What Exactly Are You: The Woman In-between

by Victoria Teammell

The interviewer stood in front of me near the hospital’s reception area. She was petite with pale skin and had long, straight blonde hair that extended down her back. Her crystal blue eyes stared at me as if I was from another dimension. We introduced ourselves, shook hands, and I followed her to her office. I sat with my legs crossed, and my posture confident. As confident as I appeared, I was trembling. It was my first hospital interview.

I had spent an entire week in preparation to avoid being taken off-guard by a question. I practiced mock interviews in my bedroom. I’d ask myself, “What are your career goals, and why should we hire you?” I did my research on the hospital and its values. I was determined to receive an offer.

The interviewer opened a folder with my resume in it, briefly scanned the paper, nodded her head, and then asked a question I had familiarized myself with: “Wow, so what exactly are you?” Although I already knew where things were heading, I gave her the benefit of the doubt and switched the topic.

“I’m a nursing student. I became interested in this position because it requires a lot of direct care. I’d be a great asset to the team. I have experi–“

“No. I viewed your resume. I believe you’d be a great candidate. What is your race? That is what I am asking.”

I wasn't sure why that mattered. Did she not see that I checked the “other” box on my application? Desperate for the job, I played along. “I’m sorry about that. I’m African American and Italian,” I explained.

She replied with fascination, “That makes sense. Mixed girls are the prettiest!”

I couldn’t fathom that a trained interviewer was more impressed by my physical appearance than she was by my credentials. Exploring her interest, she went on to ask if she could touch my hair. Ah, my notorious, oppressed hair. I had familiarized myself with that question too.

“It’s just gorgeous! What do you do to make it so curly?”

“Uh, thanks. I just wet it.”

“Can I touch it? We don’t get many women like you around here!”

My hair spiraled into tight, thick curls. I was committed to straightening it for special occasions. My mother emphasized that straight hair was business professional. In her words, it was tidy and kempt. The interview was scheduled at the last minute, so I arrived in my most natural form. I regretted that. Embarrassedly, I let her run her fingers through my hair. I sat and thought sarcastically to myself, “Go ahead, pet my hair. I thrive off of your fascination.”

“Your features are so exotic. You look mixed!”

“Thank you,” I replied in a tone that expressed embarrassment and impatience. I wanted this to be over. I didn’t go there to be the fetishized mixed girl. Still, there I was partaking in my traditional role.

“If you don’t mind me asking, which parent is which? What is it like in that kind of home?” 

What did she mean, what was it like? I wanted to run out the door that very moment. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and assured her, “It’s pretty normal. My parents have been together for twenty-four years. We have traditional American values. Nothing spectacular.”

My brief responses and unsteady eye contact conveyed it all. I was uncomfortable. She noticed and finally shifted gears, “Well, let’s proceed. Tell me about your experience as a patient care technician.”

The night after the interview, I shared my experience with my grandmother over the phone. She has always been my go-to person whenever I needed some guidance. Initially, our conversation started with the usual small talk. In a lifeless tone, I said, “Hey Grandma, I’m just calling to check and see how you’re doing.” I did this purposely. I knew my grandmother well enough to know she never dwelled on anything, even if she wasn’t doing fine.

She casually replied, “I’m fine. There’s always someone doing worse than me.” She always said this. My grandmother possessed a prideful persona. She never allowed herself to appear weak–I admired that.

Her response was the perfect opportunity for me to take the spotlight. In a rage, I did so. I could not wait to hear what she had to say. Obnoxiously, I assumed my experience would leave us united in anger. After all, my grandmother has been a victim of discrimination throughout her entire career as an African American financial analyst. She fell victim to the stereotype that black people wouldn’t go far as mathematicians. Although she thrived at work, she hardly gained recognition. Stereotypes followed her throughout her entire role.

I spent roughly an hour going into detail about all that occurred within the short meeting. After sharing all the bits and pieces of my experience, I ended each sentence saying, “I mean, could you believe her?”

My grandmother never got to answer that question. I continued to cut her off and ramble some more until I felt exhausted. Finally, when there wasn't much more left to say, I enthusiastically anticipated hearing her reaction.

“Take it all as a compliment,” she said.

“Grandma, excuse me, how is such ignorance a compliment?” My anger rose to a much higher level, a level where it felt as though I no longer knew my grandmother.

“Victoria, you can either entertain stupidity with astonishment, or you can defeat it by boldly being yourself. You already know this.”

“Not really. That woman’s behavior was inappropriate and offensive. How are you reacting so nonchalantly? She dehumanized me.”

We never reached a common ground over the phone. My grandmother wasn’t as angry as I thought she’d be. I felt it was best to agree to disagree. That still didn’t heal the wound. The fact that this interviewer’s ignorance had no impact on my grandmother caused me to feel as though her pride and encouraging words just contradicted themselves. How could I possibly make feeling like a scientific experiment to those of ignorance, a compliment? It took two years and a lot of self-reflection for me to understand the value of what my grandmother was saying.

