1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed

I've never really had anyone ask me

like what are you, or like, what's your skin tone?

If someone did ask me, I would probably say I'm mixed.

Which means I'm black and white, two different races.

That's my oldest daughter Sami.

An incredible, bouncing, buoyant, piano-playing kid.

Half black, half white.

I brought the black part

my wife Melissa, brought the white part.

Even before Sami was born

Melissa and I realized that Sami was going to have experiences

that we didn't understand, simply because she's mixed.

Well, now, Melissa and I have three mixed-race daughters.

Sami, Juno, and Asha.

And they have lots of mixed-race friends.

And while Melissa and I talk with our kids a lot about their race

and what it means in the world

I was curious about other mixed-race kids.

I wanted to talk to them.

I would say I'm half Pakistani and half African-American.

I would say I'm Asian and American. So I'm mixed-race.

I am 100% Filipino, 100% African-American

and 1,000% a person.

Then I talked to their families.

I talked to some mixed-race adults who used to be mixed-race kids.

I am mixed but I'm not mixed up.

Some of the conversations went better than others.

What's that?

And some of the conversations went surprising places.

Just because we live in a diverse community

does not mean that racism and all that doesn't happen.

What is white culture, you know, besides racism and...

and evangelical Christians?

I even got my mom and my mother-in-law to sit down

and talk about their adorable mixed-race grandkids.

And racism.

It actually went pretty well.

I quickly found out that I'm not the only one

who thinks this is a good idea.

I think it's very fun

for other people that are not mixed-race

to see about... to learn and see what a mixed-race kid does

what he feels and what he knows.

My name is Sami, or Samaya

and I'm ten years old

and in fifth grade.

And I identify as a mixed child. Black and white.

You are my sweet little baby.

My name is Juno and I'm seven.

All right. And what are you made up of?

Like, what are your races, what are you made up of?

- Black and white. - And what are you?

Are you black, are you white, are you both

- are you more or... - Both.

- Are you more on the other? - Both.

So have you ever had anything happen to you at school

where somebody was like, thought you were something different

- than you were? - Yep.

Oh, what happened?

We were under the tower

and then she just came running towards us

and said, and told me I was white.

- And how did that make you feel? - Sad.

Why did that make you feel sad?

Because I'm not just white, I'm both.

You can be both.

There's not just like, "You have to be this or you have to be this."

Like, also like

you have to be a boy, you have to be girl.

There's many in between and I'm in between

between black and white and I like that.

What song does your dad sometimes wake you up with...

you and your sister, up with in the morning?

The song that you sometimes wake us up with

is To Be Young, Gifted and Black by Nina Simone.

Why do you think I played it for you in the mornings?

Because me, Sami, and Asha are all young, gifted and black.

Well, not completely black, but...

- Go fish. - Juno, do you have a five?

Do you like being the middle sister?

Or would you like to be the older or younger sister?

Middle one.

Because you get to be two at the... two things at the same time.

- Like what? - You can be little and big.

You can be a little sister and a big sister at the same time.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I grow up, I wanna be a musician

and, like, a singer and dancer maybe.

And my favorite singer is Alicia Keys.

She's also mixed.

I really like her music

and I really like that she looks like me.

So, when you close your eyes thinking about yourself

what do you feel?

I like to think I'm a very creative person

and imaginative.

And I like to think that I'm a kind person

and want to help other people.

And I feel like I really enjoy myself and, like, yeah.

- Myles, you think you can dunk it? - No. I'll try.

No.

My name is Myles.

I'm 11 years old and I live in San Francisco, California.

We are at Lands End in San Francisco

seeing the nice view of fogginess.

I like to bike, play basketball

and play video games, sometimes play the trumpet.

So, how would you describe yourself?

Mixed Filipino and African-American.

Tell me about your Filipino side.

We have traditions of getting together a lot

'cause Filipinos really like to party.

So we always like, get together a lot.

I use one spatula...

I think one of my favorite things

was actually at a Filipino festival.

It was like a cook-off that was kind of like showing

what like, you cook.

And I was cooking with my lola, and my mom

to make... making maruya.

Which is like a Filipino banana fritter

- which is really good. - Hi, winner!

Hello.

- How often do you see your lola? - I see her at least once a week.

She just came by earlier today.

Why did your lola come by earlier today?

Advice for this.

Can you tell me the advice she gave you?

The advice she gave me was, like

oh, tell them that my dad looks like Denzel Washington.

Does your dad look like Denzel Washington?

So sometimes, when my parents were out somewhere

some people were like, oh, are you Denzel Washington?

But, like, he's not really Denzel Washington so...

Did you always know you were black?

No.

How did you find out you were black?

So once we were doing at my summer camp

my Filipino summer camp.

One of my friends, 'cause they're also black.

Like, oh, Myles, you're black. And I was like, I am?

So, yeah.

That's awesome.

I am happy that he now, that space is there

for him to have those conversations, and...

think about those things

and feel those things at that age.

I felt like I...

that space wasn't there, fully there when I was his age.

I grew up an only child. I'm half black, half Filipino.

Myles is my little brother, came into the picture 22 years later.

So big age gap.

My elementary school was pretty much Asian.

I think I was probably one of five black kids in the school.

I pretty much identified more so with the Filipino side.

But in middle school

now I see a lot more kids that look like me

like the black side of me.

So same color, same everything, same hair.

I was like, all right.

Now I kind of see where, where I fit in, in a sense.

But then at the same time, I didn't grow up with those kids

nor have the same lifestyle as they did.

So I was also looked at differently.

It was like, rough, trying to figure out my identity

especially being black when I was raised Filipino.

Because then, now I'm not black enough for the black kids.

I'm like, all right, cool.

Well, I'm gonna just pick up my basketball

and I'm gonna do my thing here.

And I'll identify as a basketball player.

That's perfectly fine with me.

But we never had those conversations.

And I, I feel like now, in today's world is

where we really start opening up that box

of having those conversations and letting those walls down.

Get outta here.

My favorite part of what I heard was

how people would just see him as, like, black

and not quite Filipino, at first glance.

'Cause, that's, kind of, like, the same situation with me.

So, like, when I tell them that I am Filipino

they're like, "You sure?"

I'm not shocked, because I'm older and I've seen it.

But, it also, in a sense, it sucks that we're still doing that.

We're still going through that phase.

I am Presley. I am ten years old.

My race is Filipino-American.

My dad is Filipino and my mother is white.

So, why do you think your parents named you Presley?

Where did that name come from?

Well, my parents really liked the singer Elvis Presley

and that's why I was named Presley.

And what do you do for fun?

Well, I play the bass.

And I like to play volleyball.

- What do you like about volleyball? - I have a lot of energy.

And what brought you to the bass?

My best friend was in a band and she invited me to join it.

So I tried it and the instrument I was given was bass