grwm: growing up mixed asian american/wasian/whatever u wanna call it lol
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- Опубліковано 30 лип 2024
- hey dudes! i've seen couple youtubers (linked below) talking about their experiences growing up asian american for apahm, and i thought it might be nice to make a video of my own speaking on my experiences growing up as a mixed kid. honestly most of this stuff isn't /that/ deep (there are far more terrible things in the world). but i always love hearing and relating to other peoples' experiences so i thought some people might like hearing about mine??? sorry my thoughts are so disorganized, this was kind of just a stream of consciousness. idk lmk what you thought about this kinda video 💚
dustin vuong: • let's talk about growi...
jazzy le: • let's get real about g...
imagine being completely gay for erin
Can relate
Same
i am mixed too! 🥺 my mom is english and my dad is mexican. i feel like i'm just the mexican kid around my mom's side and i feel like the white kid around my dad's side. it doesn't help that my cousin from my dad's side always makes fun of me for being 'white'. i think she means being pale because i am paler than her but that shouldn't matter. it breaks my heart to see people getting bullied for not being fully white or whatnot. i hope that one day, interracial couples and mixed children will be more accepted than it is today.
the “really? you don’t look it” JDHSJS ALL THE TIME
IKRRR
I love this! Half asians represent! I’m also half Taiwanese half Caucasian (from England). Having lived in both countries I think the weirdest thing for me was being seen as an Asian kid in England and then being seen as just a white kid in Taiwan? I’ve been fortunate to not have any problems with this, but it’s funny because I really didn’t notice this until I was older lol. It’s nice seeing this video because I relate to a lot of your issues too? When I was young my mum didn’t teach me chinese until I moved to Taiwan. I’m going on but it’s cool to see someone with similar experiences as mine share their story :D and don’t worry too much about appropriation, you’re half Taiwanese, you obviously appreciate the culture, just take your time learning! No rush ~
Caucasian is racist lol I’d rather be called white… seriously though Caucasians are from the Caucasus which is southern non white part of Russia
She is one of the youtubers where she actually feels like your best friend
Love you Erin💚
Your voice is so calming-
Its like... 𝗯𝗼𝗯 𝗿𝗼𝘀𝘀
GIRL YES! i relate SO MUCH
and honestly it feels great seeing someone else talk about growing up mixed, bc i always felt extremely alone since i was the only mixed kid in my school as a child lol
I felt this entire video in my core. I’m glad a lot of people feel like this so it’s not so lonely to feel like you don’t belong in either culture.
Being honest, when I first saw you, I knew you were mixed but I didn’t know which ethnicities. I’m like full white, lmao. German, and Irish are biggest in my heritage. BUT, we’re all beautiful no matter what ethnicity! 💙
You are so pretty and you seem like such a sweet person.
Thank you 100000x forever for making this video! I’ve never seen someone describe almost exactly what my experiences around being mixed feels like. I’m half Korean and half white and have been struggling to find myself through that as I’ve gotten older so thank you for sharing your experience and helping others not feel so alone about this kind of stuff :) ❤️
Thanks for doing this. I think it’s really awesome that you did this video. I think a lot of people who are mixed will relate. I’m not mixed but I am Asian and grew up in the US, so I related to some of the comments regarding trying to belong but also not fitting in anywhere. BTW, having a Haechan photo in the background is both awesome and really distracting. 🤣 I promise I was paying attention to you even though I would look at it from time to time. 👀
LOL don't worry, it honestly distracted me when editing
I’m half Japanese and half Brazilian and I totally relate with the part that I’m too Asian to be Brazilian and too Latina to be Asian.
Even though I definitely look more Asian than Brazilian, my first language was Portuguese and I can’t speak Japanese at all only basic things so I feel like I relate more to Brazilian culture but my face tells otherwise, it’s kind of confusing as if I’m out of place and don’t really belong anywhere...
I’m here after watching your reaction video to turn back time. I very much enjoy listening to your stories. The way you speak is also very soothing.
