Mixed-race students struggle to find their identityPosted in Articles, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States on 2015-09-28 19:43Z by Steven |
Mixed-race students struggle to find their identity
The Daily Pennsylvanian
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
2015-09-28
Elizabeth Winston
Many students seem to effortlessly fit into cultural groups at Penn [University of Pennsylvania], but for some, it’s more complicated than simply choosing one.
For mixed-race students, finding racial or cultural groups to identify with can be more of a challenge. Being from a mixed cultural background comes with unique experiences that are more complex than simply combining the two — or more.
College sophomore Emily Marucci is Chinese, but was adopted into a white family at a very young age. She said people “are always confused [why] my last name is Italian. It’s too long to be Asian.”
“I feel like sometimes I’m expected to be in different circles than I am,” Marucci added. “Racially, I’m supposed to be Asian-American, but I identify more as white. No one ever thinks that when they look at me.”
Wharton sophomore Deena Char also identifies with this frustration. With a mix of Japanese, French and Native-American backgrounds, she finds it insulting when people pigeonhole her into one identity.
“Just because I’m Asian, it doesn’t mean that I want to be in an Asian organization,” Char said.
One of the struggles mixed-race people face is formally identifying their ethnicities on demographic forms. Often they must fill in a bubble marked “other,” choose one identity over the other or occasionally have the option to choose a “multiracial” or “mixed” bubble.
“To lump us all into one ‘none of the above’ category just doesn’t feel right,” Wharton sophomore Avery Stephenson, who identifies as Filipino and black, said…
Read the entire article here.