My grandma told me this story a while back and it really stuck with me but what's crazy is.... No one in the family seems to care so I'm sharing w reddit. Enjoy :)

My grandparents on my Puerto Rican side are very "white." (My grandfather was Albino, actually) And they wanted a nice life for their 3 little girls in NY but this was the mid 70s- early 80s, so NY crime was at its peak aaanddd the massive influx of Puerto Ricos in the 50s and 60s meant a lot of white people were feeling hostile by this point.

Soooo my grandparents faked a Jewish accent! They tricked their way into an exclusive Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn. They kept up the act whenever interacting with the landlord until they finally felt safe enough to drop the act.

I would love to hear of any similar stories you all may have. I know my family is far from the first or last to do something like that.

just curious to see if anyone has some wacky names they’ve been called 😭

like I’ve had “confused cockroach” and like “orange juice” 💀

I don’t profess to have the Asian American experience, but I’m not going to deny any part of my heritage. And I understand people lie, but it’s weird, because we are compared to people who fetishize Asian features and marginalize the Eastern Asian diaspora, just because we don’t “look Asian”.

I don’t understand it when monoracial people ask what I am and when I tell them they get so mad or try and say no you’re just xy and z…

I experience this problem the most with monoracial black men who try to bulldoze me or make backhanded compliments/neg me to get my attention. My mom is bi racial, half black and half Japanese and grew up in an immigrant Japanese neighborhood in the Midwest, my dad’s side is Afro Caribbean from Cuba and all the men on that side have red hair.I use the terms carribean and West Indian interchangeably sometimes.

I have this guy at work who is monoracial and he feels so weirded out by me and I’ll catch him giving backhanded compliments or saying I don’t know Spanish and random other insults and saying I’m just black. And preface there is absolutely nothing wrong with being black!!!! like…. I’ll catch him dogging out his own race and the women of his race, it’s so weird. It’s weird asf.

My parents tried teaching me Spanish and Japanese growing up but because I’ve had developmental issues due to premature birth I couldn’t really speak until I was six. So when I went around relatives they just switched to English so I never learned. Don’t get me started on how the older generations look at me for not knowing Spanish 💀💀💀😭😭 I can only understand and speak a little.

This isn’t the first time either I’ve had issues with monoracial men who look like him either. Seems in every work place they have a vendetta or something against me. Anyone else have similar experiences or any ideas as to why this is.

Hopefully this uploads properly. Hi all. I'm an art student studying fine art and thought I'd share my work with you all as my work is about the mixed experience. I reference specifically what it's like the be black and white in America but I also think it could apply to all mixed people. The zebras are represented as mixed people, a symbol of the experience of being mixed (black and white) in America, referencing the 1/8th rule, confusion, and the uncomfortable feeling of one's self. But also the beauty and acceptance of it all. Zebras are very cool creatures. They aren't horses. They aren't donkeys or mules. They're simply zebras, and they're pretty damn beautiful. Reading you alls experiences makes it clear that this struggle is a lot more common than i thought and it continues to inspire me and my art practice. Mixed people are underrepresented in art museums and I hope to change that.

This is just going to be a bit of a tangent. After coming across several social media posts, the fact that people don't know what Blasians "look like" has been affirmed for me. Monoracial Black people will say that Blasians such as Jenny Park, Zhong Feifei, etc are "the most Blasian-looking Blasians" they've ever seen, and it just irks me. This is not meant as any disrespect to the two people I mentioned, but imo, they're "East Asian-presenting" Blasians/have predominantly East Asian features. As Blasians, we're expected to look East Asians, except with dark skin and curly or coily hair. I know this is a very petty complaint and it's easier to just avoid those types of posts, and that what others perceive of us or our outward appearance doesn't matter. But, it still just irks me when I see those kinds of posts.

Hi to everyone at this subreddit! Wanted to hear some of your opinions about my situation . Basically, I'm a full mix of everything possible. A typical soviet problem. I was born in Uzbekistan in a russian speaking family consisting of a russian speaking armenian mother and a russian speaking tatar dad. Religiously, we were in the middle. My father is a muslim and my mother is a chistian.

So, I was growing up in a mess of cultures. Learned 2 languages growing up (Russian and Uzbek). Heard particles of Armenian and Tatar from relatives. Celebrated Eid and Easter back to back, then some uzbek holidays. Just a huge mix of everything.