I am latina, and indigenous(directly because of my grandma) and Italian and I loveee it because I look super unique. Its funny because I was born and grew up in Costa Rica and everyone always thought I was American which im not at all lol. maybe because im tall and very white and have blue eyes although there's a lot of people like that in Costa Rica so I have no idea lmao. Now I live in Spain for school and people here think im Spanish or Italian (until I open my mouth and my costa rican accent comes out XD)
This whole video just calls to me, half Australian caucasian and half Malaysian-chinese, I can relate to most of this. I have a few half caucasian half Chinese/Singaporean friends so I though you were mixed straight away XD. Thanks for making such a deep video, I also look really caucasian so it's cool being able to relate
12:55 - The way I relate to this sooooo much !!! I'm half Thai and half German and I experienced so many things you mentioned. I wish I had friends that are mixed too, sometimes it can feel pretty lonely, not knowing where to belong.
I totally relate to you about these things! I actually grew up in a majority asian community, and I am mixed asian/hispanic american and i never really felt like i belonged, and looked strange but it also doesn't really matter when you realize things people say don't really affect who you really are in the end. This video was a really nice reaffirmation for me, bc i can really relate to you about a lot of things. so yeah i really liked this video, thanks for making it!
Finally someone who can relate
although I'm super late to the party, a lot of what you said resonated with me. I'm not mixed, but I'm a second-generation immigrant. My family is from Korea, but I was born and raised in the UK and I still live here. I remember when I was younger, I was subconsciously ashamed of my culture, and I tried to brush off the fact that I was Korean and I seeked some sort of white validation. I lived in a neighbourhood in suburban London with a lot of Korean immigrants so I was never 'alone', but all of us when we were younger subconsciously tried to reject our culture. When a new Asian kid came into our school? The teachers would immediately push them onto us, even if they weren't Korean, saying that 'China and Korea are basically the same country right?' and when we came to them with problems that the new kid had or if they just weren't suited to us as friends, they told us to 'work it out between yourselves, you're all from that area of the world, I'm sure you can find some common ground'.
All of this led to a lot of us trying to reject our Asian origin, a feeling of not belonging with the white people around us. When they pulled their eyes to make themselves look like us, we just laughed, even though it made us feel so self-conscious, because we had such a longing to be accepted. We wanted to feel accepted, because even though we were 100% Korean, English was our first language, we had never known living anywhere BUT the UK, and we felt little to no connection with Korea. We couldn't relate to our parents' or Koreans' experiences because we lived in and grew up in an environment so different to them. The closest we could get to belonging was with the people around us, and the people around us had an aversion to our heritage- therefore we rejected it.
It was only until I went to a secondary school in central London, which although it was mainly white, those students were mature and intelligent and respectful of our cultures, that I truly began accepting my heritage. Yes, I'm Korean, and what about it? Yes, those classmates back in primary school shouldn't've pulled their eyes and said 'ching chong' or called me a chink when I pulled out my traditional Korean lunch. Yes, I should be proud of my culture.
so much of what you said resonated with me, and I think a lot of other second generation immigrants too. although our experiences aren't the same, I think the general sense of not belonging anywhere is a common theme with 'our' community as well.
sorry for the bona fide essay LMAO I just needed someplace to unload
This is the most accurate explanation of what it feels like to be mixed Asian that I have ever heard! I relate to this so strongly I'm literally so glad I found this. I'm white and Korean but I look entirely white and most people can't tell by looking at me that I'm mixed (I've had like 1 or 2 people tell me that they could tell I was mixed and I was like "What!? You can?"). Growing up I wished that I looked more Asian because some people just couldn't seem to accept that I was mixed and they would call me a liar or say that it's wrong for me to identify with the Korean part of myself because I don't look Asian enough. Boy did those comments get old real quick 🙄. I've always kinda struggled with the whole "passing" vs " non-passing" thing because to me it just seems like another way people try to tell you how you should feel about who you are.
My older sister looks slightly more Asian than I do and she also has a picture of her in a hanbok during her doljanchi (a special celebration on a Korean child's 1st birthday where they dress in traditional Korean clothes and receive gifts) but I never had one and I always wished that I had that as well so I could "prove" that I was part Korean. (Also I was just really cute as a child and I wanted a nice photo of myself). My mom doesn't speak much Korean so really the only exposure we had growing up was food names because my mom cooked Korean food a lot when I was young. Because of this I started taking Korean in college so I could learn more about the language/culture and I also started incorporating more Korean food into my cooking hobby so I could feel more connected to my heritage. However, around some people I would try to downplay my efforts to connect with Korean culture because I didn't want to get accused of appropriation or being a koreaboo.
