Margaret

age: 33

racial/ethnic identities: Japanese/Caucasian

career: Medicine

currently living: Boston

fun facts: I've probably eaten enough plantain chips to take me to the moon and back! Most people don't know I get up at 4:30 almost every day for work, and in order to stay a serious ballerina I have some weird habits (such as rolling my legs with a rolling pin after long days of standing in an operating room)

My mom is third-generation Japanese American. My father is Caucasian with mostly German influence on that side of the family. There's actually a lot of irony in my family history, because during World War Two, my Japanese grandparents and their entire families were put in the Internment Camps here in the US. In contrast, on my father's side, my grandfather was a Prisoner of War in Japan. For my mom’s family, they lost everything, they had to rebuild their lives and reputations afterwards. My grandparents took the approach of assimilating into American culture--and instead of having their kids go to Buddhist school or to language school, they just became very much "American", if you want to call it that. So they didn't keep as many traditions, they didn't speak Japanese at home. It was always so interesting to me that when my parents married, there was actually never any bitterness, between grandparents or sides of the family. As a kid, I would hear these stories from both sides and was amazed that we were one unified family. And then to be a product of that marriage was very interesting.

For some reason, I’ve always felt like I’ve had “two halves”. I grew up in Northern California, and I think I felt very Asian as a kid because the Asian population there at that time was so small. So I think from the beginning, I felt more like that “other half” because I looked more Asian than anyone else around me. But we had lots of family in Southern California, so anytime we'd go visit, then I would feel more white. I remember frequently hearing the comment, "Oh, your skin is so light, you're one of the HAPA kids."

I think I saw being of mixed race more as a negative thing until I was maybe 12 or 13. At that time, I remember seeing a newspaper article on mixed race kids, and I also vividly remember a book that I ran into in a bookstore that was just full of all these kids that were mixed races. It was the first time I felt like, Oh, actually, maybe I'm cool after all [laughs]. This is a thing, it's not just an odd thing. And that was Northern California. When we moved to East Coast, I feel like maybe I took a few steps back because the Asian population of the Northern Virginian town that we moved to was even less. I remember we got this census and it was hilarious because under Asian it said 5. [laughs] And I was like ok, well one's you Mom, one's our neighbor, and the other three I'm pretty sure own the restaurant down the street! [laughs]

Why do you think people are so curious about figuring out where mixed people are from or what their background is?

My personal thought is that, as humans, we try to group things together and organize things in our minds. And that's why we like checkboxes, because we like to put people in categories. You can say, well, you belong here, you belong there. So I think people are curious, because they look at someone like myself, and they're like, well, I can't place you in a category. So you need to tell me, there's something there.

I get the constant comments “what are you?” or “I can’t place you – you don’t look like you’re from here”, “why don’t you speak Spanish?”. I’ve received the complete rainbow of guess – from Persian and Vietnamese, to Uzbek (even from natives of each of these countries).

What are some of the challenges you’ve faced with being mixed raced?

The whole classification thing I have struggled with probably the most because I never know what box to check, especially on forms. If you're only allowed one answer, I've always gone with Asian. I don't know why, because I'm equally both. But I guess maybe I just feel like that's the stronger presence in my life culturally or with customs. So, yeah, that's been a big dilemma. And I think the one time where it really hit home was that I had a few professors tell me don't check both boxes when you're applying to college, or programs that you're interested in because it could affect your ability to get in. It really bothered me, because there was a school I was very interested in going to. And the majority of my application far exceeded what they put out as their standard applicant. But then they came back to me and they said, “Oh, well, some of your scores were average. And we expected above average from you based on other parts of your application.” I was always like, really? And it made me wonder, was it related to that? Were they expecting somehow by me checking both boxes or me checking the Asian box, did they expect that I was supposed to be above average in all the categories? I'm going out on a limb there, and this gets into a very touchy subject, but that's something that I've always wondered about. And just in light of hearing some recent race discussions along those lines, it actually kind of brought me back.

I think it’s human nature to need to classify things and to need to group things. And I think having to deal with that does make you feel confused at times because you just aren't sure how this fusion of yourself works and what you're supposed to identify yourself as. I think that's why I've realized lately it's totally the wrong focus. Because the story behind what makes you you, for anyone walking on this planet Earth, there's so much that goes into that, and it's just our silly human need to do the check boxes. I think I realized the focus needs to be the stories of the people that helped merge your life together. I mean, I just think of some of the incredible people in my family, from the first ones that came to the US, I had a great grandmother who came to America at the age of 19, as a picture bride. And I just think of her bravery and her ability to make a life here in the US, and then all the family that went through the racism, then the scars of World War Two, and there's such a rich history there. You realize, oh, that's what makes me. And the same goes for on my father's side, is also all of these different people merging together and different lives and stories converging in one beautiful story.

A rather silly example that came to mind as a challenge of being of mixed race is just finding makeup that matches your skin tone, because like, I'm both green and pink undertones. You take those color profile questionnaires, and none of them ever work. [we both laugh]

What are the positives about being mixed?

Goodness, I feel like there are lots of positive things. I mean, it's made me much more open minded, I think, because bridging the gap between two different cultures and two different families, it creates an openness that allows you to just appreciate people and appreciate others. So that's one thing for sure. And just being able to seamlessly go from here to there. You find culture fascinating, because you're this mix of it.  I went through this phase, probably starting around 11, where I was just finding different countries and being obsessed with learning about the people and the food and the culture. It started with Laos. And then I went from there to Malaysia to all these different countries that were just curious to me. And part of it, I think, was kind of a yearning to be like, well, who are my people? That open mindedness is definitely a positive.

Any advice you’d give to mixed race kids?

There is a whole group of us that are mixed race and you don’t need to put us in a box as a separate grouping of people, because I think that's what we need to start coming away from. But you can find your people, you can find your connections and identify with others. Perhaps maybe that's why I gravitated towards dance so much, because that was one language that could be spoken anywhere in the world. The movements are all the same, and it was a place where I felt at home, and I still feel at home. Yeah, the beauty of that is that there's no borders there. It's a language that can go anywhere. I think in a similar way we need to see being mixed race as a connecting point, not a couple of check boxes.

Photo taken by Rachel Neville