Greg

Age: 22 years old

Hometown: Los Angeles, California

Racial Identities: Chinese and Swedish

Favorite place in the world: Varberg, Sweden

Fun Facts: I surf in my free time, my favorite musicals are Company and La La Land, I’m a part of a set of triplets, and I’m taking a gap year after college to continue research while pursuing a medical degree. 

Find me on Instagram!

So I was born in Berkeley, California, and then I moved down to LA when I was five. And I pretty much lived here my whole life except for a four year stint in Irvine. But primarily, we were in LA. It’s been kind of weird, especially as someone who is mixed race, because I feel like LA is too diverse, where it's kind of hard to find your identity. Everyone's so different. Everyone has their own background, the overall universal is that everyone's different, which is cool. I love it. But it's kind of hard for personal growth. My whole life's been kind of trying to figure out the whole Chinese side versus the Swedish side. When I was in LA, I felt like I was a little too Chinese. I didn't really fit in. When I went to Irvine I was a little too Swedish, a little too white. I was like, wow, I can't win. So then going to college, the last couple years I've been trying to tackle the issue of you're not this or that, you're 100% this and you're 100% that, you're both, and figure out what that means.

What do you think changed in college?

I think the main thing was in college there was a realization of stop trying to be something for another person. The phrase “you can't love someone until you love yourself,” is a partial truth. That whole phrase is true to an extent, but you need that extra other person to help you get all the way to understand who you are. I was fortunate enough to meet my advisor, who's mixed as well, and he was just bashing me on the head my freshman year being like, “Don't forget you're Chinese, you're not just white.” And I was like, What are you talking about? I know this, but then as the years go on, I figured out what he's been saying.

I remember when he called me out and asked, “what's your Chinese name?” I was like, I'm going to have to text you back and I remember getting a 30 minute talk from him being like, “how dare you not know your background? This is who you are. And you don't even know your name?” He's the one who told me: “you're 100% this, you're 100% that, what does that add up to?” I'm like, 200%? He said, “no, it still is 100 because that is 100% you. it's not adding things, it's just parts of you but they're whole.” His name is Giovanni Ortega. He does it all. He’s all about multiethnicity because he's still on that path too. He always emphasizes that it always changes. He says treat it like a dating life: you're always learning and it's something you have to always change, always work on because it never really stops growing.

[Being mixed] is a lot of passing. Whenever I talk to friends who are predominantly white, I feel like my whole tone and everything changes. And  I didn't notice that until I first moved to Irvine, where I realized I talk to people differently. And down there, being white is the minority. So for me, it was easier to talk to them, and get to know them a little more and then be like, wow, this is kind of weird. I'm a totally different person in Irvine. And then I moved back to LA because my dad went back to UCLA. So finishing up high school in LA was kind of weird because it's that personal change again, I have to pass change hats again.

And then going to college, I got kind of weird. I wanted to change hats, but for some reason, I couldn't change hats, so the first couple years was hard to get to know people. And then I'd get myself into situations where I’d date someone and then I don't even know myself and then I’d  be an awkward position. I remember when one ended, a long one, and it was just like, I don't even know who myself is. So it put me in a hole for a year to figure that out. And over time, I was getting tired of always switching hats.

It’s hard because you can connect to both identities. But you’re just one person. And that's a lot of emotional and mental effort to be switching from one identity to another.

You kind of feel kicked to the curb in a way because you're not up to someone else's expectations, because people see you in a certain way for being mixed. I've fallen in love with actors like Henry Golding, and his whole documentary and his whole controversy with Crazy Rich Asians. He's 100% Malaysian and he has that heritage, but people from the area were like, "No, you're not enough." And he's just like, “I lived here my whole life. How is this not enough? This is my family, this is my blood, my dad happened to be of European descent.” So I think about things like that. And that's just kind of what it's been over the last couple years where the focus has changed from thinking about why do other people discriminate, and they kind of forced me to switch hats without me knowing I'm switching hats to the point where this year ... forced me to realize that discrimination is everywhere. Being mixed race, you would think you would have the best of both worlds, but you kind of get shot down twice as hard. But you got to create a community for yourself, and it starts with yourself, you got to just be comfortable with knowing you're both. And when you're comfortable with your own identities, you can branch out to other people who are in similar situations to then people who only have one identity to bring everything together.

Do you remember the first time you were aware of your mixed race or racial identities?

The first time I was aware of my identities was when my mom wanted us to do Chinese New Year at our elementary school. She brought the whole tiger head that you put over your head with the cape and all my friends were doing it. I wore my red outfit. But I remember being there – I was a fourth grader. And even as a fourth grader, I was just like, Mom, why are you doing this to me? My brothers look fine. They clearly look mixed. They have dark brown, almost black hair, a slightly lighter skin tone. I literally look like a white kid trying to be –  I look like I'm adopted. Many times growing up my mom would get questions of, “Oh, so you wanted a white kid? Are you the nanny? Or is that adoption?” And my mom would be like, no, that kid is mine. Chinese New Year that year was the first time, seeing people my age being like, what are you doing? And not understanding? Given that they were fourth graders, they don't know any better. I didn't know any better either. I was just kind of sitting there. Then I just slowly noticed it until college where it just put itself in front of me saying you're not going to grow up until you tackle this.

