My race is like someone at a water fountain.
For a while, they just stand there, trying to decide between two drinks
In the end, they just give up, grab their cup and put both drinks in there.
My race is like mixing two different drinks, and when you drink it, you can kind of taste both at the same time.
Except the two drinks were “Asian” and “Latino”
And they weren’t drinks that I myself got to choose.
When you mix two drinks together, it’s not the same as drinking one drink alone, and drinking the other one, you get both in one, and the taste is a bit different.
The problem is, when someone wants Pepsi and the other person wants Coke, you can’t just give them both Pepsi mixed with Coke, they’ll complain that there’s Coke inside of their Pepsi, or there’s Pepsi inside of their Coke.
I am like that drink, being served to people.
Around Mexican people, they don’t want me because I have some Asian in me.
Around Filipino people, they don’t want me because I have some Mexican in me.
My social interactions requires me to deliberately dance between two different identities
But I can’t
Because I am not just one or the other
I am unique
Like a separate entity
Just as red and blue
Make purple
But purple is not like red or blue

Sometimes I try use these two different identities as masks
Whenever I visit relatives who are Mexican. I use that part of my identity as a mask
Trying to be the best “Mexican”
Or the opposite
Trying to be the best “Filipino” around Filipino relatives.
But no matter how much I try to mask out the other side of my identity
I can’t
Because both of my backstories become one
It’s like having two types of food on one plate
It’s almost impossible to separate them
They will always get mixed up somehow

Because although
I might look like one
Or the other
I can’t be
Because there’s so much more to a person
Then what a person can physically see
Like the tip of an iceberg sticking out of the water
This is why
The best way I can identify
Is not by a race
But by my own name
Because no race
No ethnicity
Can define who you are