why Brown Girl

My mom is Indian and my dad is white. This makes for an apparently unidentifiable mixed baby. My constant companion throughout childhood and adolescence was the question "What are you?" Most would guess Hispanic, some "white with a tan" (???), some black (????), and, every once in a while, someone would guess Indian. This where my identity as Indian ends as my mom never raised me very "Indian" and consequently I know zip about Indian culture. But I'm still brown, and thus cannot (and prefer not to) identify as white. It's the classic dilemma of being too brown to be white and too white to be Indian.

Being mixed is interesting and wonderful but it also puts one in a strange place in terms of identity. Mixed people don't have clubs in the same way that groups exist exist to unite people of individual ethnic and racial identities: Asian Council, Indian Student Association, Association of Black Students, the KKK, you get the point. Of course, there are mixed "subgroups" within each of these groups. However, there is an implicit expectation that you must identify primarily with one racial identity and then label yourself accordingly. This becomes even more complicated when you don't wholeheartedly identify with either of your halves (in my case). After a series of identity crises in college, I have realized that the one identity I do connect with is that of brownness. It's not specific or eloquent, but when I look down at my hands I don't see Indian or white, I just see brown.

I'm a brown girl and I'm proud!!