From an early age, it was my grandmother who had embedded racial pride within me. She and I spent my entire life developing my confidence. She emphasized loving myself despite how different I appeared to ignorant members of our community. She is the reason why I believe in equality for all people.

Growing up mixed race, I have come across encounters similar to the interview throughout my entire lifetime. Each had the same impact on me. They all led me to feel like a puzzle piece that didn’t fit anywhere. There was no manual titled “What’s Life Like Being Mixed.” Since my upbringing, both of my parents have encouraged me to check off the “other” box on applications. As a young adult, doing so feels disgraceful. It creates a sense of alienation. If companies were equal opportunity employers, why must I identify myself by ethnicity and not work ethic? My grandmother always discussed this issue with me as adulthood approached. Her words over the phone strongly contradicted her lectures. Maybe the interviewer should have examined my application more closely, specifically, the line where I identified myself as "other." Had she done so, she would not have been as astonished by my presence. More importantly, I would not have found myself partaking in another identity crisis.

Last time I checked, I was a human being. According to the interviewer and society, I was the furthest thing from the average human. I never understood it. I was born into a world that forever made me feel like I was stuck in-between two groups that found themselves unenlightened by their cultures. Because they do not understand each other, it has ultimately been impossible for them to understand me. My black side looks at me in misperception, as if my ancestors are not the same as theirs. My white side sees my colored skin and implements the infamous stereotypes placed upon people of color. As I grew up, it was nearly impossible for me to find comfort in such inhumane conditions, but somehow, my grandmother always assisted me through it all.

The complexity of being multiracial as a child was intense because during that stage of life, you are still in search of your identity. I was too white for the black kids and too black for the white kids. I didn’t know who I was. I attended a predominantly African American elementary school in the area of Bushwick, Brooklyn. I recall memories of my Caucasian mother accompanying me on school field trips. I was a small child–pure, innocent, and ecstatic to be chaperoned by her mother during a school day. I did not see color. I only saw love.

Regardless, my classmates stared at me and my mother in confusion. I remember standing in line outside of my elementary school building in first grade. The children held hands in line as we anticipated riding the school bus to the Brooklyn Museum of Art. As I stood in line, holding the hands of my closest friend and classmate, Julia, she had whispered a question that would become the root of my insecurities. Julia, confused by the differences between my mother and my appearance, asked if I was adopted.

My heart sank to my stomach. I was embarrassed, and for the first time in my life, I felt like an outcast. Julia was a friend I shared an abundance of similarities with. We enjoyed the same games, and we played with the same dolls. Our skin was the same bronzed color. At that moment, our similarities seemed to vanish. My life was so different from hers. Sure, our skin was of the same pigment. Regardless, our experiences of discrimination would be distinctive. For me, I would witness discrimination from both sides of my background. I knew that I wasn’t adopted. I still wasn’t sure of how to simplify the concept of being multiracial to her because I hadn't fully comprehended the subject myself. I questioned if I wanted to continue my friendship with Julia after hearing such words. More importantly, I began to question my identity, and I grew a sense of resentment for it at just six years old.

As years progressed, my grandmother made situations like the one with Julia easier to manage. During my childhood, a priority of hers was making me feel comfortable in my skin. She and my eight-year-old self would sit on her rug and play with my dolls together. She made it a ritual for me to have a white doll and a black doll. She made them a family, and their child would be one with hair that resembled a tree, their skin a terra-cotta complexion like myself. She named the little girl Coconut. A brown exterior, a white interior. She would jokingly say, “Coconut was just fine.” As corny as it sounds, I understand why she did it. That was her way of making me feel normal. As if there was someone out there I identified with.

I enjoyed playing games with my grandmother. It was the only time I felt confident about my identity. Looking back at that time, I feel chills. My grandmother, a strong, but still, oppressed African American woman was capable of adoring her grandchild, who is a mix of those who mistreated her. While this strategy of hers empowered me, it also made me curious about societal ignorance towards multicultural individuals. If she was capable of loving and understanding me, what made it so difficult for others?

High school was a chapter of my existence that would be full of misconceptions. I attended a rather diverse high school as opposed to my elementary school. My grandmother made sure this happened. I remember her telling my mother, “The school will be good for Victoria. She will be surrounded by diversity.” My grandmother was right. High school introduced me to all walks of life, so assumingly, we all believed that my identity crisis would resolve itself over time.

There is a saying that goes, "You are what you eat." I guess it was true. I use to love to eat Oreos. I believed the white part always tasted better. During the middle of a debate in my AP English class, for the first time in my life, someone called me an Oreo. Obnoxiously, the teens found themselves bonded in hysterical laughter. I understood the joke. According to my classmates, I was the brown girl that was white on the inside. To those aware of my race, it would all suddenly make sense of how I spoke so articulately.