I also didn't really know how to refer to myself so I just used "mixed" or "mixed Asian-American" ("mixed" or "part" always had to be part of it) and I think I'm pretty comfortable with that label now because I think it encompasses all parts of who I am and doesn't diminish how I feel about myself. Overall, I think we as a society need to stop trying to gatekeep what it means to be a certain race because it mischaracterizes people of a certain race as a monolith and doesn't give any space for mixed people to exist. Anyway, I think it's best if I stop trying to fit some random definition of what it means to be a certain race and just be happy being who I am. Thanks for sharing this video, I thought it was really great! ❤️
Omg! As I was reading this I could relate through the screen. Im half american half filipino, and I have really little asian features. Growing up, I got bullied for being too american, because I was quite literally the only american in my class. I had the same skin tone as everyone, but I looked different. Now as I am older, my entire face changed, I look more asian and started to feel my self. I dont get much racist comments. I started to embrace both of my heritages.
After all of what you've experienced, I think it's amazing that you seem to embrace who you are in the end. I like to think we're all people with so many different stories and origins within us which all make us unique in our own ways. I know it's not easy do deal with that, especially as you develop your self concept as you grow up. My experience is along the same lines but little different- both my parents are Turkish but I was born and raised here in the US. I have visited Turkey almost every summer and I speak both English and Turkish fluently. Even then, for some reason, I've never been able to feel completely Turkish or completely American. When I'd be there to visit family, I'd just kind of naturally speak English with my siblings even though I could speak Turkish but it's really whichever language comes to mind first at the moment, you know? And my grandparents would be like why do our grandchildren keep speaking English like we want to understand you etc.etc. Now that I'm older, I've accepted and actually really love that I have a part of me in both places. Great video Erin!!
I’m a mixed person too (very white presenting now tho I didn’t pass when I was younger kinda similar to you but now my skin is...extremely pale) and when you said “when I looked in the mirror I just thought I looked weird because I didn’t look like anyone else” I felt that SO HARD.
I sometimes still feel that way because of my facial features and hair (that I got from my non white parent) and skin color combination but I’m not sure if it’s all in my head lolol. Anyways this video was so relatable and chill I loved the vibe!
I think you shouldn't feel afraid of doing things that are part of your culture because you feel you don't look asian enough. you know you are and if anyone says something about it then eff them and they'll look like a FOOL. you do you girl!
This video really touched me and hit me in the feels. I struggled with my identity a lot growing up because I was adopted into a white family (I'm Korean). I never felt 100% American or Korean, however being Korean has been a huge part of my identity growing up. I grew up predominately white community in small town NJ and most of my friends are white because of this (even though I go to school in a city - just most of the people I come across are white and I'm most comfortable around white people because of the environment I grew up in). I've gotten more comfortable being Asian as I've gotten older and I think just growing up looking different from my parents made me used to this all.
i really resonated with a lot of the stuff you talked about in this video. the weird thing for me is that pretty much my whole life, even when i was in elementary school, i've always wanted to look more asian than white. i think it's because all of my friends are fully asian, and there are actually more asian kids in my schools than white kids, so i've always felt out of place, like the "token white friend." it was strange because i've always been super close with my korean family, and i've grown up with a lot of korean culture, but i feel like i look too white for my korean genes to be valid. i seriously get so happy when people guess that i'm asian/wasian because it makes me feel more valid in my identity, but at the same time, i feel guilty that i seem to prioritize one side of my heritage over the other just to fit in with the people i grew up with.
Love the honesty about your experience growing up mixed! I've talked with my husband about what might our little girl experience growing up here in the US. My husband is from China and of the 壮族 minority peoples. We met in Guangxi and speak only mandarin although he speaks Zhuang and dialect. He and most Chinese people would be thrilled that you accept your Chinese heritage (celebrating it with a 旗袍, eating the foods, and other beautiful traditions of the culture). It is part of the many beautiful aspects of your identity, definitely worth being celebrated.
