- I come from a pretty diverse family.
- I was born in Lima, Peru, and I was adopted by
parents from New York and they're both Caucasian,
and clearly I'm not.
- I'm the youngest of four and we're all adopted.
I have a Filipino sister, a white brother,
and a half black sister.
And our parents are white.
- My entire family is white and I'm black.
- My mom's side of the family is white and my dad's
is Indian.
- My mom is 100% Mexican and my dad is primarily Scottish.
- My dad is Danish and my mom is Indian.
- I am the father to two children, mixed race.
I'm married to an Indonesian woman who I met
in college and we've been together now for a long time.
- I think in elementary school, everyone would be like,
"Why are you a different color than your mom?"
And I was like, "What are you talking about?"
And then it kind of hit me like, "Wait, something's up."
- People would got to my dad in front of me like,
"Oh, your mother, she must be Asian."
Because I looked like an Asian kid when I was younger.
He's like "No." And thankfully he was very quick on
explaining what adoption was, even at a young age,
for me.
So from the get go they were definitely my mom
and dad, for sure.
- I mean, there was four of us and we asked a lot,
but it always started with like,
"Well, your birth mom loved you very much,
"but she couldn't take care of you.
"We really wanted to have a kid and we were lucky
"enough to find you."
Which is a great way of explaining it.
Doesn't really touch on the fact that we look different,
but it touched on the fact that you're loved,
which is the most important part.
- I didn't really know the word race when I was a little kid
I just knew that my mom was brown and my dad was white.
My mom loves talking about how white her kids look.
She likes to make fun of us for it.
- In elementary school kids would tell me that I was
adopted, that it's impossible for me to have a white mom
because I have brown skin.
- When I got older, I would be out with my dad
and people would say like,
"Who was the guy that you were with?"
And I was like, "That's my dad, why would you assume
"that he was anything else?"
And then I was like, "Oh yeah, because he looks
"nothing like me."
- People have commented on my children.
And they're saying, "That's a good mix you got there."
On those I want to start fighting everybody
or correcting everyone, which I imagine,
I'll do down the line.
I just kind of say, "Whatever."
- It gets tiring sometimes, explaining it to people.
My brother's really good friend was so confused about it
and my brother convinced him that my dad was half black
and that's why I was black.
- My white brother really identified with the
ghetto culture, lived that kind of lifestyle
and my parents go into parenting me against that.
A lot of times in my mind I wrapped up to the keeping
me away from being too much of a black guy.
More than not feeling black, I feel like I don't
fit in anywhere.
- For a long time I just wanted to fit in.
So I got angry, I got angry at myself and I was upset
at my parents for not teaching me enough about being
Indian or about being white.
- I don't even know how the topic came up, but I asked,
"What are you, Latina, Asian, Black?"
My daughter said, specifically, she was white.
And then my son the same thing,
and he said the same thing.
My wife and I corrected them very quickly.
"You mother is an immigrant from Indonesia,
"your father is the son of immigrants from Central America,
"you are not white."
And from then on we got some, like I said,
some interesting conversations on ethnicity, race,
cultures, all of that.
- The only thing that really gets me is when people say,
"But you're basically white, right?"
Which doesn't really make sense to me because
if I were the exact same mix that I am but just looked
more brown, people might say the exact opposite.
It has nothing to do with how I was raised,
or the cultures that I grew up in, or you know,
sort of how I feel.
- it's hard, I think, when people find out that my
family is white, they're just like,
"Well, you're not really black."
And I'm like, "What does that mean?"
Last time I looked in the mirror, I'm definitely black.
- Because I look how I look people will come up and
just start speaking Spanish very quickly and then I have
to say, "I'm sorry, I don't speak Spanish."
And they get mad at me, they get very mad.
You know, it kind of does make me sad,
that part does make me sad because I really do
wish I spoke Spanish, but I don't.
In terms of not feeling a part of something,
my parents made me feel part of a family,
but I really feel, unfortunately, disconnected from my
actual culture.
- It is weird falling into this middle ground because you
feel like you always have to identify with one or the other.
Like, you have to choose a side and that you can't just
be what you are.
- I think it's interesting for my generation of kids
growing up in multi-racial families to have to go through
the last wave of misunderstanding.
And I'm sure there's going to be new obstacles,
there always are, but in my mind,
it's getting so much better and it's so much more normalized
which is really exciting, honestly.
I'm hopeful.
(soft music)
- It's here, it's here!
- [All] It's here It's here!
- [All] Get it.
- I think they got it.
- Yeah, you get it.
- It's here!