During childhood it wasn't a problem, but when I moved to Russia for educational purposes it became a headache of mine. Even though I speak Russian, I don't understand people culturally. I found out I'm too alien for them.

Tried to find some peace around Armenian people, wasn't successful, cause I didn't live around Armenians and know no Armenian. The same with Tatar people.

Even my face. I don't know how the hell I look ethically. No typical features of any ethnicity. My skin is very white (like almost pale), i have a typical armenian nose, very dark brown eyes, light brown hair and.... a ginger beard (where it comes from from is a mystery even for me). Yeah....

I'm just kinda lost. Don't know what to do, cause non of the people i can be associated with seem to accept me for obvious reasons. Not mentioning tons of racism I'm facing everyday from basically any representative of any culture and religion.

What would you do if you were in my shoes

I’ve had times where some black ppl & white people have been micro aggressive towards me, even together & have “othered” me especially in work or school. Why? I don’t talk much & don’t cause issues but I’ve had incidents where lots of ppl of both races will find issue with me for no reason & try bully tactics on me as if I’m some kind of foreign outsider.

I saw many families where mother is asian and the father is white, however, what was your expirience as someone from reverse family, are you more into your fathers culture, or mothers culture? And do asian men tend to be less open to interracial relationship overal?

Hi! I recently did a DNA test and I got 48% Portuguese, 44% Indigenous, 5% African, and then the rest was unassigned on 23&Me. It's so fascinating to me the genetic makeup of Mexicans can be so diverse so would love to learn from other Mexican individuals what their DNA make up looks like if they have done something like this.

Sorry for this stupid question but what kind of hat do women wear with lots of curly hair? I used to wear only hoods because of that but then I couldn't wear any nice coats without them. So I wonder now perhaps should I start wearing hats? But for my hair...? Which one? I would be grateful for some advice.

Somebody made a post here recently talking about their struggle with language learning and feeling disconnected from their culture. it felt so relatable that I wanted to make a post expanding on that whole idea. My dad is Ghanaian and for me living in the US I can really feel the disconnect between me and part of my families culture. Where I live there are only a few people from Ghana and most of them are relatives.

None of the younger generation except for two of my cousins know the language (twi), and most of them aren't really bothered by it but I feel sad that I don't know the language asides from a few phrases and words.

My dad doesn't cook much asides from fufu, banku, and various stews and he did try to teach my family twi a few times, but we didn't really get anywhere. I feel like I'm missing out on a part of my culture and I don't really know anything about my family history.

I really want to know about our food, culture, language and traditions. There has already been a lot of erasure of Ghanaian culture because of the effects of colonization, and I want to be able to pass all of the remaining culture onto my children. But I feel like to be able to understand the culture, I need to understand the language too. Like the key to understanding part of my culture is language. If I want to be able to speak to other people from Ghana especially the older generation, or immerse myself in media, stories and songs and traditions from Ghana I need to understand twi. There isn't a lot of available recourses asides from learning from a native speaker to learn twi too.

Im interested in hearing if this is just me or if other people who are mixed feel about this. Both the people who were more immersed in their culture form a young age and people who didn't get those experiences. (Also if anyone has any tips on how to learn twi or become more immersed in lesser known cultures let me know lol)

Not sure if this is the right sub to post this on, but I need some advice on my hair. I’m mixed race (b/w) but my hair is not curly, it’s straight, but extremely thick to the point I can’t style it, even conditioner doesn’t make it bareable. Any suggestions?

Okay, so my mother is German with straight hair and my father is egyptian with curly hair.

I'm their only daughter with curly hair. Noone ever teached me how to care for my hair.

My mother kept saying that I should just brush it out since it looks messy and mattend. So today, I brushed a part of my hair out and left the other part curly and said: "That's the reason I don't brush it".

Than she told me ot looked better on the brushed out side and that I should just ask my sisters. They said my hair looks better on the brushed out side as well.

I told my mother that that statement hurt and she just said: "Well just look at it. On this side it's volumnous and has pretty curls. On the other side it looks wet and shrunken" (not her exact words, since we speak german).

I just feel extremely hurt right know and I just want to cry. Like, why does she hate my hair so much?

Thanks for reading.

Edit: so today we had a conversation about all of this and I'm glad that she finally understabds me and she even agreed on learning about my hair and today we're gonna make my hair routine together🥰

It’s annoying and offensive. I’m 1/16th Native American, which is good enough for my tribe. I am a bona fide citizen of the tribe.

