Finding Your Place on Campus When You're Mixed

“I know another halfie when I see one.”

This was said to me during the summer before my junior year by a friend I made at a creative writing program and quite honestly, it was probably the first time I’d ever thought of myself in that way--halfie. It’s not a term I had heard before, but it pretty well describes my experience being the child of an interethnic, interreligious couple: not fully Mexican, not fully Irish, not fully Jewish, not fully white(?) and a little bit of everything. If my identity were a Facebook status, it would be: it’s complicated.

Ever since I was very little, I always felt kind of weird even within my own family, being the only child (from either side of my family, mind you!) to be mixed ethnicity in this way: all my cousins on my mom’s side had a Mexican mother and Mexican father; all my cousins on my dad’s side had ancestors who came from Europe at some point between the American Revolution and World War II, with very few ties to those backgrounds save for a last name. And since I’m an only child, I was pretty literally the only “mixed” child. 

So when my new friend said this to me, it was like a whole world opened up. I had been under the assumption that no one would ever really understand or relate to this feeling of not-belongingness that I had when it came to identifying myself, that I checked multiple boxes without feeling confident about any of them. Over the next few weeks that I knew them, we talked about being mixed a lot. It was such a relief to have a friend who might not be able to understand my background exactly, but still knew the general feeling of being in the weird gray space of being mixed.

So a couple of years later, it was time for me to go to college. I had been encouraged to participate in all those programs targeted at students of color--I’m sure you may have heard about them by this point in the college search project--but even being there felt a little phony with my background. While the groups for students of color I had encountered while visiting Barnard felt a lot more accepting than some of the ones I had encountered at other schools, I still wasn’t sure I’d feel like I’d found my place if I joined an organization for Latinx students.

So a few months later, I find myself at Columbia’s Activity Fair, Fall 2017. The scene: 500+ student-run organizations lining Low Plaza and College Walk. Clubs dealing with topics I’d never even heard of. More Greek letters than I’d ever seen in my life. Somewhere in the row of identity-based groups, I found one which was for Latinx students of some sort (or was it Mexican? It doesn’t really matter now, since I’m pretty sure I never ended up going to any of those meetings), and while someone on the board was trying to sell me on coming to the first meeting, I let it casually slip that I was not just Mexican, to which I was met with, “You should come to Mixed Heritage Society!”

I said I would, but as luck would have it, their meetings were at the same time as a class during my first semester, so I never actually showed up until my second year at Barnard. 

MHS meetings aren’t like other identity-based groups’ meetings that I’ve been to. It can be pretty difficult to talk about one very specific topic when hardly anyone in the room shares the same background. Instead, we spend time talking about issues which affect all of us--like spirituality, politics, and representation in the media, among others. Even though we don’t share the same background and our experiences are often extremely different, we can all relate to the experience of not being able to fit into a single box. 

I’ve learned a lot from my peers at Mixed Heritage Society: their experiences from wherever they call home (whether it’s Ohio or Singapore), how to be a better ally, just how many mixed famous people are out there (like Keanu Reeves, Naomi Campbell, Aubrey Plaza...the list goes on and on), and how I can better embrace my own identity as mixed. It’s a place where we can answer weird ice breakers, rant about our frustrations with being misunderstood, and laugh as we lean on each other, talking about issues big and small. I’m really glad to have found this group of other halfies and mixed people during my college experience.