My life story...kinda
He called me an “Oreo”, she called me a “swirl”. I went home in tears. I was six years old. It was my first day in third grade. I didn’t understand. So I went home and asked my mom for the first time “what am I?” She laughed and told me that, I was human. So the next day when the same remarks were thrown at me, I said “no I am not I am human”. They laughed and said “Nope, your mom’s black and your dad is white”. I was hurt and kinda confused. That was the first time I questioned who I was and where I was from. Funny thing is, to this day, I still don’t know.
My birth certificate says I am from Peoria, Illinois, which is a little town about 2 hours southwest of Chicago, Illinois. My first few months of life I lived in Evanston, Chicago, right on Lake Michigan. The community was very diverse from what I have been told. At the time it was comprised of about 100 interracial couples. I lived in a high rise apartment building with my then 2 year old older brother Darius. At around eight months, my father was offered the chance to have his own practice in Virginia. So we loaded up the old blue Chevy truck and drove from Chicago to Prospect, Virginia. It was here that I have my earliest memories. We moved into what I remember as a massive 3 story plantation house. We had a huge garden and miles of forests to explore. This is when I realized I was a tomboy. My brother and I would build forts and play with random snakes. Life was great. I didn’t have any friends other than my brother for about 4 years...until I started kindergarten. That’s when I found out I was different.
The first day of kindergarten, my teacher told me I was special. I thought I had done something wrong, because that day my mom was called in for a parent teacher conference. The following weeks I had to take test after test after test. I thought it was punishment, but two weeks later I was put in second grade. I was the smallest and I was scared. I buried myself in school. That was the year I realized I loved to skate....ice skate. My father started driving me the 2 hours to Richmond to skate every other day after school and on sat and sundays. I was really good. I started to blossom, to be more assertive. I started dancing..ballet, jazz, interpretational, tap. I started singing, performing. If I wasn’t in school I was on stage or on the ice. My older brother was my ice dancing partner, we were still so close. Mom worked and Dad worked.
Then came the first day of third grade. I started to notice that my family was different. We had moved to an almost totally black neighbor hood. My father being white stood out. My older brother was much lighter than me. He looked white...with a tan. The black girls in the neighborhood didn’t talk to me. They said I was too white, but the white girls I was in school with didn’t come to that neighborhood; I went to them.
By sixth grade, I was known as the nerd. I was picked on everyday because of my age. My brother stopped talking to me, because by now he was jealous of me because I had passed him in school, but I was his kid sister. I was no longer cool to him, which meant the few friends I had, I no longer had. I buried myself in schoolwork and skating. Middle school sucked. My body started changing. My coaches told me that I needed to lose weight, that my hips were to big and my butt to round. I was getting a chest and that is never good for skating. Jumps were harder, my equilibrium changed. I stopped pairs skating and went to singles. I was getting quite good, the hours of dance were paying off. But I was stressed. The eating disorders set in.
My first little brother was adopted when I was in seventh grade. He was mixed they said, meaning black and white. I was so happy when he came. Although he had taken my “baby” spot in the family, I was glad to have someone to take care of, and to love and be loved unconditionally. Eight grade was the grade where girls were getting boyfriends and going out on “group dates”. I never did. My days consisted of skating, track, dance and my guy friends. We played football and ran and did all the things that “boyz” do.
I started high school at eleven. The first few months were hell. My parents found out about my eating disorders. I was taken out of school, and put on steroid treatments and force fed. I lost all confidence in myself. I stopped dancing and stopped skating. For that 8 months, I buried myself again in school. My older brother was ashamed of me and I no longer existed to him. About that time, my parents adopted my other little brother. I began to again question who I was and where I was from. I felt everyone else had ties. Late one night I snuck into my parents file cabinet and began reading my adoption papers. They had always told me the story of picking me up, but never who the “took” me from. On one piece of paper I found the words, biological father. There was a strange name and then Tongatapu, Tonga. I was confused and didn’t know what the words meant. I put the paper away and never asked. The following year I went back to high school. By this time the steroids had caused me to gain an inordinate amount of weight. I had no confidence and was lost. The black girls didnt talk to me because my hair was too fine. The white girls because I didn’t look white. We moved to a very affluent community, which in my town meant all white. I became more of an outsider. High school was a cruel place.
Schoolwork was my life. I became valedictorian and was inducted into the National Honor society. After a long search and being accepted to 13 schools, for some reason I decided on VMI. I felt like it was an opportunity for me, to not only loose weight so I could dance again but to do something noone had confidence in me to do. So I went. For six months I took military history classes and drove myself into depression. Apparently, the weight you gain from steroids was extremely hard to get off. I was told I wasn’t good enough. I began to starve myself and had many health issues. After transferring from VMI to the VWIL program at Mary Baldwin I realized that I needed out. I needed an environment where the pressure to succeed was there but not oppressive. I transferred to Hollins. That following year I turned 18. I was determined to find out WHO I was. I asked my parents for the files. But in doing so I offended them. They thought I felt that they weren’t enough, that was never the case. The felt betrayed and felt that I was ungrateful. My relationship with them began to crumble. I could no longer talk to my parents about anything. My three brothers know that they are mixed, but I was never told what I was. I had long discussions with my parents and found out that they really didn’t know either. Parts of my files were sealed at my adoption for reasons either unbeknownst to them or for reasons they don’t want to tell me. I took the information I knew and held on to it. The summer after my sophomore year I searched more. I took the strange name that I had, saved money, booked a flight and flew to Tonga alone. In a search to find something that connected me. I was there on this paradise in the middle of the South Pacific and had no idea why I was there. Something was leading me to that place. I met the people and experienced the lifestyle. I came back to VA, knowing a lot about who I POSSIBLY was. That year I began to claim it. When I was asked what I was, I would answer south pacific islander. It felt right. The pieces fit, or so it seemed. The summer after my junior year, my parents came to me and said they found that I may be mixed black and white and simply that my parents lived in Tonga. My world was devastated.
So here it is my senior year. I am in the process of graduating and starting a life, an adult life with my boyfriend. As he begins talk of a wedding and of children and a life after Hollins. I realize that my reality is constructed from pieces that I don’t know for sure. I sit and think about what I will tell my children when they ask me “Mommy what am I?”. I feel like a fraud, but the subject is so painful to research. My mother and father are the best people in my life. I love them and my brothers more than life itself, but there is this part of me that is empty. As I sit in classes that talk about finding your roots and being proud of yourself for who you are, I oftentimes feel empty. I have buried myself in my schoolwork, because I am good at it. Dance and skating have become a chapter in my life that I don’t open, don’t talk about and barely acknowledge. Its only in my boyfriend’s search to really know me that I pull out the albums and trophies. Although I feel in some ways that I don’t need to know exactly what I am, I am curious. The question arises, does our race or ethnicity create us or define us. My life story as I give it to you has a lot of holes. There are many events that I remember very well but I don’t feel define me. Ultimately my not knowing has made me a scholar, I am eager to learn about all cultures and all possibilities. Sociology and Anthropology have become my passions. The search to understand people and their cultures and to preserve them has almost become my purpose.
I don’t know who I am. My story is comprised of people that touched my life along the way. My family, mismatched as it may be is all I know. My boyfriend represents the unknown what I want to learn about myself, through showing myself to him. My story doesn’t really have an end, or in many ways a definite beginning.