I feel like people have a general understanding that it's either: you are or you aren't. I feel like if I was just Swedish or if I was just Chinese, they'd see me as, Chinese, that's it. That's all they see you as. But when you're mixed, they'll just look at you. And then some people say, oh, you're not white. And then they don't even recognize you have an identity. Then you're like, I'm not white, then what am I? And then other people will be like, oh, Greg, you're not Chinese. Then I'll be like, what do you see me as then? They're like, I don't know. You're just not Chinese. So those kind of questions [occur] with the mixed viewpoint. It's a question that never gets talked about. Black Lives Matter and all these movements are crazy important. But I feel like there's still that little undertone – now that it's a super diverse conversation, a lot of my friends who are a part of those movements who are mixed, they got backlash, because [they're told]: you're not this enough, we can't support you. The mixed race is kind of like the hush hush situation going on. No one really talks about it.

Because I look more white, I got away with things that my brothers had to go through. I remember, even applying for colleges, my mom would say, “Don't show them me, bring your dad with you. He's white, they'll like you." My mom would say, when you apply for the schools, make sure you do click the Asian box and make sure they see your face, you know, because then there'll be like, “Oh, we got a white kid who can check the diversity box, we can then say the school's diverse.” There's the unfair advantage of what white privilege gives and even being aware of those kind of things kind of sucks. That privilege should not be a thing. Which is why I think mixed race has a really strong voice about it, because we are mixed, we do see both sides. And you see that there's white, and then there's everything else. And that's not the way it should be.

It's not the job of mixed race people, but it's kind of an opportunity being mixed to help facilitate these things, facilitate that there is a spectrum. It's not good or bad, yes or no white or not. There's so much to it. And there's so much to learn.

What has been the single greatest challenge with being mixed race for you?

It's probably passing and the whole idea around it. It feels wrong, knowing that I can pass as white and I can get away with it, being guilty of it myself. It's something I have to own and I need to get better about it. Because you don't think about doing these things, you don't think about when you're switching hats, when you're picking your friends. You don't realize when you're passing, you're changing gears, it's something you always have to be aware about until it is natural to be just yourself.

I got into a lot of personal challenges, because I never knew I was both and I didn't realize it was just because of passing and not really knowing I had one identity and the whole strain of having multiple identities and how it just causes so much trauma and everything. You could think about this whole passing thing can even [be applied] to superheroes like Batman or Superman, they have their superhero identity and regular person identity, you see the crisis of changing back and forth. Even Hannah Montana, something dumb like that, you see the "best of both worlds" – that's how people want to see mixed race. But you know, when you watch characters like Miley Cyrus in Hannah Montana, you see the problem of changing all the time, having two different identities, changing personalities, everything. And that's the way it is being mixed.

My theater thesis is about the history of passing in theater. Back then they started with colorblind casting, saying we're colorblind, we don't see race; it was an excuse for them to have white people do ethnic pieces. It’s insulting. It’s one thing to do work and show that you're understanding, but it's another thing to do things like blackface. And then they kind of changed it – saying oh we get it, we're going to do this instead: we’re going to make sure that they're even a part [POC], then we can cast them because it's okay. I think about Miss Saigon from the 1990s, the whole dilemma around that with casting. Casting the role of Jonathan Pryce was horrifying. They casted an amazing actor, but he should not have been that role. That role was meant for a mixed Asian European descent. And it was spun in a way where they can just say, Oh, he's European. He's not Asian, but we can put tape on his eyes and we can color up his skin just a little bit and then he can be this role. That was a horrible experience. The piece was [supposed to be] for Asian empowerment. And then today with Crazy Rich Asians, it was an amazing film. I love the film, I'm a huge romantic. But it was hard watching people like Henry Golding go through it. Even people from the Asian community, like Jamie Chung, she's American and Chinese, she lives here. She's not just one thing. She's multiple things. And even she's bashing on Henry Golding for the role. He had to go through so much unnecessary stress to explain. He didn't have to, but he was kind of forced to show his birth certificate. He had to show his parents, his whole life story, you should keep that personal if you want to, you shouldn’t have to rip it out if someone's demanding it. It has to be your choice, and he had to just rip it out forcefully and explain that this is my descent. This is who I am. This is why I want to do this.

We're still trying to figure out what does it mean to be white or not white, we're still stuck in these questions.

What are the positives about being mixed race?

I think when you acknowledge that you're both, it feels great because you're just figuring yourself out more. And as you grow up, realizing you're mixed race means you just have that much more to look into. I like keeping myself busy. And I think being mixed race, I think it's given me habits of, Oh, I don't know who I am. And it goes into things like, I don't know what I want to do when I grow up. I'm going to major in neuroscience and theater. I can't make up my mind. Being mixed rice is kind of a symbol of acknowledging it and being like, that's okay. You can go do what your heart tells you to do. You can't just be one thing. Do whatever you want to do. Everything your heart tells you to do. Do it smart, listen to your brain, but listen to your heart. Being mixed race taught me that. Being mixed race taught me how to feel proud for multiple things, feel proud for my multiple backgrounds, meeting new people because of it, whether it's for the dumbest reasons, it still means someone still came up to you and said something, even if you might want to shake your head a little bit. It teaches you that and teaches that you can do whatever you want to do, and you can do everything you want to do.