In "Invisible Monster" by Cindy Nakashima, She describes how the concrete definition of race were first formally made and how that definition of race created hardships within the mixed race community. She describes that in order to define people that are mixed race within a monoracially "hegemonic" America, scholars used theories like hybrid degeneracy theory or when multiracial people of color are inferior to people of mono-racial or "pure blood" race and the definition of the marginal man or when a person is not fully of the race they associate with. These theories and statements create the stigma that it is not ideal to become proud of being a multiracial person in America or in any country in the world. This creates the notion that if you are a mixed person of color, you do not know who you are as a person because you cannot fully "claim" to be part of that specific race or even ethnicity.
This reading was hard for me to finish because being mixed race can be actually awesome. It gives the person to fully define themselves especially their own story. I have seen Filipinos that are mixed race and they felt lost within our culture. They felt that they are not too Filipino enough because they were told that they don't look Filipino (They look white or some other ethnicity). People need to understand that race/ethnicity are just shades of grey. They are culturally flexible but foremost respectable for the group of people. They help define your story yet many mixed race people are confused as other people compartmentalize them in a box. So how can we solve this kind of racism? How can we as a society understand people of mixed race without compartmentalizing them into one specific group of people that they might not associate to? How can we not judge mixed racial people without knowing their own history?
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