Can All the Quapas Please Stand Up?

Sorry, this is going to be a huge read. I hope it is taken in the love it is written in though!

I think the exclusion or the “you can’t be that” of multiracials who are a “1/4”, including in the Asian American context, generally comes from a different place depending on who is doing it. A White person doing it is not the same as ethnic communities doing it. Honestly, this applies to all ‘quantum’ of bloodlines depending on how much one looks the narrative prescribed by the dominant (White) culture and who does not.

Jonathon Fisk has a general mixed-race article on “saving Mixed Tears.” It can be seen as below.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/finding-meaning-in-life-s-struggles/201704/save-your-mixed-tears-and-other-tips-mixed-living

In summary, from a White(r) person’s perspective, it is not a benign place. From their view, you are supposed to look a certain way, so they tell you that you may not “look it” as a way to encourage you to downplay your heritage. Though it may not feel it, this is actually worse from a White-r person because of what their words serve to do in this. It is, whether intentionally or not, an attempt to dismiss your struggle as a multiracial and ask you to assimilate. To encourage you to downplay your role in your family, distance yourself from your family, and marry into Whiteness and forget your history, ethnicity, etc. So around them, it is paramount to remind them that you are not conforming to their wishes.

On the other hand, any privilege from Whiteness should not be downplayed, either. Whether you look full-on white (blond haired, blue eyed, etc) or are ethnically ambiguous, to some extent we are spared the worst of the racism the rest of our family may experience. It is our job to own our heritage but also making sure we can be an ally as well, in the sense of creating spaces that center our family (and hopefully Black, Indigenous People of Color [BIPOC] too). If we are unsure how much member and ally we should play, we should err on the latter. And expect to stumble, own up to where we stumbled, apologize, and do better next time.

The next article I am linking goes more into what research has shown on Multiracial Asian Americans and perspectives from the community. It is a good moment to explain why multiracial White-Asians, especially ones who identify based on a grandparent and family/culture, may face reluctance on being accepted.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/race-in-new-world/201907/asian-americans-are-skeptical-biracial-people-s-loyalties

It can be hard to understand this with how Internet discussions can go, and some mediums (especially social media) does not leave room for nuanced discussion. That aside, there is a pretty solid reason why many Asian Americans, per Chen’s work, may act skeptical of multiracial White-Asians, especially the further removed they are from the community or further passing they are. Fisk’s article and the article above by Chen can be summarized to one reason for exclusion: self-preservation. Most Asian Americans I have spoken with at the end of the day do not, say, question Keanu Reeves’ ethnicity (he has Chinese and Hawaiian ancestry). They are leery of the fact Hollywood will pick him over someone who conforms to the narrative prescribed to Asian Americans by white hegemony. As painful as it may be to feel excluded in these cases, they are more than justified to criticize Hollywood on its colorism, something of which I hope to do better with in the future.

Ultimately, our place in our society, depending on how White-seeming we are, pushes us to side with Whiteness. Our loyalties are tested because historically, this is exactly what has happened.

Many of our relatives may try to push us to assimilate as a way to protect us, believing they are doing what is best for us because deep down, they know it is better to be White(r). I am not going to say it is right to feel that way, but we cannot in our position of advantage put the onus on them to resist assimilation politics (which is survival for them), especially when we are not interrogating the ways White dominant culture has urged/made us to assimilate and erase our own ethnicity. Often, we unintentionally harm our own family and images of them through different ways when we let Whiteness tokenize us as a voice for communities that can speak for themselves, yet have not been allowed to do so.

Assimilation politics also plays a unique pressure on White-POC Asians, especially those who embrace their grandparent’s culture, to be pushed into BIPOC spaces and the only way we do move up is if we take space from them (and even then, research shows someone who is a quarter Asian” will be seen as “Whiter” than someone who is a “quarter Black”). It is why you see a lot of ethnically ambiguous or full-on White seeming multiracial celebrities becoming famous only when they start culturally misappropriating from ethnic minorities.

In short, it feels unpleasant to perceive isolation by relatives, but with deeper exploring my privilege between spaces, I realized at the end of the day, that perception was my White-adjacency making me feel entitled. Entitlement stems from White dominant culture. When I understood that and started to recognize that I was not going to fully, regularly experience what some of my cousins in California may (if I experience anything they do at all), I then from here, started to notice the feeling of isolation wane. Last time I went to California, I actually felt far more connected to my family than I ever was. My relationship with them started to transform for the better.

I could go on and on, but I know I wrote a lot already. I have been writing more about the complications of passing and how it has left me complicit in upholding White hegemony on my own site. https://www.aryahmariam.net

I do have older posts that reflect a different mindset, where I still had some struggles reflecting what some have jokingly referred to as multiracial “angst.” However, I only leave those posts up now to show where I have grown and where I hope to grow. In the future, I will be posting when I have some more nuanced writing on the subject of color hierarchies, Southeast Asian social issues, and so forth.

Well wishes!

I also would recommend reading Sharon Chang’s book on Raising Mixed Race, and Hapa Tales and Other Lies. You may find them enriching. She writes from a Taiwanese-White American perspective but she also did some really solid research in the former.

–A

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