Hi-- this is something i have been struggling with a lot and I was wondering if any of you had any advice. I am a sort-of white passing poc I think... but the problem is I am from a big amalgation of ethnicities that can mostly be generalized as eastern european ashkenazic jewish, east asian (mongolia, vietnam, china) and east/south russian as well as french. And I am really struggling both with how to identify my "culture" as how I was raised and how my parents and ancestors were raised is 1/?
is very varied and confusing, like for instance, my parents dedicated years of their lives to Aikido and studied under a japanese sensei who passed on a lot of traditions to them that they then passed to me, my mom passed on a lot of jewish traditions to me, my dad passed on chinese, russian, mongolian, and even chilean (because he was raised in chile) traditions to me, and I struggle a lot with understanding my position in relation to these cultures that I feel like I can’t lay claim to 2/?
because I’m not fully of any one of them. But I also don’t feel like I can comfortably say that I’m white, even though I can sometimes (though many people ask me “what are you?” after they meet me), or ignore any of these cultures that have impacted me so much growing up. And in relation to my practices or paganism, I find it hard to know what I can adopt, when what feels right to me based on my upbringing, I may not be insert heritage-enough to adopt. I just feel, as a mixed race person 3/
this all feels so much more complicated– some of it may be guilt? some of it may be my lack of community growing up? but I feel so lost with my identity, like I am shut out of claiming to be anything because I am also so many other things, like I barely feel comfortable saying im jewish bc i dont LOOK jewish even though I AM, I don’t feel comf. saying that im “asian” even though I LOOK “asian” am I really chinese/mongolian/vietnamese enough to be asian? Please help in anyway I am so lost. 4
I can understand your troubles up to a point. Although I’m not white passing, I can be considered mix (I’m actually only 3/4 korean, 1/4 misc white) but because of my features, no one ever questions if I just say I’m full korean.
But remember, the percentages here... it isn’t helpful to narrow down on it like this. It will only drive you to be upset. I was raised both Korean and American, but mostly American after a certain age. So I understand being pulled different ways.
No, it would not be CA if you wanted to further look into any of your heritages. It’s a part of you, even if you weren’t culturally raised in it, it’s your ethnicity. Just because you’re so mixed doesn’t mean you’re obstructed from learning about your roots.
Identify as you feel comfortable. It’s completely up to you. IMO, you do look asian to me. One can’t really peg a Jewish person by looks alone though, so that one is really up in the air, though if you’re culturally jewish, why not include it? Looks and what people assume you to be only goes so far.
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