When I was in middle school kids in my class used to squint their eyes at me, crinkle their nose and ask, “What are you?” A girl; a human; an annoyed, human girl. “Filipino, Russian, Irish and German,” I would reply back. They continually stared at me as though I were lying. I thought maybe they expected me to say I was an alien parading around in a human body for the sheer enjoyment of confusing everyone I crossed paths with. But I did feel like an alien.

I didn’t exactly look like most people. Only now that I’m more aware of it I know exactly who I look like. In the mirror I see: my mom’s eyes, my dad’s nose. Though I thought I was merely a girl without an obvious racial distinguishing facial feature who seemed to be the only one of my kind in my living hometown, it is only now that I see the rise of multicultural kids due to interracial marriages that have been on the rise for some time now.

It is refreshing to finally see some kind of acknowledgment that not everything is a black and white as the Hollywood and the media let us think. I see multiracial kids and interracial couples all the time but when it comes to seeing it in the public eye, it is a rarity that you are forced to accept the fact that the people on the screen are the set standard stereotype of what you expect to see everywhere else. It is troublesome to think that even though the rate of interracial marriages are resulting in multiracial children there is a lapse in what kids are able to associate themselves with. For example when you’re young (if you’re that kind of girl) you associated yourself with whatever Disney Princess you looked the most like. But there have been so few examples of diversity for a culture that is increasing yearly one can only hope that. Luckily, Disney has recently expanded their racial rainbow of characters but there has yet to be a character that represents many of the culturally mixed young people of today. Adapting to change takes time, but hopefully it won’t take too long. At some point in time we’ll all be too mixed to distinguish a race. The concept of race will be (DUN DUN DUN!) indefinable.
—Eming Piansay