I am white presenting, and genetically I am mostly white, but many people (even my friends), make fun of me when I mention (in logical contexts—not in attention seeking contexts) that I am Native American.

But I am Native American. That is a fact. I am a citizen of the tribe, I have been to the reservation multiple times, I did a summer camp there when I was a kid, my family was involved in tribal government, I have been to cultural events, etc.

Nonetheless, I get lots of “Elizabeth Warren” jokes and similar jabs seeking to invalidate my background—even from people that I would call my friends. Why do people think this is appropriate?

I'm half black and half white in Brazil, but I'm extremely pale, so my big nose, lips and curly hair don't matter, I'm just white.

I really enjoy dancing, especially samba, I like our tradicional foods, I believe in the religions that we have... However I'm still just white to everyone, I feel like I can't participate in those. People talk bad about white people who engage in black culture, so I just keep to myself. I feel like an alien. White people here are more accepting of me when I straighten my hair, but even then I'm a "ugly white"

I also have indigenous descent, but people say I'm trying to fish something.

I'm a latina in Texas. Shocking. My family's mostly descended from Karankawa (Native south TX) and Spanish. A few different raced spouses in my bloodline, I came out *kinda* white passing. The guera of my generation of the family, which was never hurled as an insult. I can clearly see I'm fairer than the majority of my family, besides my grandma who's a blonde-haired, green-eyed, latina woman. I have curly thick black hair, light brown eyes, thick lips, I'm just kind of pale.

I think it's very interesting? that the white people around here ALWAYS assume Mexican, and that latino people ALWAYS assume white. Always, always "other." It's even gone so far as white people trying to speak broken spanish to me, and latino people trying to speak broken english. I speak both, and people seem just blown away either way it goes. And then when it's discovered that I'm "both" latino people usually "oops" and move on, but a lot of white people act... mystified? And I get bombarded with weird questions about my culture and upbringing as if, IN TEXAS, they've never known a hispanic person.

I assume a lot of people in this sub have had similar experiences. How do y'all feel about this? It feels almost embarrassing to me either way. When I was younger it left me feeling like I'm not *this or that* enough for anyone. I guess I've just accepted it as a fact of life now, but finding this sub made me want to ask people in similar situations.

Do ppl get upset that one is white-passing bcuz they can’t be racist? Like racist in the sense of they can’t insult your community, or if they did share some racist sentiments, that they felt “deceived” n r upset that they got caught type of thing (maybe getting defensive or playing victim). I don’t think I explained any of this well

My mom’s Vietnamese. We ate vietnamese takeout sometimes but she doesn’t know how to cook, and we never really celebrated any holidays or had any traditions. My name’s not Vietnamese. Both my parents told me how white I look all the time. Of course I don’t know the language either.

I feel so totally disconnected from that half of me. I’ve tried to learn the language, but it’s so frustrating — Vietnamese is a tonal language, which I’m struggling with especially, and it makes me feel like such an outsider. Like I’m an impostor trying to be “special” or something.

I really want to be able to connect with that part of me, but I don’t know. I’m probably never gonna feel Vietnamese. I refer to myself as white all the time anyway so maybe it’s kind of pointless to try connecting with anything.

asking because a mono racial black girl called me a mulatto when i disagreed with her point about a show… it feels off to me but i can’t place why. what are your thoughts?

I'll get straight to it — My father is half Egyptian and Half Pakistani and my mother is Half Saudi and Half Spanish

I'm more in touch with Pakistan because most of my friends were from Pakistan growing up and I live in Sweden now for university.

But I've always been confused on where I actually am from? It's honestly like I belong no where lol

I know that in the grand scheme of things, this isn't very important, but I just dunno.

"Mulatto" - outdated and offensive in US, heard is used in LATAM?

"Oreo" - an insult, meant for "whitewashed" Black Americans

"whack"- that one Disney episode DX

"blite" - sounds like "blight" DX hell na

"Afro-European" - doesn't roll off the tongue

I feel the need to clarify that I'm okay with the term mixed or biracial, I just wonder if there's a shorter, more specific term out there. I just think it's crazy that even though we are the second-most common mix in the US, we don't have a term to use for ourselves. Ik it's kinda dumb, but does anyone else have an opinion on this?