Feeling Enough: A Mixed Journey

My mixed experience can be summarized in a few words: trying to feel enough.  It's a constant journey for me, and I have made major strides.  My mom is a Cuban refugee who came to Southern California in the late 1960s and my dad is White (Irish and German descent) from Philadelphia who mostly grew up in Southern California.  I am white-passing, I have a younger sister with tan skin, my mom has brown skin and my dad is a light white color.  I remember my sister wanting lighter skin like me at a young age, which was one of my first racial memories as a child.  

Although I am white passing, and acknowledge that I have white privilege, I rarely feel like I appear white due to the constant guesses to my ethnicity and racial make-up.  I think not feeling enough began early in my childhood when questions like, “What are you?” were thrown at me, and I didn’t understand how to respond.  I clearly looked different to people, but I knew my face, I knew who I am, so I couldn’t process what exactly they were asking.  I remember telling my mom once that I always received such questions and she said, “That question is rude, you are a person, what else do they want to know?!” The question “What are you?” felt and continues to feel like an affront on my person.  I suppose it’s better than people guessing your identity and then halfway through a conversation they are telling you look like a Middle Eastern snake charmer (yes, this has actually happened at a recent party, and yes, it's an extremely racist comment), but the question still makes me feel uneasy, unwhole, not enough.  

The feeling of not “being enough” continued when I entered first grade.  We had just moved from Miami, FL to Chesapeake, VA, and before the move we were living with my abuelo, tios, and tias.  I quickly learned that the words I used for certain things, and the lunches that I brought to school, were not “normal”.  I felt immense shame at lunch time, especially.  I remember demanding a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich or a Lunchable so that I could blend in (which now makes me sad to think about and I would never choose a Lunchable over a delicious Caribbean lunch, anyday!).  These feelings of inadequacy and not having what others had were compounded by the fact that I grew up as one of the “free and reduced lunch plan” kids.

Among my mixed friends this feeling of “not enough” is common.  I don’t think I actually had a word for the feeling until I began processing with more multiracial friends and colleagues, but the feeling was always present.  The Social Justice Training Institute, which I attended this summer, was another space in which I processed this feeling with multiracial colleagues.  It’s this insipid feeling that you’re about to be “found out” or caught for not fitting into where you’ve been assumed to fit.  Or it's the dread that you are at some point going to have to answer the “what are you?” question, and the onslaught of questions about your upbringing and culture will start to rush.  There’s also a feeling of trying to fit in so badly, trying to prove you are Latina or Cuban “enough” while also not ignoring your whiteness and white privilege in spaces.  It’s also trying to dodge the pain that comes when white friends and family say racist things (when they seemingly, for a moment forget that you are not fully white, and are then shocked by your anger).  It’s trying to reconcile that you are also not fully a person of color, and therefore cannot speak for the entire myriad of experiences that people of color hold, even when others want you to because you are a more “palatable” person of color to them.  It’s realizing that I will never fully fit  into your expectations of a White person, and I will never fully fit into your expectations of a Latina.  I am both-and, and for the longest time that never felt enough, but I’m on the path to feeling enough.

My path to feeling enough consists of trying to be me at all times.  I have come to realize that being mixed is a huge blessing.  It has given me the opportunity to be raised in a multicultural family, and I think it is a major factor in my ability to relate to others and have empathy.  I attribute my identities as being why I entered the field of higher education and student affairs, and why I want to do this work in helping others find themselves, their voice, their agency.  Being enough means being open about my mixed identity, giving voice to my experiences (especially when I feel silenced), while also openly acknowledging that I cannot speak for all mixed people, I cannot speak for all people of color, and I cannot speak for all white people.  I work in being an accomplice in the fight towards equity, and this especially makes me feel whole.  I revel in my time with other multiracial people and I am blessed to have two close friends and colleagues in town who identify as mixed.  Ultimately, feeling enough means being ok with knowing that I am not for everyone, and knowing that those who welcome me as “enough” will always be for me.

Nicole Caridad Ralston hails from Southern California and South Florida and now resides in the amazing city of New Orleans where she enjoys being a part of the community. Nicole earned her Bachelor's degree in History and American and Florida Studies from Florida State University and her Master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from North Carolina State University. She is also pursuing her Ph.D in Educational Leadership and Administration at The University of New Orleans where she looks forward to researching the experiences of women of color in the college presidency role.  

Nicole currently works at Tulane University as Program Manager for Community Service Programs.