This post originally appeared on Medium. A few months ago, I not-so-subtly asserted myself as biracial while having dinner with a new coworker. “I’m a Capricorn,” she’d said. “Yeah...my mom’s black,” I responded (not verbatim, but the exchange was similar). Whoa. What? Immediately after I injected that part of my identity into the conversation, I had a come-to-Jesus moment. What was I doing? Did I always do this when I met new people? The answer,…
1. Denial It wasn’t that the idea of being biracial frustrated me, it was just that I didn’t think I was it. Yes, I finally learned to write “Jaya Saxena,” but to a blank-slate of a five-year-old that combination of letters was just as random as any of my friends’ names. “Judith” looked weird too, right? “Denisa”? “Fiona”? I figured it was all arbitrary. My family did not act like other immigrant or biracial…
My third-generation Hokkien Chinese-Malaysian mum was born in Malaya, three years before its independence from Britain. Having the onerous position of being the third-born child and oldest girl in a family of twelve siblings, she grew up waking at 4am every day, going to the yard, killing a chicken and preparing it for her brothers and sisters. Later, having failed her Malay O-level and thus barred from nursing training in Malaysia, her Commonwealth status allowed…
Hello. So the last time we talked about a book I'm crazy about, half the fun was missing because none of you got fair warning. Most of the comments were "I really want to read this book now," not "Here is a nineteen-page essay I wrote about Obinze," which is what I really wanted from you. I will not make that mistake again. Currently Nellallitea "Nella" Larsen's Passing is available for the Kindle for a…
