Sometimes it feels like people in America are obsessed with identifying someone’s race or ethnicity, and they make a lot of assumptions based on whatever they imagine to be the truth. This can have a big impact on other people. Since the beginning of sixth grade, and continuing to this day, many people mistake me for being Indian because of my looks. I'm actually Filipino and part Chinese. For over a year, I didn’t really know what people thought of me, until my sister entered middle school as a sixth grader and I was a seventh grader. My sister was more of an extrovert than I am, so she became really popular really quick. Around the beginning of the year, she began telling me that many kids at our school claimed that I was an Indian boy.

I was completely confused by that because I thought Indians had a darker chocolate-like skin with distinct accents. But then my sister showed me pictures of Indians that have the same features as me, light brown skin and curly hair. I still didn’t have the Indian accent, but I suddenly began to feel insecure about myself. Why were people making assumptions and talking about it? Did I do something wrong? Was this something bad? Why were people doing this? For some reason, I thought that being called an “Indian” was a bad thing because it made me feel more like an outcast. It felt like a racial slur in some way. And so throughout the school year, ever since she had shown me those pictures and I saw a resemblance between myself and the Indians my classmate thought I was one of, I felt badly about myself. I got so insecure about myself that I was at my lowest, and I would even sometimes think suicidal thoughts. I desperately wanted to look anything else but Indian to other students. It was so uncomfortable to have other students talking about me for any reason, even if I knew they were wrong.

I tried to suppress my depression over it, but I kept hearing the comments and I kept feeling negatively about it. During the next summer, I finally opened up and told my father about it. He reassured me and explained to me that it's ok to be called an Indian. He actually told me that if he were Indian he would’ve loved having an Indian accent. I realized I hadn’t heard anything positive about the qualities of being Indian before. My dad didn’t see anything negative at all in the accusation or misrepresentation. As the summer went on and I continued to hear it, I started to care about it a little bit less. I even started to make some friends who happen to be Indian. I learned more about who they are and they are good people.

The next year, when I became an eighth grader, I felt a bit better. When people call me an Indian now, it doesn’t bother me. I used to get so annoyed with people using the word “Indian” as an insult or an incorrect and unnecessary assumption of my ethnicity over and over, but now I realize that their assumptions don’t bear weight and shouldn't affect my life or the way I see myself or other people.

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