely would I hear the experience of those who identify as Blasian (Half Black, Half Asian). At some point growing up, I was under the impression that there weren’t as many people who identified as Blasian due to the lack of exposure, until I would be walking outside. Suddenly, someone asked me if I’m Blasian because they are too (somehow, Blasians can always spot each other in the wild).
I am blessed to be able to be privy to two rich cultures and get to call them my own. However, growing up, it would’ve been hard for me to say that.
I wrote my entire college application essay a few years ago regarding how confused I am when it comes to my identity and how my hair contributes to it. My hair was single-handedly the only way to see my lack of confidence in my identity, since I always pretended that I was the perfect mix of African American and Filipino (which I’m not, no one is and it’s frankly just a saying to apply more pressure on not only mixed-race people but society as a whole).
The applied pressure of needing to be perfectly in tune with both the Black community and the Filipino community is something that felt rather impossible to me growing up. It did not help that, alongside that, there is a slight tension between the two communities with the competition of racism, with either who had it worse in history or applying racist rhetoric to each other. This is an aspect of reality that most people fail to see as a struggle that I came across growing up. With the rise of social media, there is the talk of People of Color unity, and how everyone must stand alongside each other. However, that dream is still a work in progress, as I’ve witnessed the tension and subtle sly comments that are made when my mother and father’s side of the family get together.
While working on the racial tension between the communities isn’t going to fix itself overnight, every day is a new step in the right direction. As I grew up, I began to learn how these two sides of myself aren’t meant to be arguing with each other but rather working and intertwining. While there is some awkwardness at times, embracing it is the only way I have found myself slowly accepting my identity.
If anyone is reading this and hoping there’s an easy, shortcut way to lessen the struggles when it comes to your identity, I wish I could say there is, but the mind sadly doesn’t work in that manner. It takes a whole bunch of time, self-love and healing in order to mend and accept the struggles. It requires baby steps, and here are some things I did to help me feel more confident and comfortable with my racial identity.
You have to force yourself out of the label to heal.
There’s an unspoken label that everyone places on themselves, especially those who are mixed race, as I’ve witnessed from myself and others. Whether it’s “not enough” and the need to be “perfect,” even if you don’t feel “right”. There are countless negative labels we place on ourselves which, in turn, creates pressure on ourselves to work on making this false label untrue. Understanding that I don’t need to have the perfect balance and be the “perfect Blasian” helped me break out of the unrealistic mold that I unintentionally created for myself.
Once this label was deconstructed, there was a weight that was lifted off my shoulders, and I could actually form the type of cultural blend that I wanted and needed instead of the type that society told me I should be. I took things at my own pace and tried my best to avoid comparing myself to how other people blend their cultures. I let myself actually breathe and remind myself that it’s not a sprint to figure out how my Black and Filipino sides of myself work together, but rather a marathon, since I will be holding these two communities with me for the rest of my life.
The way this looked for me is one taking the time to write my experience. Whether that was through a college essay, a Her Campus article or morphing it into a fictional piece, it allowed my brain to pick at things through a different lens. I take the time to learn the history of the side where I might be less connected (which, in this case, was my Filipino side, as I grew up away from the Philippines and with a lower Filipino community surrounding me). I find a way to ease myself into it through classic folklore and myths, then learning Tagalog, no matter how bad I might be at speaking the language.
Finding the fusion between cultures can be tricky, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s a unique and personal journey, and no one can discover that but yourself. There’s no true, perfect mixed person, only those who find themselves confident in who they are and represent.