I was surprised when you said that you didn’t look mixed because I was able to tell right away that you were
ur smile is so cute🥺🥺
as someone who is mixed but looks completely white, i can say that i appreciate that i have the privilege that comes with being white but being hesitant to connect with being mexican gets really exhausting. at some point you grow up and accept the way you look and your identity, but i regret struggling so much in my childhood with my identity....i should have just enjoyed being a kid lol
Caring about what other people think is ok as long as you don't value it more than what you think ^-^
being happy to be recognized for who you are isn't a bad thing, people want to be seen and validation feels good so while its not as simple as don't feel bad about it I truly hope you can be fully comfortable in your identity and surround yourself with people who make you feel seen :D
It's funny being a mix. People either like it or get frustrated because they can't just put you in a box.
My mom is Chinese, from Hong Kong, and my dad is white american. I live in the San Francisco Bay area so growing up I was surrounded by a good amount of asian people and also half asian kids like me. In elementary I was friends with a girl who was half Chinese and a girl who was a quarter Filipino and a quarter Japanese. So I saw being mixed as pretty normal. It was until I got older that I realized some people definitely didn't see it as normal. When I was younger, I thought that I looked pretty asian and that it was obvious I was half Chinese but then when I was in 8th grade this girl said she thought I was Latina and I was so shook. Then I realized I was ~racially ambiguous~ lmao.
My mom told me about one time when she brought me back to Hong Kong to visit her family, when I was about 6 or something, and the security workers in the Hong Kong airport said I looked like a little princess and were fetishizing me for being mixed. I've also overheard full asian classmates talking about this half asian girl in my class and they were talking about how pretty she was and then one of them was like "mixed asians are always prettier than full asians" and stuff like that really makes me pissed off. It just shows how the standard of beauty is to be white.
Sometimes I wish my last name was hyphenated so my mom's Chinese last name would be in there and people wouldn't wonder what race I was loll
I feel weird calling myself Asian American because my mom identifies as asian American but her experience is so different from mine. Both her parents are chinese, she was born in the U.S. but grew up in Hong Kong, then moved back to the U.S. as an adult. So her "asian American" experience is far different from my asian American experience as someone who grew up in the U.S.
I've also struggled with calling myself a person of color. To some people I look white and to some people I look mixed. I am not fully white but I'm part white and benefit from white privilege. Some people consider me a person of color and some people don't so idk.
Lol I've had a similar figuring out that I am racially ambiguous moment. Someone told me that they thought I was half Asian I was like ??? Up until that point I didn't realize that people thought that about me.
omg both of the celeste ng books you mentioned are sitting on my shelf waiting to be read haha
FELT THIS
One think I noticed throughout my (not so long) life is that being mix is one thing but people that aren't mixed feels the urge to tell *literally* everyone that meets you, that ur mixed.
Like woah oki but I find it kind of unnecessary telling a stranger about my background without my permission.
I want the person to get to know *me* first, not my ethnic background.
And what you said about not 100% belonging to a *side* : I had that a lot so I stopped carring about it and embrace myself for who I am. ☺
A person of the world 🌎 💗
Omg I can relate to so much stuff you said being half Taiwanese half German myself!! But I grew up in Europe 😆💕
The similarities are 😯 My mom is mixed Taiwanese, moved to America when she was young, and my dad is American of Dutch/English descent. My Chinese name is Mei. I’m the opposite in the sense where I look more like my dad, but I wish I looked more like my mom.
Oh my god ! I'm mixed too ! A mix between Asian and Asian .. and my mom is also from Taiwan and dad is Indian .. and I grew up in India ( as an Indian ) but having both cultures ..
I know how to speak in mandarin ( as my grandma and my metarnal uncle talk ) but never learn the characters ( so besically I can't read and write ) it's not like that i don't tried but I gave up , it was so hard
And sometimes it feels weird because my cousins specially my jie talk with me in Bangla while I replied in mandarin !!
