My partner and I are both mixed-race but we navigate it so differently—they pass more easily and seem comfortable code-switching while I feel exhausted by constantly explaining myself, and lately I've been feeling resentful that they don't seem to struggle with it the way I do. We've talked around it but never directly about how our different experiences with racial ambiguity are affecting our relationship and what we expect from each other.
More people experience this than they realize.
Two people are discovering that their different relationships to racial ambiguity and passing create unspoken tensions about authenticity, struggle, and mutual understanding.
“Where Are You with Racial identity — lived experience?”
If this sounds familiar, the Library can help you find the bigger picture.