our fucking huckleberry

in the vast majority of discussions of woc on the Pitt that I've seen, Trinity Santos is discarded. she apparently does not count. and what people use to justify this is that princess and perlah moment in s1, "I told you she was Filipina!" "but she's so white!!!"

so, since Trinity is "white passing canon confirmed in show!!!" she does not count as woc rep. this is disturbing to me. my takeaway from that moment is this: she's too white for half of her culture, (princess not clocking her) and not white enough for the other (she has most definitely experienced racial bias regardless). forgive me if I'm wrong, but I've seen that sort of thing from several mixed people.

Trinity Santos is a mixed Filipina woman, and unapologetically queer. she's great rep for several people for several different reasons. it will always be wrong for that to be erased just because you consider her "white-passing." she is to some people, she isn't to others. but she should not be erased or cast aside from the discussion of woc in the Pitt as she so often is.

i think a large part of why people disregard Trinity as being a woman of color character in the show is because there is more nuance to how her identity as a person of color functions within the context of race in America. she has a more messy relationship to Whiteness and White privilege, and a lot of people who watch this show are allergic to nuance.

Trinity IS White passing, and that isn't something we can disregard. it is worth discussing how many mixed white/asian individuals have access to Whiteness as a power structure in a way that our monoracial asian communities do not. being clocked as White in everyday life affords a level of safety and security that monoracial POC do not have.

THAT SAID, Whiteness is an incredibly fluid power structure. and your access to it depends on your perceived proximity to it. when someone doesn't know my mother is Japanese, i code as White, and therefore i have access to this power structure that affords you quite a bit in the US. but the moment someone learns that my mom is not White, i lose that proximity. suddenly i have been shot back from the goal line, and i in turn lose access to that power structure.

I think it's deeply worth discussing how Trinity's identity as a mixed race woman has influenced the way she interfaces with race and racism, how it impacts the way she engages with her queerness (because yes, living your entire life in the nebulous in between of "two or more" on ever demographic survey DOES do a lot to shape how you view identity labels), and also how she engages with healthcare and medicine. how her own experience of likely being disregarded as not filipina enough or too filipina depending on context has shaped how she listens to and believes patients.

SUPRIYA GANESH as DR. SAMIRA MOHAN in The Pitt 2x15 — "9:00 PM"

THE PITT S02E15 "9:00 P.M."