It's awkward sometimes but I love both my families so much
It weird for me to hear all of this because where I live there are a lot of mixed people, who have a lot of different ethnicities and ancestries so like....if you see someone and they look like they could be two or more ethnicities, you just a assume they’re “ mixed “ and you don’t ask them about it? It’s normal for people to be “non specific” and racial ambiguity is very common, even among communities who are predominantly of a certain ethnicity. Asking someone “ what are you” and “ ooh are you from hawaii??” feels kind of insane
I’m half Peruvian half white, and I can relate to almost everything you said in this video. In my own experience, it’s been pretty hard and kinda strange being half hispanic because my dad never taught me anything about Peruvian culture, or even any spanish even though he lived his entire child and teen hood in Peru. That alone has put sort of a burden onto me because now I feel like a part of me is missing, and to find it I’ll have to put in a bunch of effort to either learn spanish on my own time, or to research about the culture I’ll never really be able to take part in if that makes any sense. I rarely ever see my dads side of the family, but when I do I feel so out of place. No one on his side is mixed, and they’ve all grown up with the culture and I just feel like an out of touch white girl. For the longest time I kind of appreciated that in a way? Like said in the video, I wanted to look as white as possible too. I hated my hispanic features and my tanish skin, but now that I’m getting older I look a lot more white and I’m really pale and I feel like I’m loosing that side of myself more and more, and I hate it. I’m now okay and like to embrace both sides of myself, but for the reasons I just explained, it’s super hard to express my more “ethnic” side. Idk if that was the right word to use lol but you know what I mean. Ugh it sucks.
I still struggle with being mixed raced. Being 3/4 Asian and 1/4 white makes me feel out of place sometimes. I believe I am perceived as Asian but I still feel like I'm totally left out of the demographic. I used to wish my dad was just full Korean so I could be "half this half that" as this is easier than explaining what I actually am but this isn't the case. I'm still trying to accept this today.
I thought you were mixed. I've lived in Asia for awhile (9 years) 5 years in Korea and 4 years in China and I've seen a lot of mixed Asian people.
For me, I feel as though my experience has differed from place to place in that the way I'm perceived changes. In America the idea of what looks Black tends to be a bit different than what it is in other countries. In America some people have told me I look mixed but most people have always just accepted me as Black. But moving abroad it was different. I mentioned something about being the only Black person where I lived (in a small city in Lishui at the time) and the South African woman I was speaking to was like "But you're not Black, you're colored (mixed). You don't look Black." I didn't know how to feel. Sometimes navigating identity is hard.
finally someone i can relate to
this is off topic but i see ur album collection behind u would you ever do a collection tour?
definitely! just want to wait until i receive the albums i left in china lol they're being shipped to me rn
I think because I've seen and been around so many mixed kids my whole life and the mixes were all different mixes as well as half Asian half European and I did notice you looked half east Asian half white to me but it wasn't what I focused on initially.
I'm from a country called Eritrea and if you've met people from our country and also people from Ethiopia and Somalia you would assume we're mixed and that's what people always think we are and I was. I'm not sure if we really are mixed or not but even if we are the mix it would have happened so long ago so we only claim our country and not being mixed. It was confusing growing up being put with and made to associate with the mixed kids in school when I wasn't mixed both my parents look the same and like me with the same ethnicity. They thought I was black at first becuase of my skin colour was dark as a child and I would braid my hair, then I grew up aged 13/14 and left my hair out which is loose curls people thought I was mixed or indian and now and now my skins lighter as I'm out the sun I get random things. I wasn't black I wasn't white I wasn't even mixed what am I? But I grew up and met more East Africans and realised we're our own group and that's perfectly fine.
well asians and white mix well that produce white passing kids most of the time. It extends the ethic group range of features.
I’m mixed too 🥺 I’m Polish from my fathers side and Korean from my mothers side, I’m just seen as the white kid around my mom and just seen as the Asian around my dad. It’s so weird and I wish I was just fully korean or just fully polish :(
I RELATE SM AUGHHH im half chinese half canadian aussie
1/8 Japanese (Okinawan) 1/8 Middle Eastern and 6/8 white. #MIXED
I definitely knew you were at least part-Asian when I first saw you!
I’m Hawaiian, Chinese, German, Portuguese, and Micronesian
I’m also American
At first I wanted to look more Hawaiian but then I started wanting to look more Asian lol I rlly didn’t know others went through something similar
I usually feel awkward saying I’m Asian bc I rlly don’t look Asian lol Almost everything you said I could relate to
When you said "my middle name is mei" my jaw dropped lol. My middle name is also Mei haha same spelling and I'm also wasian
Heyyy there, you look so gorgeous, I subscribed to you!!!
