The InBetween

This series is a commentary on some of my daily situations as a mixed person. I am not known for staying quiet, which sometimes brings a lot of problems my way, but it also brings a learing opportunity, for me and whoever is present. This was my way of bringing to light some unjust situations that I found myself in, mostly from ignorance, not malice, but still it harms us, leaves a wound, and most of the time, trauma.

This serie has some text that goes with each illustration, I’m planning to do a zine where I will include everything, I will let you know!

Thank you for listenning, and allowing this conversation to take place.

It’s impossible to deny that we don’t believe in stereotypes, stereotypes that we should fit in and others too. But do we know how harmful these can be for us and our community?

I grew up as the only chinese girl in a rural village, I was good at math and had good grades in all subjects (one stereotype for the asian culture - check), my dad wanted me to be a doctor or an engineer (second stereotype - check). What these stereotypes did was that they suggested that I wasn’t valid if I didn’t fit into these boxes society had already forced on me. But the thing is, these boxes weren’t made for me to fit in, but a generalization of expectations that western society had of my culture, it’s an excuse to deny my identity once I didn’t meet these same expectations.

I don’t have straight black hair, nor dark eyes, I’m not small, I am loud, stubborn and very opinionated. (It’s true that I am also white, but it seems that I’m not white enough to be part of the club, so my existence needs to be justified)

My village was so stuck into this mindset that people needed to be a certain way that once they met someone who didn’t fit in, they didn’t know what to do, and that’s what happened to me, in which box would I fit in? We all have these thoughts sometimes, it’s normal, it’s what we were conditioned to think, now what if we start questioning these same thoughts?
Why should we fit in? Why do we need to meet the expectations a stranger has on us? Is fitting into these little boxes profitable for our lives and mental health? Why do we force others to meet our expectations? Shouldn’t they be allowed to choose the way they want to exist? Why do we think that not fitting in is so wrong? Why do we have this need to fit in? Why are most stereotypes for BIPOCs to be more submissable and white passing? Why are these microagressions against others, mostly against non white people, so normalized in our society? Who do they profit?

If these same stereotypes hurted us, traumatized us, made us became people we didn’t want to became in the first place, should we keep that same narrative alive? Should we hurt others the way society hurts us?

I was raised in a mostly white community, expressions like “you are so exotic” were tossed at me like “good morning” and every time I brought this up I’ve been received with “it’s a compliment!” and “I don’t see it like that, it means you are different!”, well, don’t these kind of affirmations remind you of other situations we’ve encountered as AFABs (Assigned Female At Birth)?!

Firstly lets talk about the definition, it means unusual because coming from far away, and directed to me it will mean that looking chinese is unusual, but would you call exotic to an English person, or a French one, or a white american? Did you ever wondered why you wouldn’t call a white person exotic even if they were beautiful and don’t have specific physical characteristics that are typical from their etnicity, making them unusual? Well, you got it right, this is a matter of race. By calling me Exotic, this adjective that is usually used to describe food and plants, I’m being put in the same chategory, taking away my humanity, my social experiences, my rights, you are saying that I don’t belong in the country that I was born in because my dad’s genes decided to pop up on my face, you are reduzing me to my appearence, allowing space for misoginy, fetizashion and the prepetualization of stereotypes against BIPOCs that are still seen as bellow white people and hypersexualized as a way to entertain the white society.

I’ve been called exotic my whole life, even though all my white friends look so different from each other and are all beautiful, you know why? Because I can’t hide my etnicity,

because society has fed people the idea that exotic is a compliment, when to my ears it literally means “I find you beautiful because you are chinese”, i hope you see the problematic here, because I’ve also been called “you are pretty for a Chinese girl” and “Your mixed percentage is the only that I find attractive for an Asian” and all of this sit holding hands in the same space. If you want to call me beautiful just use that word.

I’ve made my mistakes and will continue to make them, I’m racist sometimes as well as misogynist and other stupid mindsets with which I was educated and I get called out a lot, but it’s what we do once we understand that we were wrong and that our actions and words hurt someone that will make the difference. Mistakes are an opportunity to grow. Ignorance is a choice once you are presented with information.

