{"id":59468,"date":"2020-02-03T20:16:55","date_gmt":"2020-02-03T20:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59468"},"modified":"2020-02-03T20:16:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-03T20:16:55","slug":"when-were-young-its-already-incredibly-difficult-to-figure-out-where-we-belong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59468","title":{"rendered":"When we\u2019re young, it\u2019s already incredibly difficult to figure out where we belong."},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>When we\u2019re young, it\u2019s already incredibly difficult to figure out where we belong. It\u2019s human nature to want to be liked, and sometimes we\u2019ll do anything for approval. We\u2019ll change the way we dress and what we listen to; we\u2019ll code-switch our dialect depending on the people we\u2019re with; whatever it takes to feel a part of something. Bobby had to do that as a child, as do a great number of mixed-race people who have been asked at far too young an age, \u201cWhat are you, anyway?\u201d Heard often enough, you begin to ask that question of yourself subconsciously, and seek to find the answers in others. Bobby had only his mother and his grandfather in his life, and Isabel could hardly take care of herself. That left his grandfather a hateful bigot. It didn\u2019t take much to steer Bobby down the path he eventually took, and even embraced, because when he emulated his grandfather, he received love and approval, which is all he was every looking for. \u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/www.johnvercherauthor.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">John Vercher<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Alex Segura, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59444\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Throwing Rocks: An Interview with John Vercher<\/a>,\u201d <em>Los Angeles Review of Books<\/em>, January 29, 2020. <a href=\"https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/throwing-rocks-an-interview-with-john-vercher\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/throwing-rocks-an-interview-with-john-vercher<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When we\u2019re young, it\u2019s already incredibly difficult to figure out where we belong. It\u2019s human nature to want to be liked, and sometimes we\u2019ll do anything for approval. We\u2019ll change the way we dress and what we listen to; we\u2019ll code-switch our dialect depending on the people we\u2019re with; whatever it takes to feel a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[30689,26961,14582],"class_list":["post-59468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excerpts","tag-alex-segura","tag-john-vercher","tag-los-angeles-review-of-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59468","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=59468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59469,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59468\/revisions\/59469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}