i don’t know who needs to hear this but you don’t have to choose between races to identify as. growing up now i have a black caribbean mother and a latino/white father (i literally don’t know where hes from id have to ask about what his latino/spanish heritage is from but you get the idea) my parents have two different cultures, races, ways of speaking and alla’ that and of course that gets projected onto me as their child. considering my home is honestly pretty matriarchal i’ve been roped into a lot of island (mainly caribbean) culture and that goes along with my blackness being partially black. where i live there’s so many people from down in the islands like jamaica, the caribbean, trinidad, etc so practically all my life i’ve been surrounded with this black island culture. now don’t get me wrong i love that culture i think it’s very rich and interesting the people truly are incredible. but this is the ONLY culture i experienced despite being also part latinx/white descent.

i bring up all this stuff about myself to say that i’ve been forced whether intentionally or not to predominantly choose my black heritage over other cultures i am also technically apart of. if i ever wanted to embrace another cultures like listening to music i get met with confusion and annoyance that i am not fully indulging in my black side and listening to caribbean music or music considered “black” by my mother. i can never veer too far off the path of being black because im always roped back in by everyone around me who is black and views other culture as less or not as rich as theirs. i am NOT black and im NOT latinx or white i am a mix of all of them and i should embrace all of them as a whole not just my black side because that isn’t all there is to me.

to anyone who may feel pressured to fit into a little box of being either/or and that you can only be either one or the other: you don’t have to. you have so many other parts of your own culture you can explore! and if you don’t want to participate in either and just be your own person there isn’t anything wrong with just doing things your own way because you’re your own person after all. however if you are mixed/multiracial and do enjoy indulging in one culture you are part of over the other there’s also nothing wrong with that because at the end of the day it’s still a part of you and if that’s the part you want to express by all means that’s incredible you feel such a connection to your background. it only becomes a problem when you’re being pulled between different cultures by the people around you and even your own parents to and being forced to choose between one to identify with. you never have to choose when you don’t have to and you’re always going to be part of multiple cultures and that’s aweso

awesome** TLDR (but i’d appreciate if you did at least skim !): you never have to choose one culture from your upbringing over the other because you’re more than just one culture and you’re free to identify with whatever you’re apart of or nothing at all. it never has to be just one and don’t let anyone tell you that :3