Not being able to fit into a box society imposed me, put me in a constant indentity-crisis loop. Boxes needed to be filled so they knew which priviledges and rights each box deserved, you couldn’t be two boxes at once and if society didn’t create a box that would be able to identify you, because they didn’t recognize you, you would be forced into a box that had nothing to do with you, and this is what we were led to believe to be the only way to navigate society.

I didn’t fit into any box, for they didn’t make boxes for mixed people, much less a neurodivergent mixed afab. I was never accepted as Portuguese nor was I accepted as Chinese, I was too Portuguese to be Chinese but too Chinese to be Portuguese. Throughout my life I’ve been conditioned to think that I could only be one of these, so I hid the best I could my Chinese ancestry because I was living in Portugal. My face was a big hint that I wasn’t Portuguese, but I discovered that if you showed that you were ashamed of that part of yourself they would be more welcoming to your presence. So that’s what I did, for years I pretended to be ashamed of being Chinese, and for years I actually was, if everybody was against it, they might be right, you know?

But I was still put aside, I was still the other, the outsider, the one that would never belong... So I changed tactics, If i could only be one and being Portuguese didn’t work, I’m going to be Chinese. I knew the bullying, racism would be worse, but I wouldn’t have to hide who I was. But that wasn’t me either, I had the same status between Chineses that I had between Portugueses, I couldn’t understand what was wrong with me, what I could change to be accepted, I never met someone mixed race, I thought I was alone, and I was in a way, not being able to share your experience or to relate to anyone.

It’s difficult to discover who you are when the society you live in denies your existence, but also, once you accept that they will never accept you as one of them, you may discover that you don’t want to be one of them, you want to be you, and discovering the “you” is a job only you can do. Having been told that I couldn’t stand for one of my ancestries because I wasn’t “pure” or that I didn’t have a voice because of those same reasons, made me realize how controlling these concepts are, I am not half Portuguese and half Chinese, I am both, and that makes my experiences unique. I was not ashamed of me but afraid of not fitting in, but the truth is that I never fit anywhere and for that reason I might enjoy a freedom many can’t. Society denies my existence, my voice, my experience, but just by living and talking I am proving that there are other ways, that boxes shouldn’t exist, your identity is yours to control, nobody else’s. It’s not us and the others, this binary of existence is a way to control us, and we need to unlearn it if we want to be free.

Due to my intersectional identity, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, ableism situations have been part of my everyday life. I was prepared to deal with it, like most of us, if not all marginalized people have been.

Later in my life I started to notice a pattern, not with me, for I knew the conditions in my life and the kind of person that made me the target for this kind of attitudes, but from the people around me that weren’t in the same situation, but called themselves my friends, or just loudly said they supported the same ideals.

I started to wonder why people did not stand up for me when I wasn’t able to, or when my position was compromised by an authority but theirs wasn’t, making it impossible for me to stand up for myself, but taking the time to tell me, after the occurrence, that they stand with me, and that it was wrong what happened to me, and that they would never do it themselves. This attitude didn’t sit right with me.

And then I understood.

It was their silence, the standing under the protection of their priviledge when they knew, that even if they did stand up for others, no harm would come to them, it was the comfort of the testemony, the audience, an accomplice to oppression, but never an ally, never an accomplice to freedom and justice. It was the allowing space for that kind of speech, of attitudes, of mentality, showing that it was and still is acceptable in society and that no consequences will come to them, and we should endure it because that’s how things are...

But you know what? I’m tired of it, of the “everyone for themselves”, of allowing hate speech, bullying others, oppressing, abusing, threatening…

If we have to handle the consequences of being born as someone that society doesn’t approve, even if it’s something we can’t control, so it’s time others start handling the consequences of the things they do have control of, being it, the way they treat others. And it’s everybody’s resposibility (some more than others) to hold other people accountable for their acts. Our mentality is the first to change, the rest will follow. It’s time we start being active bystanders, practicing what we praise, and being the change we want to see in the world.