{"id":26548,"date":"2012-11-19T20:16:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-19T20:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26548"},"modified":"2012-11-19T20:16:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-19T20:16:21","slug":"mixed-race-teens-talk-about-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26548","title":{"rendered":"Mixed-race teens talk about identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mixed-race teens talk about identity<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Mash<\/a>: For teens, by teens
\n2012-11-15<\/p>\n

Kaylah Sosa
\n<\/strong>Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Flossmoor, Illinois<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Chris Pieper
\n<\/strong>Whitney Young Magnet High School, Chicago, Illinois<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Megan Fu<\/strong>
\nBuffalo Grove, Buffalo Grove, Illinois<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Rosemary Anguiano<\/strong>
\nWhitney Young Magnet High School, Chicago, Illinois<\/em><\/p>\n

The Mash is a weekly newspaper and Web site that is here to serve you, the Chicago-area teenager.<\/em><\/p>\n

The paper is distributed for free each Thursday at Chicago-area high schools and is written largely by high school students. Our student contributors influence most of the paper\u2019s coverage, so it\u2019s a publication and Web site created for you, about you and, most important, by you.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mixed-race teens share their personal perspectives on how they view themselves\u2014and how others view their mixed-race heritage. These essays were part of the cover story, \u201cOutside the box,\u201d about how mixed-race teens identify themselves on college applications in the Nov. 15, 2012 issue of The Mash.<\/em><\/p>\n

I get two common questions in my life. One: \u201cAre you related to Sammy Sosa?\u201d And two: \u201cYou\u2019re mixed, right?\u201d The former is annoying, and I would like to make a public plea for people to stop asking.\u00a0 The latter is a bit more complicated. Yes, I\u2019m \u2013mixed. I know I don\u2019t look it. You don\u2019t need to point it out.<\/p>\n

My dad\u2019s Mexican and my mom is black. The color of my skin could fool you, but the defined curls of my shiny, long hair might give it away. My dad calls me a chameleon. I went to a mostly Hispanic elementary school, and when I was around his side of the family, I looked Mexican. But when I was over with my mom\u2019s family, or in a mostly black school like I am now, I look black. It\u2019s kind of fun being able to play both fields.<\/p>\n

When someone asks the oddly worded question, \u201cWhat are you?\u201d I reply with \u201cBlack and Mexican.\u201d That ruffles a few people\u2019s feathers. \u201cYou look black,\u201d people sometimes tell me. \u201cIf you look black, you are. None of that mixed garbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

But by embracing my Latina heritage, I\u2019m not shirking my African American heritage. I grew up with a Mexican father in a Mexican neighborhood. As far as I know, that qualifies me to be on the Latina team. Apart from the ignorance of everyday encounters, I\u2019ve found my ethnicities coming heavily into play while filling out college apps. Race? Black\/African American. Hispanic or not? Hispanic. I could put \u201cmixed\u201d and go through the whole song and dance, but I\u2019d rather not. If they ask about Hispanic heritage, I just say I have it…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mixed-race teens talk about identity The Mash: For teens, by teens 2012-11-15 Kaylah Sosa Homewood-Flossmoor High School, Flossmoor, Illinois Chris Pieper Whitney Young Magnet High School, Chicago, Illinois Megan Fu Buffalo Grove, Buffalo Grove, Illinois Rosemary Anguiano Whitney Young Magnet High School, Chicago, Illinois The Mash is a weekly newspaper and Web site that is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2895,20],"tags":[12767,5488,12768,12765,12766,12762],"class_list":["post-26548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-campus-life","category-usa","tag-chris-pieper","tag-illinois","tag-kaylah-sosa","tag-megan-fu","tag-rosemary-anguiano","tag-the-mash"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}