{"id":62090,"date":"2021-11-03T22:59:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-03T22:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=62090"},"modified":"2021-11-03T23:04:02","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T23:04:02","slug":"explaining-my-multiracial-identity-so-others-dont-do-it-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=62090","title":{"rendered":"Explaining My Multiracial Identity (So Others Don\u2019t Do It For Me)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Explaining My Multiracial Identity (So Others Don\u2019t Do It For Me)<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Catapult<\/a>
\n2017-01-04<\/p>\n

Jaya Saxena<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
Tallulah Pomeroy<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every time someone guesses wrong, I am the one to apologize.<\/em><\/p>\n

My mom always laughs when remembering how she was mistaken for an Irish nanny when taking me to the park as a baby. This was back when nannies were more likely to be Irish, when interracial marriages were less common, and long before I grew up to look like her in every way but my coloring. Sometimes I try to imagine how that conversation would go\u2014\u201cExcuse me, ma\u2019am, I just wanted to inquire about your race and how it relates to the child you are holding\u201d\u2014and how dim you have to be to not realize a redhead can birth a brunette.<\/p>\n

They were always mistaken, and it was our job to correct them; otherwise we\u2019d be lying. She\u2019s American, not Irish. I am biologically hers. My mother is white and I am not. Or I am, and not, at the same time. Other people\u2019s false assumptions about what people can and should look like, about who could possibly exist, became our burden…<\/p>\n

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

Every time someone guesses wrong, I am the one to apologize.<\/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":[29404,18157],"class_list":["post-62090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-autobiography","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-catapult","tag-jaya-saxena"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62090","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=62090"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62090\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62094,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62090\/revisions\/62094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}