Passing up the race: Students share stories of racial “passing”Posted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Latino Studies, Media Archive, Passing, United States on 2016-02-14 17:59Z by Steven |
Passing up the race: Students share stories of racial “passing”
Polaris Press
The Ann Richards School For Young Women Leaders
Austin, Texas
2016-02-04
It was one of the first weeks of sixth grade when Lanna Ahlberg found herself at school talking on the phone in Traditional Mandarin with her Taiwanese grandmother.
Hanging up the phone, Ahlberg found a number of girls staring at her.
“In sixth grade, a lot of people thought I was Hispanic or white because I have chocolate hair, like it’s not black hair. My eyes aren’t as prominent,” Ahlberg, now in eighth grade, said. “My mom is Taiwanese and my dad is half Swedish.”
If you’re a person of color who has ever been mistaken for white, you’ve experienced the phenomenon known as “white passing.”
Simply defined, White passing is when a person of color is perceived as white at any point in their life…
Read the entire article here.