Mixed With Magic

"One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter." 

This is the enigmatic statement the caterpillar makes before leaving Alice in Chapter 5 of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The first half of this chapter consists of Alice's encounter with a caterpillar who begins their conversation by interrogating her about who she is and rudely dismisses Alice's confusion at having grown and shrunk so much since arriving in Wonderland. This encounter is what inspired me to do a mixed race reading of Alice and re-interpret one of my favorite stories as a narrative of mixed race identity. 

There are really several aspects of Alice's story that are relatable to experiences of mixed race folks (and people of color in general, in some cases). The caterpillar's insistent "Who are YOU?" is pretty darn similar to everyone's favorite microaggression, the notorious "What are you?". Alice is forced to grow and shrink drastically several times throughout the story to navigate Wonderland, often to pass barriers and enter spaces that she wouldn't have been able to otherwise (code switching!). 

Title page illustration for A Letter from Alice. 

Diary of the Mixed Race / Transnational Fairy Tale Heroine

Dearest Mother and Father,

            It is with a heavy heart that I write you this letter, for I don’t know when I will see you again. When you found me as a small child in a stalk of shining bamboo that cold snowy day, you took me in and raised me as you would have a child of your own flesh and blood. You have shown me such kindness and generosity all these years, and I could have asked for no better home.

            However, what you did not know that winter night all those years ago is that I have another place which I call home, and that there will eventually come a time when I must return there. That time has come, and I must return to my first home, my place of origin, the kingdom of the Moon.

My Dear Sister,

I had such a curious dream last night!

I was in another world, one that was strange but also strangely familiar. That doesn’t make much sense, does it? Let me try to explain. In my mind, I know that it was a different world, with surroundings and people that wouldn’t exist in in this one, but it felt just like this world. Is that clear? Not quite? The way the people there behaved and interacted with me was quite similar to how people do in this one, so it felt very natural at the time, even though the people I encountered there included a rabbit, a dodo, some playing cards, a strange hatter, and quite a curious cat. You know how dreams are.

The details of the dream are slipping away, but I do remember quite distinctly a conversation I had with a curiously large caterpillar sitting atop an equally curiously large mushroom. It was looking at me strangely, in a way that made me slightly uncomfortable, when out of nowhere it asked me “What are you?” I was taken aback by its sudden inquiry and was probably staring back at it for a while until it asked again impatiently “What are you?”

Dear Friend,

            I was born in the sea, a fluid land of constant change. There are calm days and stormy nights, wild morning and peaceful evenings. The sea changes with the hours, the seasons, the weather—it reflects the ever-changing sky.

            Like the sea I am fluid, a mix of identities—sometimes more of one than another, or vice versa—and never just one, or half, but all, and all in one.

            But once, I forgot that. Once, I wanted to be just one—not all in one, but only a part of myself, as one. I wanted to forget the rest of me, all the other parts of me that make me me, to go to the dry land—somewhere I wanted to go but didn’t think I could have gone to otherwise. Now, I don’t know if that was true. But how was I to think otherwise? I saw no one else like myself there. There, the people on the rigid, dry land—I was like them and also not like them. I thought if I could take the part of myself that was like them and make that my whole self, I would be able to go there, and they would accept me.