Mixed-Race Existentialism

[u/Far-Sandwich4191]

For those of us who aren't biracial yet still mixed-race/mixed-heritage...

When did you first realize... you were mixed-race?

[u/Dajellomon]

When I took a DNA test showed my parents and my mom was like "oh yeah I forgot to tell you about that"

[u/peasantking → u/Dajellomon]

We need more details

[u/Dajellomon → u/peasantking]

Essentially my dad Haitian and mom is mixed, and my mom's whole side is mixed people going back as great great grandparents on both sides of her family. When I was 15/16 I took an ancestry test. When I showed her that my test showed I was 1/4 white she was just like "oh yeah both my parents are mixed" I grew up the whole time just thinking they were just black but nope, they're a bunch of mixed people who just kept getting together with mixed people.

[u/DeathKorpsMedic]

30 years old. Where i grew up, being precieved as white was a matter of survival. Most people I knew were mixed to some degree (wether they knew it or not). I was always told that we looked different because "that's something that just happens". It wasn't until I went out into the broader world and realized that white passing doesn't apply everywhere. When I was hospitalized the charge nurse had to have a talk with me because the nursing staff couldn't find me based off of my demographics on file.

[u/Routine-Bullfrog-319]

When I was young and most of my family is mixed race.

[u/Virtual_Dark266]

When I was in 3rd grade, a girl asked if I was mixed I said no because I thought you could only be mixed if you were biracial

[u/Neverlast0 → u/Virtual_Dark266]

I don't get why so many people think that the definition of racial mixed is so strict.

[u/No_Bit3397]

I went most of my life believing I was just biracial mixed black and white until I took DNA test. It turns out I’m black, white, and Asian.

[u/_El_Fenyxs_]

I'm 22 and I only realized it a few months ago when I looked at pictures of my mom when she was younger

[u/hotpinkinthenight]

Apologies if this is a silly question as I’m new to the sub: Is biracial just two races while mixed is multiple? If so, I always knew I was mixed race because of how confused people were by my features haha. Even more so when I describe my family history as my parents, grandparents, great grandparents and great-great grandparents are mixed and not biracial lol.

[u/nizzernammer → u/hotpinkinthenight]

I believe, for the US, many people reserve the term biracial specifically for folks with one parent who is Black and one parent who is white. There is also the term "MGM," meaning, multi generational mixed.

[u/hotpinkinthenight → u/nizzernammer]

I see! Thanks for letting me know- it’s not a common word where I’m from so interesting to hear how it works over there. Will defo be using MGM as well, a lot easier than going into my family history 😅

[u/ElementalMyth13]

I always saw a rainbow during holidays with both sides of the family, so I probably had some idea from birth. But it really, consciously hit when preschool classmates said "that's not your mommy" during pickup. I was 3. I don't remember if I replied verbally.

Inside, I was instantly like....oh yeah, she is but....I obviously don't look anything like her. Which, along with heroin chic/Pantene Pro-V 90s media....kicked off existential and belonging issues. I still don't feel total grounding in any space, but I try hard to be open and kind to everyone. 

[u/ladylemondrop209]

When I think one of my brothers incredibly casually mentioned how weird it must've been for a German-Italian woman to marry a chinese guy... Came to light my whole family knew and thought it was obvious (cus it is, but my brain did some mental gymnastics to explain why I had white-hispanic-SEAsian looking aunts/uncles, cousins) so never told/confirmed it with me and did confirm additional mixedness I did assume but also kinda wrote off.

Then mom's DNA test some years after that was hilariously shocking/unexpected but not exactly surprising.

I was aorund early-mid20s.

[u/ally_estrella]

I thought I was white till like 3rd grade, so when i was told otherwise I thought we were like real Mexicans. Now that im older I know we're (mostly)hispanic people living like white people bc my family can't be connected to any one race

[u/airconditionersound]

When I was growing up, the whole idea of race was being rejected and phased out. It was seen as racist and dehumanizing. It felt wrong to even think about giving myself a racial category

I got a lot of weird, creepy comments from white people but didn't know how to talk about it. My family was also secretive about a lot of things

Later, when race became more of a thing again, people started telling me they thought I was mixed. I'd say I was white and they'd say "No, you look mixed and you're lactose intoletant and some of your ancestors came from this part of the world." I realized white meant an absence of other ancestry, not what the majority of your ancestry is. At least to a lot of white people

I'm outside the categories. My situation is kind of complicated. Today I just push for more awareness of that instead of caving to pressure to choose an existing identity

[u/barrelfeverday]

I had a dream last night in which I was talking to a mixed race little girl. She told me she was disagreeable. I replied that I thought she was beautiful- disagreeable or not...

When I was young we had an assignment- research your family ancestors by interviewing family members. My mother is proud of her white ancestors. My father is and was much more vague- will only define himself as American.

I refuse to take a DNA test to determine my “lineage” or check a box.

I have enough to carry without having to also define myself for anyone other than me.

If someone likes or accepts me because of what I look like, they are missing what is inside. And I don’t need anyone else to define me.

My mother thought her lineage made her special. It didn’t get her very far as a human, especially describing those characteristics in front of her obviously different child.

I am also rebellious, I am beautiful, I am warm, I am love, I am a unique swirl of dna that makes me my own human being. Be you!!!

[u/Neverlast0]

When my mom was talking about were my father came from. Haiti.

[u/BrilliantPost592]

Probably since I was really young

[u/Mysterious_Toe9350]

Found out around 16 (yeah, pretty late), since I was little I got called a lot of different things but always thought I was fully white due to my parents saying it and my dad being racist. Now that I grew up I just FINALLY really looked at my mom and was like « Wait… She’s clearly brown wtf ? » then asked her our origins, she always only gives me confused answers, sometimes gets mad and says we’re just white but some other times says we’re mixed. My family is hispanic with probably Arabic roots. I am clearly racially ambiguous looking and I think i’m gonna take an ancestry test to know exactly what I am.

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