#but I do get the duality of people going ‘why don’t you eat pork???? omg??? wdym you’ve never been to gran canaria ???’ and ‘what? is your

[vydumaj]

no it really is funny that in my hometown, where people know who my grandparents are and maybe even me from going to school with their relatives or one of my summer jobs or whatever, they expect me to be Just Like Them (aka super Swedish) but when I meet new people who don’t know the Swedish side of my family I can see their brains trying to figure out my ethnicity and how Swedish I am. My legal first name (the name I’m called by. I also a Thai name that’s also my legal first name) is actually super Swedish and somewhat popular, but apparently people don’t always know it, and I can tell their brains are going (“is she Indian? Chinese? Latina? Is Swedish her native language or not? How long has she lived here? Or does she have a Swedish parent? Is she adopted? From where??”) it’s so strange in a way . I kind of wish people could just… not wonder about my ethnicity at all… why I look Asian (but difficult to specify from where) is a second-conversation and not introductory conversation topic

#my name doesn’t sound Chinese tho. but two guys in my elementary school nicknamed me ‘the Chinese’ and almost only called me by that 🙄 #young me didn’t realize how racist that was bc I was like ‘oh yeah my grandma is Chinese I guess that’s what they’re seeing’ no they were #just racist #idk…these thoughts are unfinished …..not expressed well #but I do get the duality of people going ‘why don’t you eat pork???? omg??? wdym you’ve never been to gran canaria ???’ and ‘what? is your #native language really Swedish? I don’t believe you’ #(Chinese as in Sino-Thai) #also yeah i did for real meet a person who genuinely didn’t want to believe my native language was Swedish #I’m not sure how she mentally made that work for herself but