On Identity

I have been struggling with self-identity for the past year or two. When I realized that my job was zapping my joy and energy, the truth started emerging - I wasn’t happy with what I was identifying as. I was a dedicated speech-language pathologist who put in more than 40 hours a week at work; I put in many more hours a week as my students, my workload, and paperwork clouded my mind outside of work. Time and energy for any hobbies dwindled. I had no energy left to identify as anything else. Once I pieced all of this together, I stopped taking additional students at work. I started to incorporate mindfulness practices. I started closing my door at work so I could focus and thus feel comfortable leaving my work at work, physically and mentally. I’m still growing here, trying to break free of identifying primarily as a speech-language pathologist.

Today, more light was shed on my own perception of my identity as I realized that I’ve also been battling identity beyond my career. I struggle with my racial identity. I think it safe to say this has been an underlying conflict my entire life as it has always been part of my life (unlike my career). There are so many pieces of my racial identity that I’m coming to terms with, with such jagged edges and unclear lines, I struggle to organize them in a meaningful way. Here’s a list of my puzzle pieces, as chronologically as possible.

• My mother is Mauritian, my father is white (Swiss-German descent). They had me when they lived in Malawi. 
• I am light-skinned, blue-eyed, with natural blond highlights in my curly, but not coarse, hair. My sister’s hair is lighter, her eyes are greener. 
• I grew up in a small rural town that was (simplified for my point here) 50% white, 50% black. My schools were similar until middle and high school when the Asian and Latino populations started growing in town. 
• Growing up, my classmates knew I was born in Africa and that I was mixed. 
• As I got older, my friendships shifted from having an equal number of black and white friends, to having mostly white friends. 
• Growing up, I said I was mixed, but by looking at my life, I felt like I fit “white” better, but still felt like that wasn’t who I was. 
• Even through high-school, I felt accepted by both the black and white communities in my school, although I did spend more time in white communities. 
• I have never felt discriminated against due to race, which makes me feel guilty when identifying as half Black. 
• When they see me, white people assume that I am white. People of Color (just about any race, in my experience), know that I am not white. 
• I went to Georgetown, where I discovered not all Americans go to school where there are roughly equal numbers of white and Black students. 
• At Georgetown, I did not feel like I completely fit with the white majority (although I think that had more to do with socio-economic status than race), but also did not fit with the Black university students who were a clear minority and had an air of camaraderie and progression despite oppression. 
• A depiction of Sally Hemings at the Monticello gift shop looked just like me. 
• I never know how to respond when my white friends from home make racist comments, or when they mention that a family member, “would freak out if I dated a black guy.” I am always hurt and quick to think, “Why do they say this in front of me when they know my mom is black?” 
• I married a white man with a different SES than me. 
• This year I found out that, genetically, I am roughly 60% white, 20% South Asian (Indian) and 20% African descent. This added to my identity crisis, and is the reason I am moving from saying “biracial” to “multiracial.” 
• I feel as I increase my education and my socio-economic status, I am seen as “white.” I started seeing a new doctor recently, and although I chose “multiracial” on my intake forms, she put me into the electronic health system as “white.” Do I say something to change the record? Yesterday, a black man who was scolding his dog said, “Sit! Those white people are looking at you."

I guess I have been wrestling with my racial identity, as I feel like I am perceived more and more frequently as white. I am not ok with this as it is not me. But can I choose my racial identity? I’m not sure how to feel more like a multiracial person.  Since I couldn’t feel 100% at peace with that label, I felt like it was not a legitimate one for me.  I often see multiracial people and react with a small, quick twinge of jealousy, they are obviously multiracial and can identify so without qualm.

All of this bubbled to the surface as I meandered through the first three floors of the National Museum of African American History today. The exhibits made it clear early on that multiracial-ness is a legitimate identify. In the old black and white photographs, I found a couple people like me. Young, light eyes and light hair sitting between a darker and a lighter parent. Just because I look white to most people, it does not devalue my identity as multiracial. I have realized this, but are there concrete actions I can take to embrace my identity?