Moi by Mekhijah

Moi by Mekhijah - November 2019 Scholarship Essay

“What are you? Are you even Asian? What type of Asian are you? You are not just black?”. All of these questions I have been asked about my ethnicity, either by classmates, adults, and even family others. I also started to question a my own cultural identity. Cultural identity, which means to belong to a specific or certain group based on ethnicity, religion, and any other social based group classification, never even crossed my mind until quite recently. After quite some time I know that I’m a procrastinating, yet hardworking, relaxed African & Asian Amercian youngster. Being a “quad-a”, African And Asian American, I experience many quite unique episodes as three different cultures come together to create my life and personality. Physically though, I look more African-American than I look Asian and some people assume the worst because of that.
When some people, some not all, think of African-American culture, they tend to visualize two different stereotypical groups. Either the traditional sense of African such as a dark skinned person with a heavy accent who grew up with giraffes and starvation. The other alternative some people also tend to visualize is gangs, drugs, guns and music that promotes violence. However, I visualize Kendrick Lamar playing as various BBQ meats fill the air and draw in neighbors of any background. Black culture and its celebrations are all about unity between different people to create one family. Black culture is notorious for creating quite belligerent music, even though the culture influences many other genres such as rap, jazz, and pop.