Half-Breed

My first encounters with others can often be described as humorous, yet puzzling.  After the smiles and my usual, “Hi, how are you?” my new acquaintance’s speculation process immediately begins.  It starts with my brown hair, my large, round eyes, and finally the curiously long surname on my notebook.  Then, after careful deliberation and an awkward silence, the observer finally asks the standard, “Wait, so what are you?” 

Annoyed, but prepared, my only response is, “Hmm… what do you think?”

With answers varying from French, to Filipino, to Mexican-Japanese mix, my seemingly unknown ethnicity has become a trademark I have gained throughout a majority of the duration of my high school career.  My facial features and hyphenated British and Taiwanese surname define me as a typical Eurasian.  However, the pervasive culture of my school says otherwise - especially when my race characterizes me as an outcast of the Asian “model minority.”

I usually ignore random bits of criticism thrown at me, whether it is about my “white people” style of dress or my lack of knowledge in the Asian cultural sphere.  However, this question that chronically seems to ask “Which planet do you hail from?” puzzles me.  I have dealt with small instances involving my race in the past, but I still have yet to understand why people in my neighborhood find “half-breeds” to be the newest anomalies.

Confused.  Lost.  Awkward - All three describe how I felt during my first two years of high school.  I first attempted to assimilate into my school’s culture by becoming depressed over ninety percent scores on tests and by laughing at racist jokes against Caucasians.  Yet, once the jokes impacted my own races on a larger scale, I finally began to wonder why one’s ethnicity plays such a large role in the characterization of another.

When we were kindergartners, nobody cared about who is Middle Eastern, Mexican, or Asian.  Yet, the innocence that we once had throughout elementary school slowly deteriorated as we all developed with an expanded pool of knowledge - one that includes racism.  Thus, with things such as terrorist organizations, Mexican immigration, and “Asian invasion” simmering into the minds of the world today, many sadly choose to characterize people by their race, instead of their overall personalities. 

With this realization, I felt guilty not just because I judged many by their race, but also because I lost my former beliefs in order to fit in with my school’s bizarre culture.  Yet, this guilt soon turned into a desire to change as I decided to stop competing against my classmates through quantitative means, learn how to actually enjoy my classes with genuine curiosity, and put more effort into understanding the various aspects and disparities between my own two cultures. 

With this new perspective, I learned “half-breeds” could learn Mandarin just as easily “full Chinese” students, conducted more research on my European roots, and eventually traveled to Taiwan alone and found the components of my lost culture that I was looking for.  Through the criticism I experienced due to my strange ethnicity, I was finally able to appreciate my mixed backgrounds through a new lens, and was also able to prove to my classmates that people not of Asian heritage could be successful in the academic world, as well.

Thus, whether I am from Indonesia or Mars, I now know how to assume both my Taiwanese and European backgrounds, and how to accept my true identity as a young Eurasian.  While many people I meet are still surprised by my Caucasian background and question my academic ability today, the main difference is that I now know to ask, “Wait, what difference does it make?"

I often think of "half-breed" as a way to describe animals rather than people of mixed ethnicities.