As a half Korean. part Japanese, and half Caucasian, I get lots of “you don’t look like it” from both sides. aaaaah. How do I respond to that!!! While in America, Not to be rude, I had one Asian say, you don’t look Asian, I guess your trying to be Asian, you just look to pale. I told her that I’m pale because I have a blood disorder, and I’m not trying necessarily to be more of one side.
I knew you were part Chinese !! I've never wrong, Americans we have different backgrounds
What’s the story behind the buzzcut picture?
Im in high school and half Taiwanese half white. How should I answer the what are you question?
tell me about it..am mixed too..my dad's Italian and my mom's Korean..i feel weird too when i look in the mirror
My Asian/White son had one eye with a monolid and the other not.
I live in a country where there are not many people from other races. Almost everyone is white. So when I came to your channel I thought you're probably mixed. Because of my country environment I can understand more your feeling of non belonging somewhere.
I am not mixed but I am trilingual and when ever I say I know Arabic the people in my class treat me as if I don't understand English and I feel angry they even talk behind my back like I have no IQ at all but my IQ is infact 136 I kinda understand when you said you wanted to be whiter
It’s actually more accurate to say you’re half Chinese, since Chinese is the ethnicity, Taiwanese is more like the nationality... And over 97% of Taiwan population is Chinese ethnicity, I know it’s really complicated when it comes to this topic... 😂 anyway, even though I’m fully Chinese, it’s just so intriguing to hear your unique thoughts and experiences, and I can imagine myself in the similar context, I guess it’s because of my experience as a former international student who went to the US for study, I was part of the minority as well.
@11:21 - "Chinese" is technically a nationality not a "race". It's just that most people associate Chinese with "Han" Chinese . In America, the southern part of China. Two kids in Urumqi ... ua-cam.com/video/pz1e1xZqS5k/v-deo.html ( they look like you and your brother ? ).
Am Only focusing on Haechan ;-; AM SORRYY TAT
I am writing my master the process of the racial identity construction of mixed race people, focusing on the disparate group of asian/non-asian biracial population against the backdrop of the historically anti-miscegenation monoracial leaning US and the legacy from the era of exclusion of Asian immigrants and the “yellow peril”. Thank you for being so honest in your video! I feel like I was getting an interview for my research!
When you were younger, were you aware of the racism against asian and that asian are seem as perpetual foreigner in the US? Do you think when you were younger, your desire to look more white was a survivor tactic or coping mechanism to shield yourself from the negativity or omission toward asian you might have witnessed? Like would it be a possibility in your mind when you were younger that people might exclude you or made you feel bad in any ways unless they could identify your as white?
LMAO IM DEAD WHEN YOU SAID YOU LIED ABOUT BEING BORN IN TAIWAN 💀 cuz I was born in Taiwan and I can just imagine if you were in my second grade class I’d get so excited just like that boy
Also, have you ever been to Taiwan? :) if not, you definitely should!
Amaizing, I wish I could be mixed lmao,
Can you do a video only talking chinese?? 😃
oof idk if my chinese is good enough for that rn,,, i could try tho!
i like that idea tho
@@softrin2986 I think it would be 😂, bacause for those only 3 senteces you said, they sounded like a good chinese LMAO
I thought u were mixed when I first saw u lol. I think mixed people can more easily identify other mixed people lol
Hi there. A nice video. I respect everybody of all races. I’m just more confused about race identification these days. I just have never really considered a mixed race person “one” race. If somebody is mixed with white, I don’t understand why they usually ignore their white side and identify more with their non-white side. Some people say race is what you look more like. I disagree because I look at it from a genetic, biological perspective. I can see the White features and Asian features in your face. Race is one thing but culture is something totally different. Nothing against mixed race people but I think it just causes lots of confusion with everybody as you’re even talking about in your video. Maybe we all should just either quit it with race labeling or maybe we should find a way to respect what each of our heritage is in a non-offensive way. Still, it’s obviously hard to race identify with one race. Either way, everybody should be accepted no matter what. Nobody chooses their parents. We all come from God at the end of the day.👌🏻
Maybe its because ive lived in china for 3years. I can recognize asians...i actually thought you were 100% chinese.
12:34 - Taiwan is not a country. It's a territory ( because China was and still relatively weak). There are nationalists(China), separatists (new country) and localists (China or new country) in Taiwan. Like anywhere else, you fight for a new country.