Jeff

racial identities: Indonesian and Irish/german

fun facts: I'm pursuing a career as an oncologist and my favorite artists are Keith Haring (art) and ODESZA (music).

My dad's white, he's Irish and German. My mom is Indonesian. Growing up was really interesting. I actually had the fortune of living right next to my Indonesian grandparents. I see them once every three weeks. There's times where I'm basically there for half a week. It's a great place. They've definitely given us a lot. Growing up was definitely very, very multicultural. I went to a pretty white elementary, middle and high school. But I saw those environments get diverse more steadily throughout the years. I feel like I always identified more as Asian as opposed to white. I mean, that's not evidenced by my last name or anything. But I definitely feel much more connected with being Asian than being white.

Do you think that’s because your grandparents live here?

I think a lot of it is growing up in Los Angeles. A lot of my close friends growing up were Asian. And yeah, definitely my grandparents. My grandparents were huge role models for me.

They both grew up in Indonesia. They lived there when it was occupied by Japan. My grandfather was out of school for five years, so he was 21 and completing his junior year of high school. And then after that, he got a grant to go study in Germany. So he studied Polymer Chemistry there and ultimately got his PhD. And then he was about to move back to Indonesia. But have you heard of the Indonesian genocide in 1967? [yes] So that happened, and a lot of his family was wiped out. And he couldn't go back because he supported the former communist regime, because it was a very intellectual regime and he was an intellectual. And my grandmother was ethnically Chinese. They were ethnically cleansing the Chinese in Indonesia. So they stayed in the Netherlands.

But I think that a lot of my drive comes from wanting to be like my grandparents. Especially my grandfather, who's so successful, and was basically able to provide a life in America. I want to live that life where you work really hard and you get to go to a bunch of places because of it.

Do you remember the first time you thought about your biracial/mixed race identity? 

I thought a little bit about it in middle school because there weren't a lot of people who looked like me. There weren't an insane amount of mixed race kids. There were none in elementary school. There were three in middle school. And then it started to go up. And now there's a pretty good amount of mixed race people that I know.

Have you ever felt challenges associated with your mixed race identity?

So I did have some people drive by me and call me a chink, which is very interesting, I guess. I was kind of just like, wow, that's new. I didn't really think much of it though. I also had the belief that sometimes I'm not Asian enough. Because I'm not full Asian.

I don't speak Bahasa which is one of the Indonesian dialects. My mom doesn't speak it either. Because she grew up in the Netherlands. She spent half of her childhood in the Netherlands and half of it here. When she was in high school, it was not cool to be Chinese. And for the first part of my childhood, it wasn't necessarily cool to be Chinese. But now it's actually really cool. I think it has to do more with Chinese being in the media or being Asian in the media. You see more and more Asian stars on TV nowadays in less stereotypical roles. Which is something I've really noticed. I'm realizing that it's more cool to watch a Foreign Language Film now and read the subtitles.

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

I think reconciling my identity. It was weird, because I was the president of my Asian culture club at my high school. And a lot of running that club was trying to figure out which way to go. So I originally wanted the club to be all inclusive, anybody can come to the meetings, and people were kind of against that. They just wanted only Asians to come. And I was like, well, I'm half Asian, and I'm white. I wanted to have a discussion with Asian individuals before we had that. But I was like, Look, one of my most fun things to do with Asian culture is take my white friends out to Korean barbecue, or to hotpot or something, and have them experience something different. And then they can do that with their friends. So is it really good to have it be extremely exclusive? Or is it okay to have some of this inclusivity? Because ultimately if we have that exclusivity, I wouldn't be here. And you're supporting the business, which is really important, especially in LA. 

Have you thought more about your race this past year?  

Yeah. Especially with the violence towards Chinese and Asian people at the beginning of the pandemic, because in the eyes of America we're just Chinese. Which is absurd. I mean, compared with other minorities in America, being Asian, and especially being mixed Asian, I haven't had to struggle nearly as much as other groups of people. I can sympathize with them. But I obviously don't have that understanding of what they're going through, the level of discrimination they're feeling on a daily basis.

What are some of the positive things about being biracial?

There's so many, honestly. I really like the way I look. It was something I struggled with when I was younger. I thought my eyes were weird. But now I've really reconciled it. I have a foot in both worlds. I have friends of all different backgrounds. I feel like I can meet a lot more people because of it. And not experience judgment for being super white or whatever.