Dutch/Canadian | Japanese
My mum is half Dutch, half Canadian. My father was Japanese, both his parents were Japanese (unsurprising as Japan was and still is quite an isolated country, stemming from sakoku, when foreigners were banned from entering Japan and the Japanese weren’t allowed to leave for over 200 years). I was born in Kawasaki, just outside of Tokyo. We lived in Tokyo until I was 7. My mum, my older sister, my younger brother and I moved to the south of Spain after my father passed away. It was harder for people to understand that our mum was our biological mum. People would often ask us outright if we were adopted, which I always thought was rude. Would you go up to someone and ask them if they were adopted if they looked like their mum or dad? I’ve had quite a traumatic childhood. People just have no idea how loaded a question like ‘where are you from’ is. I feel as though mixed-race people are still constantly objectified. People have said to me, ‘I wish I was mixed-race or racially ambiguous because they are the most beautiful’. People think framing it as a compliment makes it okay to stare and ask you questions. People will ask me what I am before they ask for my name. They think that’s ok. Often, I feel as though they don’t listen past my explanation of my heritage because by that time they’ve got what they were after. They just want to be able to place you, to make themselves feel better. Hearing people ask, ‘What are you?’ still makes me shudder. I would never NOT want to be mixed-race. Sometimes I wish I could strongly identify with a culture or country, but I don’t know any better. Who knows if that experience would be any better. But I think things you gain from being of mixed heritage outweighs the negatives we might experience from time to time. I hope people will be less fascinated by us and more accepting of us. As the world becomes more globalized, there will certainly be more of us. I want parents of mixed-race children to not be afraid of what their child might go through, walking through this world as a mixed-race individual. Parents shouldn’t feel like their children might not be accepted by their community.
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