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In the course of writing this, I sat down to speak with my brother and mother about their experiences being a part of a biracial family. Like me, my younger brother Alex grew up feeling more Mexican than anything but when he started interacting with other kids at school, he was reminded that he was different. Alex was in the second grade when we moved to Merced from Arizona. This is when he first recalls feeling like he was biracial, rather than Mexican.
“I didn’t know anyone and out of nowhere some kids started talking about me and I realized they were talking about the color of my skin. ‘There’s another Black guy, he has light skin for a Black guy.’” Some of that kind of treatment and constant reference to Alex’s skin color continues today. He shared with me a more recent story from when he was on the water polo team. Some of his team mates commented that they ‘didn’t know a Black guy could swim’ and other racist remarks. It is interesting that Alex is almost always was seen as Black, but not as Mexican.
My mom doesn’t have that problem. She’s Mexican and she looks the part. However, she is the mother of three biracial children. Although she’s always loved her children, she admits it hasn’t always been easy raising children that look so different than her in Merced. She recalls getting dirty looks or crazy questions about whether her children were really hers when we were younger. She also reinforced something my brother said about only being seen as
Black, “even though my children are both Mexican-American and African-American, they are considered African-American only.”
When I’m around people of African-American descent, I sometimes feel out of place because I have a hard time relating to them. I feel like I don’t share similar experiences.
When I’m with people that don’t really know me and I say I like to listen to Jenni Rivera or Norteno bands, they look at me crazy and ask me if I understand what is being sung in the music. I simply laugh and tell them of course, why would I listen to music I don’t understand? Or when I tell people my favorite foods are lengua, tripas, mole 0and other Mexican dishes, that too gets me weird looks and 101 questions.
When I’m around Mexicans and my mom’s side of the family, I feel more at home. I can easily relate to them, speak to them and fully understand them because I grew up around that culture, it’s what I know best.
When people stereotype me as a certain kind of person because of how I look, or how they think I look, I feel like I can’t be myself and that person is automatically isolating me from the conversation. I think this makes people look really dumb. If they’re curious about me or anyone else they should get to know me and ask questions rather than just assuming.
