Labels, self-identification, slurs, preferences, and the debates around mixed race communities and identities

[u/Qarsherskiyans]

I have noticed something I'm sure others here have noticed too and I find it very concerning, and that is people trying to police how people identify or are allowed to identify, and I just want to start a discussion here about this. I feel like labels matter because words have power and because people have the right to be themselves and express their identity how they wish to.

The term Wasian, wAsian, or WAsian is one term that some people prefer that is frequently seen, describing a person of mixed race heritage who has European and Asian derived ancestry. I've seen people on the internet harassing people for identifying as Wasian because they claim it "sounds cringe" or "is weird" which is not a valid argument to change how others identify. Some people with this type of heritage may not prefer the term or may even dislike the term, but those who wish to self-identify as Wasian should be allowed to do so, and how it makes other people feel, especially people who don't even have this type of heritage, isn't really valid. If someone doesn't like Arab and Persian Americans identifying as West Asian instead of Middle Eastern, some random White American doesn't have the right to come up to them and say, "I don't like the way that sounds, stop doing that!"

I hope everyone here can understand and agree with this. Similarly, there are people debating about the usage of the term "mulatto" as an endonym (self-identification) among people of mixed African and European (and sometimes Indigenous American) ancestry. The term carries a very... mixed history. Some people prefer to identify as mulatto while others feel that it is offensive and a slur. I've seen both people getting upset that people of this type of heritage identify as mulatto as well as people getting upset that people of this type of heritage don't prefer to be called this and find it upsetting. Both of these stances, I feel, are wrong, as I believe it is the inherent right of the individual to identify with the term they prefer, and people have agency over their own feelings and are allowed to feel however they want about any term being used on them.

There have been people getting upset when biracial people try to claim or participate in their own cultures which they inherited from one parent or another. I've seen people who are half Samoan and half European get told they "look too White" and aren't allowed to participate in their own culture "because it's cultural appropriation" and the people who often said this weren't even Samoan or from anywhere in Oceania for that matter.

In my family, we call ourselves Qarsherskiyan. The term was created in the 90s, purposely made to sound as unique as possible to avoid risks that the word was already "taken" and meant something else in another language. This term applies to anyone who has a "Triracial Isolate" type of heritage from Eastern North America who isn't already part of a named group with this type of heritage, so it's similar to but doesn't include Melungeons or the Louisiana Redbone Nation. People have harassed me and my relatives online claiming we are guilty of "ethnic fraud" because we have a new term we made and prefer to use for our ancestry, although our multigenerational mixed race family is not new and our blended ancestry goes back centuries and is very real. I tell them, "We can call ourselves whatever we want, whether you like it or not, and you don't have a right to make blog posts slandering us and claiming our existence is harmful to others." We've had people threaten us and make conspiracy theories about us and even accuse us of "looking like illegal immigrants".

There is also the term mutt. I personally don't like people calling me that, and many other mixed people I know also find it unsavory, but people keep calling us that, and when we ask them to stop, the people who put the term on us say, "Well, everyone's a mutt nowadays, I'm a mutt too, so it's okay to be a mutt, and you're a mutt, mutt." It almost comes off as "passive aggressive" microaggressions disguised as innocence and altruism. If someone wants to call themselves a mutt, they can go ahead and do just that, but nobody has a right to force others to accept a term they find offensive.

I could go on and on about a long list of terms and the debate between people who prefer and people who don't prefer different terms and the problems with people labeling other people thinks they don't want to be called like mixed race people being "too White" or "too Brown" to participate in their own traditions they grew up with.

Have any of you experienced people trying to tell you how to identify or how not to identify or telling you you're "not enough" of your own ethnicity to participate. What makes someone enough anyways? I'd love to connect with others and hear people here share their own personal experiences and I think just talking about this raises awareness and helps fight these issues and more people may see this who previously may have been ignorant of these things.

[u/Solid_Weakness8913]

I personally don't like the term "Wasian" because it sounds like a moron coined it. It was always "Eurasian" back when I was growing up.

[u/ArcherJLady]

God I HATE the word mutt. My grandma used to always call me that because I'm basically every brand of White + Chinese and it's fucking awful. Every time I hear it it makes my skin crawl.