My diverse family has helped me throughout my years to understand and connect with people of different cultures. I was born and raised in Georgetown, Guyana; my Mom is Portuguese and my Dad is Chinese and black. I literally have all these cultures squashed together under one roof of my home in Queens, New York. No one person looks the same in my family, and I’ve been told many times my family and I have a strong Hispanic look. It can be a little ridiculous sometimes having to explain to people exactly what my ethnicity is, because the truth is I cannot possibly be defined by one word—unless there is a box that states ‘other.’ My whole life I’ve seen myself as an ‘other,’ which has me thinking about the different aspects of ethnicity and cultures. Are such words fair to describe a person? America itself is seen as the “melting pot” of cultures, so why try to label or distinguish ourselves amongst the chaos of people? I guess distinguishing ourselves is a way to give people an idea of how to act towards each other. In that case, labels are okay but labels used for racist comments about another’s culture are very inappropriate. Ethnicity is just as important as ones culture because it is a part of who we are as human beings. As a child, my parents have told me many stories about my family tree and the many ethnicities it contained. I learned to embrace my appearances and treasure the mixed blood that is running through my veins.
I like this article. More people should think like this.
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