anyway mixed race asian martin with a white mother who doesn’t know how to handle his cultural background and also doesn’t like how much he resembles his father already and doesn’t bother to stimulate any connection to his culture for him, or foster any progress in him being bilingual. mixed race martin who DEFINITELY does have identity issues in feeling very disconnected from his cultural heritage but not being able to fully assimilate into being ‘white’ because he doesn’t have white-passing privilege. getting questioning looks when he turns up for job interviews because they didn’t expect martin k. blackwood to be asian but its fine he just wanted to take his mums name to be closer to her. martin struggling to communicate with his fathers relatives because they can’t have anything beyond rudimentary, halting conversation. martin trying to make an effort in cooking dishes that his unknown cousins would have been raised with but not knowing if he’s doing it right because he’s never even tasted the original home cooked versions in this essay i will-
