{"componentChunkName":"component---src-templates-story-js","path":"/story/how-my-race-matters-j/","result":{"pageContext":{"data":{"id":"-0ea1f108-67ea-5037-b484-07aa324f7039","authorFirstName":"Josiah ","storyTitle":"How My Race Matters to Me","photo":{"asset":{"url":"https://cdn.sanity.io/images/nr9digz2/production/57997e2926b15875800e5594e067466176acda13-2395x1955.jpg"}},"audio":null,"secondLanguageAudio":null,"school":{"name":"Ka'u High and Pahala Elementary School","city":"Pahala","location":"Hawaii"},"tags":[],"_rawText":[{"_key":"34b184192409","_type":"block","children":[{"_key":"9a7e4c0ace1e0","_type":"span","marks":[],"text":"As someone with mixed races, I experience struggles for each of the ethnicity I have. They are not personal struggles; rather, they are struggles that come with having the race as a part of me. Even so, I am still proud of my race. My people faced struggles generations before me but they always found a way to get through it. For example, my white race as a Jew, my ancestors faced things like the holocaust and persecution leading to the need to constantly move around and my black race, they faced things like slavery, police brutality, and internalized oppression coming from external ideas making me feel like I need to change myself to fit their standards. My race faced oppression time and time again, my race was judged because it wasn't a much preferred white race. My white race isn’t any different though; my white race was still seen as a minority being Jewish. So I can’t say my white race was treated any differently. I often get offensive comments telling me about my ethnic background dismissed as jokes. I often have to laugh it off as if it was just a joke, but I really think it is more than that because it makes me feel like they don’t take me seriously. On the surface level, they are diminishing, degrading, and dehumanizing me as a person. I even get the same judgemental treatment from the people around me, in fact, that is in most cases. I often feel like I am not allowed to speak about my ethnic background because I am not fully belonging to each. Especially, when again people around me are being the ones that tell me so. Either I am not Jewish, if I believe in Jesus because they don’t believe he is their Messiah but I do. I get questioned for why I don’t have a kippah (a Jewish hat). I get told that I don’t look Black enough or I get too offended when facing Black issues. I get questioned when I’m not speaking Filipino. But when I try to live up to these comments among other things, I feel like I am not myself— like I’m an imposter. Or even being judged by my family for certain features, like my nose and ears being too big or my hair being too curly and I should cut it or straighten it, or me being darker than a lot of my Filipino family leading to being called “the black one”. Everywhere I go with my family, I stand out. Being accepted by people in my community like finally having Jewish friends to relate to helps me accept that part of me. The strong prominence of Filipinos where I grew up makes it easy to fit in the Filipino culture in Hawai‘i. Finally, during Thanksgiving, meeting the Black side of my family who currently live in Maryland and serving the community during Martin Luther King Jr. Day helps me feel like I belong. To me, race represents more than just skin color; my race is my ethnic background: I am proud to be Filipino, African-American, and Jewish “no matter how much the dollar costs” and every chance I get, I show it. Although at times I struggle with identifying myself, I love the diversity in me. All my experiences bring an understanding of other cultures realizing how much we all can relate and help me disengage with my hypocrisy."}],"markDefs":[],"style":"normal"}]}}},"staticQueryHashes":["3309388390","890781507"]}