Tia Monet
age: 22
racial/ethnic identity: African American/Japanese
hobbies: Anything creative!
social media: @therealtiamonet on all platforms
My dad is African American and Cherokee, and my mom is full Japanese. So they grew up on two completely different ends of the earth. And then they wound up meeting in Tokyo, when my mom was in college, and my dad was in the Air Force. They met at an international church. And that's how all of this got started. And then they got stationed in England, and that's where they had me. So it's really funny for me, when people ask me, where are you from? Because that means a lot of different things. Are you talking about my birthplace where I grew up? Or my ethnic, racial background? Because all three of those things are completely different for me. And that's a really frustrating thing, honestly. And then they get mad when I don't answer the right question right off the bat. So now I just ask them which one do you mean, my birthplace where I grew up, or my racial, ethnic background, and they're like, aren't those all the same thing? And it's kind of funny that people still can't grasp that idea that those things are all different. But I think it's something that will become more of a normal thing for people to have to distinguish between as time goes on, because there are way more mixed race individuals now in our generation than ever. So that's really cool to see.
Do you ever get asked the question, “what are you?”
Well, with COVID going on, I'm at home a lot. But every time I go to the store, or to grab a coffee from Starbucks, there's somebody that's going to ask and that's at least a couple times a week, and when my classes were still in person, it was a couple times a day that people would ask me. Whether it was in the elevator or at my desk job helping with administration at my college, or just when I'm walking through the hallways, sometimes people will stop and stare at me and try to figure out, am I Southeast Asian, am I Moroccan? There's all these different guesses that people have thrown at me, and they're always incorrect. The top three guesses that people always throw at me, is Samoan, Filipina, or Latina.
If I have my hair braided, or if I have it flat ironed and straightened out, they get even more confused. Because then they're really lost. When I have my hair in its natural form, and it's curly, it's out, it's healthy, most of the time people are going to guess that I'm at least part Black. But if I have my hair tied up in any way, then they really don't know what to do with themselves.
The thing is, we know who we are. But people will decide or think or act like they have to decide for us and that we have to act according to how they think.
Do you remember a time when you were first aware of your racial identities?
So I guess it was probably when I was maybe three or four years old, we were still living in England. We would fly back to Japan sometimes to see my mom's family, we'd fly back to the States to see my dad's family. And I think it was on a trip when we came to America for the holidays, I was three or four years old. And I think a lot of people at the store kept staring at me. And I wasn't really aware that my family was any different, because my mom and dad's families both really love the union that they have as a couple and with their kids and everything. And so it was never a questionable thing. But then I noticed that when people would ask who my parents were when we were in the store, they will get almost disgusted that my parents were together. But, as you know, as a lot of people do know, there is some bad blood between specifically the East Asian and Black communities, to an extent, and I was not aware of that, as a small child, it took me until probably 13 years old to figure out that that was a thing. So I just thought people hated my mom or they hated my dad. When I realized that people didn't seem to be comfortable with my parents being together, I was like, so I'm different. If they don't like my parents being together, then I must be weird. And I think when I started school in England, I became more aware that kids had parents that looked like each other, skin tone wise at least, and my parents didn't look like each other. And that was when I really, really kind of woke up to that whole thing that maybe my life wasn't like everyone else's. And it took me a long time to be okay with that. Because it just hits you as a little kid in this weird way and you're still trying to figure out everything else in the world. So it's a weird thing when it hits you.
It’s weird to say this, but in a way, I felt like I got bullied more growing up for being Asian than Black. Because here's the difference. I did get bullied for being Black, but in a different sort of way. I think people were more quick to apologize if they bullied me for being Black. They knew that was wrong. They're like, Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm not racist, yada yada. They were really quick to apologize. But if it was anything for being Asian, people were super insensitive, and they were so quick to be like, oh, you're just being sensitive, shut up. Nobody wants to hear you complain about it, it was a joke. People do apologize if they accidentally slip up saying, the N word in front of me or something like that, some dark humor slavery joke, but when it comes to the microaggressions and stuff against Asians, they're just not as attuned to being sensitive to that, I think it's just been such an undertone with the model minority myth in America, that there’s so much that plays into it, it’s so complicated, I could talk about it forever. But there's so much like that that’s affected my view of myself growing up. And as a result I actually just wanted to be a Black girl when I was growing up. I was like, it’d be so much simpler, I don't like being Asian, I don't want to be Asian. And it took until I started college, that I realized that having the best of both worlds was kind of a thing and that actually was celebrated by people.
Do you think that's changed? How do you see it now?
So growing up, I wanted to be Black, but I wasn't actually accepted by the Black community either. I was just feeling that that identity would be safer, because most people perceived me as Black. That's kind of how that went. It wasn't that all Black kids bullied me. But a lot of them, once they found out that my mom was Asian, they were just disgusted with me. They were just like, oh my gosh, lingling eats cats and dogs, and would not want to talk to me. This happened as early as pre-k and first grade. And, you know, when I got to high school, I had way more Black friends and I felt more comfortable with them. And I feel like where I lived, I had less Asian friends anyways, even though I was really close with my mom's family and felt pretty attached to the culture. I just didn't feel Japanese at all. When I got to college, I think I became more comfortable with it, because it was celebrated that I was both and that I identified as both. You know, from a certain point in high school, I started to be like, yeah, I am Black and Asian. And what about it? I slowly became okay with it.
What has been the single greatest challenge with being mixed race?
Well, I think probably one of the hardest things is just simply accepting that you're not like everyone else. I think when I was younger, I tried so hard to fit in, I wanted my hair to be flat, I wanted my eyes to be bigger, I didn't want to have the big lips, and all that stuff. Because there are so many different physical features I got picked on for and now I think it's weird how everything has come full circle, you know, everybody wants to have curls, everyone wants to have bushy eyebrows, everyone wants to have fox eyes, big lips, whatever it is. It kind of stings, you know, in a weird way.
I think another thing was dealing with the stereotype that mixed race couples don't stay together. Because the thing that people would always assume with me when I was growing up is that my dad left or my mom left and I was just growing up with one of them, and absolutely hated my other side. And that was really weird to me. Because I knew plenty of mixed race couples that have split, obviously, but I also knew plenty of them that had stayed together. But for some people that just wasn't a concept and to this day, that's still not a concept that a lot of people are used to. So when I am posting content on tik tok, for example, a lot of people will comment things like, oh, is your dad even there, is your mom even there? And I'm like, you don't have to try and make a narrative about someone's life when you don't even know them, you know, mind your business!
What are some of the other positive things about being mixed race?
So in addition to feeling that I can bring people together and inspire other people, I think there's the unique voice that I have to be able to speak up on social issues as well. I like to refer to myself as being doubly a person of color, and just to be able to see what goes on in both and this goes back to bringing people together, but more so in a social issue sense, of trying to heal that gap between the Asian and Black communities.
