I’m almost embarrassed at the number of biracial models I know off the top of my head, as opposed to monoracial East Asian models. Closer to home, I admired Rachel Rutt, Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Kawani Prenter and Bridget Hollitt. Teenage me looked up to models like Kiko Mizuhara, Alexa Chung and Devon Aoki. It’s messed up to think that I felt the need to have Whiteness in my blood to feel beautiful, but that’s the sickening truth. I’ll hear remarks like, “But you’re too pretty to be Chinese,” “Are you sure you don’t have European blood?” or “You don’t look Chinese.” However frustrating and impolite these comments were, if I’m honest, I admit that I took them with a pinch of flattery.Ĭall it internalised racism or put it down to growing up in White Australia, but being a monoracial minority isn’t something that’s received with open arms. When I relay that I am 100 per cent Chinese, as if on cue in some shitty slap-stick routine, I’ll receive cliché exclamations of shock. The “ Where are you from? ” question has been thrown my way countless times. You see, in grade three, when your crush declares he doesn’t like like you because, “Ew, she’s Chinese!” and in grade six everyone sings a chant that ends with, “Ching-chong-ching, point at Maggie,” you become acutely aware of your race and how it’s a bad thing. But for a young Chinese girl in Melbourne’s South East, my yearning to be White was inescapable and deafening. From wearing shorts year-round to showing off your Scooby bracelets, the desire to be cool and accepted is an initiation into puberty. In primary school, everybody tries desperately to fit in. We need monoracial, biracial and mixed-race representation.
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