“Doesn’t she speak like a white girl?” they would ignorantly say amongst themselves in astonishment.

I thought to myself because I spoke correctly, I’m white? Kudos to my white savior mother for teaching me English. My classmates, who were supposedly advanced students, unconsciously failed to realize their words were stereotypical. What they were doing was picking out parts of me that were more black or more white, failing to realize that being black and white made me whole. I once again felt like a heterogeneous mixture. I never wanted either side of me labeled as inferior or superior to each other. Myself, my grandmother, and my mother were wrong about our assumption. My identity crisis only worsened there. The white part of the Oreo no longer tasted better.

Like each hardship I faced, my grandmother guided me through this one as well. She identified with this situation immensely. My grandmother was one of the few black women who thrived in her place of employment. She faced unbearable discrimination because of this. I remember taking the train from Brooklyn to Manhattan to her office at American Express after school that day. In tears, I vented my pain to her. That very day, we connected on what felt like a spiritual level. I remember her comfortingly saying, “Baby, you’re so much like me,” as she hugged me and patted my back. She gave me the comfort I needed.

“Sweetheart, all the inequalities you’re facing now is what I’ve gone through all my life. As women of color, we will face discrimination forever. Your character is important, not how they perceive you.”

“My identity feels like a burden. Like a weight that I’m carrying on my shoulders,” I cried.

She stopped me right then and there, “No! Never allow people to overpower you. When I see you, I see hope for a brighter future. You represent the power of love. Two very different people rejected norms when you were born. They love each other beyond physicality and conventional living. You’re what the world must see.”

I needed to hear those words. They uplifted me. My grandmother went on to share with me the adversities she faced as a black woman in corporate America. She expressed how her peers labeled her and said she acted white. She explained how her superiors found themselves caught in the captivation of her long dreadlocks, making her feel objectified and oppressed. An abundance of times, she was asked if they can touch her hair. She very seldom received gratitude. If she did, it was applause for being one of the little people who worked their way up.

Most importantly, my grandmother encouraged me to stand up for myself when I felt misunderstood. She told me that I would witness inequalities forever as it is seldom that societies applauded educated people of color without integrating stereotypes. She believed that character matters. I can’t change everyone’s minds, but I can love myself enough to make up for the ignorance I’ve been a victim of. Her words inspired me, they made me want to take pride in my identity and enlighten those who misperceived me. Since this moment, I began unapologetically being myself, without explaining my racial identity. Despite this, I didn’t understand why my grandmother swallowed such painful words. In my eyes, she was resilient and self-sufficient. Why did she tolerate such discrimination, if her words encouraged me to do the opposite?

For years, I never understood why my grandmother was emotionless towards my encounter with the interviewer. She helped me during similar experiences. As I sit at my computer desk today in the same room where we spoke over the phone reflecting on all her words of encouragement, I finally get it. My grandmother is not the only one who contradicted herself. I did too. After years of searching for self-acceptance, years of venting to her, I allowed one small encounter to take me back to a place of frustration that I worked so hard to dispose of. I ridiculously allowed the interview to continue even after being asked such degrading questions. I was desperate enough to allow this woman to dehumanize me for the hopes of a job that would replace me in seconds. I did the same thing my grandmother has.

While the words, “Take it all as a compliment,” were misleading, how can I expect a woman who has experienced far more discrimination throughout her life to sympathize with me? I believe my grandmother was trying to empower me in a way in which she was not able to empower herself. My impression of her was false. Not to call her cowardly, but she hadn't always practiced what she preached. This isn’t her fault. My grandmother is not only black, but she is also a woman and that combination is one that society sets up for failure before a black woman can voice her opinion. Through the discrimination she adapted to, my grandmother believed we waste time by entertaining ignorance. She thought what we should change is our response to it. Such a belief is cliché to me.

I believe we should use our voice and rights to defeat discrimination. What good does internalizing pain do? Interestingly enough, her lectures caused me to think in such a way. For someone like my grandmother, such a belief is bizarre because her beliefs stem from her generation’s societal standards. She lived through a time where injustice was more prevalent and less conquerable. During her upbringing, black people were disadvantaged. Their voices remained unheard. They were enslaved and taught to tolerate such inhumanity. I come from a generation where it is much easier to speak up.

She is a woman who doesn’t recognize her power, but she helped me realize mine. Neither of us was right over the phone. I didn’t practice what I preach, nor what she has taught me. She didn’t believe in the power of her voice the way she molded me to believe in mine. We are both works in progress–now I aspire to encourage her to believe in herself and stand up whenever she is ostracized.

Victoria Teammell is an intended nursing student with a passion for nonfiction writing. She enjoys writing about socioeconomic issues such as feminism, racial injustice, and poverty.