Mixed but not matched: Being mixed-race in AmericaPosted in Articles, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2016-01-26 02:39Z by Steven |
Mixed but not matched: Being mixed-race in America
The Daily Evergreen
Washington State University
Pullman, Washington
2016-01-21
Sophia Stephens, Evergreen columnist
The experience of being a mixed-race person in America can be described in one word – mixed.
Depending on how a mixed-race person looks and is perceived, the experience of being an ethnic or racially mixed person can vary the scope of a sociopolitical spectrum as broadly as one who identifies and is perceived as being mono-racial.
Race is a biological fantasy, but a social reality that affects the life experiences of millions of people every day in varying ways. There are some voices that dominate the conversation, some others that are beginning to gain traction, and others that are barely being heard at all or are being denied the opportunity to speak on their experiences…
…”For a long time I struggled with the fact that I wasn’t just one race,” said WSU junior Victoria-Pearl Young. “(I am) Native American (Choctaw and Comanche Nations), Chinese, French and black. This is incredibly difficult because my cultural experience as an Afro-Latina, specifically Afro-Boricua, living in America gets discredited simply because I don’t look like what people expect. I constantly have to prove myself racially and culturally. Here at WSU, most of my peers just assumed I was completely Black simply because of my appearance, and that really used to bother me until I learned more about my history as a black individual.”…
Read the entire article here.