{"id":40151,"date":"2015-02-27T02:51:50","date_gmt":"2015-02-27T02:51:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40151"},"modified":"2016-06-10T17:30:50","modified_gmt":"2016-06-10T17:30:50","slug":"dont-erase-my-race-4-affirmations-to-remember-when-reclaiming-your-multi-racial-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40151","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Erase My Race: 4 Affirmations to Remember When Reclaiming Your Multi-Racial Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2015\/02\/affirming-multiracial-identity\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em><strong>Don\u2019t Erase My Race: 4 Affirmations to Remember When Reclaiming Your Multi-Racial Identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\" target=\"_blank\">Everyday Feminism<\/a><br \/>\n2015-02-24<\/p>\n<p><strong>Aliya Khan<\/strong>, Contributing Writer<\/p>\n<p>Source: &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/thebrooklynink.com\/2013\/05\/16\/52492-navigating-two-different-cultures-a-pakistani-immigrant-girls-struggles\/\" target=\"_blank\">Navigating Two Different Cultures: A Pakistani Immigrant Girl\u2019s Struggles<\/a>,&#8221; <em>The Brooklyn Ink<\/em>, (May 16, 2013).<\/p>\n<p>I was walking across campus, on my way to class, when a white man stopped me and asked, \u201cAre you from <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bahrain\" target=\"_blank\">Bahrain<\/a>?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m sorry?\u201d I asked, confused by his question.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBahrain? I have a friend who is studying here from there, and you look so similar to her.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I have a <em>lot of<\/em> opinions about when and how it is appropriate to <a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2015\/02\/how-to-ask-about-race\/\" target=\"_blank\">ask someone about their race<\/a>, mostly formed by my early experiences watching my Pakistani father struggle to respond to questions just like that one. But that\u2019s not what first entered my mind this time.<\/p>\n<p>What first entered my mind was, \u201cOh, he doesn\u2019t think I\u2019m white.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>If I\u2019m not being <a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2014\/05\/non-white-passing-well\/\" target=\"_blank\">read as white<\/a>, people describe me as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2013\/09\/im-not-a-puzzle-to-solve\/\" target=\"_blank\">racially ambiguous<\/a>.\u201d Sometimes, my race is ignored completely. Other times, folks make <a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2014\/09\/accidental-racism\/\" target=\"_blank\">assumptions about my origins<\/a>, ranging from every continent of the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I never understood how or why people developed such diversely varied opinions about my race. Was it my name that gave it away? my skin tone? Did they mistake my Midwest accent for something more \u201cexotic?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The invalidation of my racial identity from others was confusing growing up. It was a constant reminder that I just didn\u2019t quite fit in.<\/p>\n<p>My experiences growing up with a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pakistan\" target=\"_blank\">Pakistani<\/a> father did not match those of my White friends, but it was also clear that, as someone who was biracial, I didn\u2019t fit in to any other category&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Read the entire article <a href=\"http:\/\/everydayfeminism.com\/2015\/02\/affirming-multiracial-identity\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t Erase My Race: 4 Affirmations to Remember When Reclaiming Your Multi-Racial Identity Everyday Feminism 2015-02-24 Aliya Khan, Contributing Writer Source: &#8220;Navigating Two Different Cultures: A Pakistani Immigrant Girl\u2019s Struggles,&#8221; The Brooklyn Ink, (May 16, 2013). I was walking across campus, on my way to class, when a white man stopped me and asked, \u201cAre [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,395,125,8,20],"tags":[19437,18780],"class_list":["post-40151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-aliya-khan","tag-everyday-feminism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151","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=40151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47506,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40151\/revisions\/47506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}