Claira

age: 23
current occupation: student
fun fact: growing up I played six instruments, had 10 pets, and read 52 books a year (1 per week)

I grew up in New Haven, Connecticut with my white mom. And I only grew up with my mom, I've had no connection really ever with my biological father. I grew up in New Haven, which is obviously diverse and had a lot of Yalies, but because it’s a college town, a lot of people were only there for certain periods of time when their parents were teaching. My mom was a union organizer and a high school teacher. So I stayed there throughout elementary, middle and high school. As I got older, there was just less and less diversity. Especially when I went to high school in a district over, which was 98% white. And so I think a lot of the pivotal developments for my understanding of race and identity were just really stunted by having and growing up entirely in a white family in areas that were black and white, and then in high school white. And so being an other and being Asian, but not fully Asian, and not any culturally Asian, but then also being, very visually Asian and very unquestionably Asian made it very difficult for me to grasp and develop an identity just because nothing around me was feeling or telling me that I was Asian, other than people's perceptions of me, which is very strange. 

There's a large spectrum of being visually Asian. And so for me, it's something that I think the majority of people who look at me would be like, you're Chinese. Or, oh, she's really pretty for a Chinese girl. I've heard that a lot. And that's code for: oh, she looks whiter than the average Asian, but she's not white. So many people, because they think that I'm just a slight deviation from the Asian norm, feel more compelled to be like, oh, that's so cool that you're mixed. Because then it's like, oh, that makes sense why she doesn't fit my Asian girl trope.

My freshman year was when I started doing research into the simultaneous hypersexualization and exotification of mixed race girls especially, but also how de-romanticized and de-humanized we are. I genuinely remember, even in high school before I really started to understand being a mixed person, etc., how there was just hidden phenomenon that guys are just like, yeah, mixed girls are so hot. Because it's just like, oh, you know, they're interesting. But it goes back to this whole you want a person of color without them being a person of color. That’s why you look at all these tan white girls with curly hair and the fox eye, and you're like, oh, that's so sexy. That’s turning into Kim K., or that's just modifying so that you have aspects of what it's like to be ethnic and a person of color without ever having to deal with the social consequences of it and the lived experience of it, and we see that with black fishing, and all these trends....so many girls of color who try to whiten themselves to fit more of the standard of an exotic white girl. And then you see all these white people trying to darken or appropriate themselves.

I've had so many conversations with people just about how girls of color do inherently whiten themselves, but they feel so confident. You've got girls with curly hair, or girls with certain textures of hair who wear wigs or weaves or straighten it, and their confidence levels skyrocket. And that's beautiful. It's amazing to have this confidence, but it's so sad that we have such internalized racial self hatred that loving yourself is somewhat consistent with exiting a part of yourself. And I'm very much a culprit of that, I very much perpetuate that, there are times when I feel more attractive during the winter, because I'm paler, and I still wear sunscreen every time I go outside, all these internalized aspects. Even something like dying your hair lighter, when I first highlighted my hair, I loved it. But then I also realize there's an aspect about that in which I didn't highlight my hair darker, or red or green or blue. I did it light brown, which emulates that of being more mixed.

And it just genuinely sucks. There's no better way to explain it. Obviously girls have to think about this phenomenon a little bit when they're wearing shorts and skirts and makeup. And it's like, oh, am I doing this for me? Or for misogyny? Am I doing this because I'm embracing standards of beauty that men have imposed on me to look more attractive, yes, obviously, all women have to think about that. But the idea that your actions are making a racial statement, it sucks. Because white girls don't have to think oh, when I'm highlighting my brown hair lighter, I'm not transitioning a race, you know, or if I curl my hair or straighten my hair, or wear colored contacts, or put on big freckles, or dress a certain way, they don't have to think about the racial consequences of it. And that people make interpretations and assumptions and it just is again, this unfair demand on the victims of racism to explore that and either exist within it or say fuck it, I'm gonna get my confidence how I want and do what I want, right? 

What do you think the single greatest challenge regarding your mixed race identity has been?

It’s definitely been finding empowerment in the Asian side of me. And then also being okay with the fact that I'm always going to be visually representative of a culture and identity that I otherwise wouldn't have. Not growing up with an example of [what it means to be Asian] makes it very challenging to represent or embody a part of me has been something I've been really forced to reconcile with. But that's, again, a very unique experience of a mixed race person that I don't think a lot of people have. And so I'd say the mixed identity in general is sort of balancing this idea that we're socially desirable, right? Half Asians are so cool. They're so hot. They're so exotic, but also trying to ground yourself in the fact that I don't want this to be the case. I don't want to be like, the model ethnicity, you know, the same ways that a lot of Asians don't want to be the minority myth, mixed race people shouldn't be the cooler versions of people. And I think that that's something that's hard, because we reap benefits socially, of being cool and interesting. But part of it is like, I wish that weren't the case. I wish that we weren't fetishized and exotified, and held to this upper standard.

What are some of the positive things about being mixed race?

It's a privilege being mixed race, it's a privilege being treated differently by society because you're more exciting to them. But also you get so much more from the way that you think and approach things that a lot of people don't. I am really grateful. I've established a lot of genuine connections with people, having deep conversations like these, that only makes sense if you've lived it.