#triracial

Sometimes feeling mixed is feeling like you belong nowhere. People come up to you like a zoo animal asking "what are you" but most the time you can't be mad cause they're just curious except when they aren't. Sometimes it's exclusion from people outright telling you you're not a part of some group plus outright jabs at your identity to more subtle forms. Or even your existence being the subject of entire online arguments you can't avoid.

I'm triracial. Half asian, white/black. I used to feel like confusion personified most the time, but seeing Slash on stage playing his heart out and being a total badass is like seeing a part of yourself/your community out there rocking it. Being mixed can be so polarizing to so many people but when I see the guy just up there doing his thing or being a complete sweetheart in interviews it's like it all just goes away

This guy's just out here being himself. He's out there, he's seen. If he has a place here then we all do, no matter who you are. Mixed or not you're a total badass so don't stop doing what you do. I think you're awesome. I have a lot of faith in you

Your identity regardless of what it is isn't for other people to debate. You're the only person who can dictate that no matter what they try to say. You can agree with them but their opinions can't change or even sway who your blood says you are, no matter how you look.

(And Ethnically Ambiguous)

I feel like my identity being mixed is kind of odd. I’m triracial while most people you see in media and such are biracial. So basically, I’m extra mixed. And it’s weird because some people probably perceive me as African-American and I am. But also, only a fourth of my heritage is African-American. And I also get told that I look like other things and I’m probably ethnically ambiguous.

When I was born, my mom (white) was a bit surprised that I came out looking really Asian. In my baby pictures, I just look like a Southeast Asian little girl with spiky pigtails and crescent moon eyes. My dad is half-and-half, African-American and Southeast Asian (mostly Chinese and Thai). But of course as an adult, he looks Blasian or maybe Puerto Rican, slightly smaller curls, light brown skin, freckles, wide thai nose, kinda tall, muscular guy.

Once I was a little kid and my hair turned into very thick waves, a lot of people spoke to me in Spanish, or thought that I was from Polynesia. I did have a cultural group where I was around a lot of Hawaiians and I fit in very well with them. I’ve been told a story about being around five or six and us walking into a big room of Hawaiian people and me being very excited because “Everyone here looks like me,” which apparently had never happened before.

But I’m not Hawaiian. I’m mixed, hapa, hafu, triracial, multiracial. I rarely use one title.

I have connections to my Asian heritage, but much less than I would like. And even though I am just as Asian as I am Black, no one knows that until I tell them. I sort of wish my eyes hadn’t rounded with age, the crescent’s were very cute on toddler-me & now no one knows I’m asian even though it’s a whole 4th of my ethnicity. If we go by factions, I’m technically the most white. But no one in their right mind is going to think that I’m white presenting. Everyone used to mistake my Mom for my nanny.

So I think I developed a sort of general “brown” identity. I’d heard Middle Eastern people and other not-as-easily-census-classifiable groups being called brown, and I was occasionally assumed Middle Eastern. Latinas were brown; I also get mistaken for Latina(Metiza)/Afro Latina.

So yeah, brown girl who no one understands the background of. It’s chill.

Atlanteans

"I'm half-White, a quarter Black, and a quarter Japanese."

No, you're not. I don't see it. How can you be all of those things? Are you really? You're not Japanese. You're not Black. Now that you say it, I can kind of see it in your eyes. Oh, that explains it. I thought you were Mexican. You're not Mexican? Are you sure you're not Mexican? Are you Spanish? Are you Brazilian? Are you Argentinian? Are you (insert any ambiguously brown race here)? But you don't act Japanese. But you don't act Black.

The Lumbee origin is coalesced and has different theories attached to it, including a theory that connects the tribe to the Hatteras Indians on the Outer Banks. The Lumbee appear to have descended from Siouan-speaking tribes, and primarily from the Cheraw people, who intermarried with whites and free African Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The fact there's so many of us & we face such unique issues & yet we don't have our own community is horrible. We can try and fall back on the communities of what we're mixed with but they don't always understand and sometimes we aren't welcome.

Its time we have a community, it's time we help each other, its time we have people who know what its like and welcome us. I made a discord for mixed people so we finally have a place just for us. Any and all mixed people are welcome!

If you would like to have a community and meet other people like you who know what its like, please join us. We can both support each other and just have fun socializing. We can share our cultures, thoughts, ask for help, give advice, etc. I'd love to meet you all!