This is a full transcript of an interview with Other Colors Host Barbara Rodgers.

Q: We were just talking about your name and I want to hear that again. What is your full name?

A: I have a lot of them because my mom added on the Japanese ones and got re-married and hyphenated her name with my step dad's name so it's Belia Melissa Mieko Saavedra Mayeno Choy.

Q: Ooh, sounds very exotic.

A: [LAUGHTER] Thanks.

Q: [LAUGHTER] How do you describe yourself when someone says, and I know from having read something about you, that this is a question that you get from time to time. People come up and say, what are you?

A: I kind of give fractions to them. I say, half-Mexican, a quarter-Japanese and a quarter-white. [LAUGHTER] But I think it's a little annoying when people do that. Not necessarily annoying, but it's kind of like -- when somebody sees you they need to know the way they want to categorize you, but if they can't tell immediately, they have find out what way they want to categorize you.

Q: What does that say to you then about people, I mean, when people come up and ask you that question, what is it you think they're really trying to get at?

A: Well, sometimes it could just be curiosity but a lot of times if they were to think that I was Filipina, they would have different assumptions about me as a person whereas if they thought I was Mexican they would assign me the stereotypes that people assign Mexican girls rather than Asian girls or Hawaiian girls or Italian, or the different stuff people think I am.

Q: Is it kind of fun, though, in some ways, to be able to be almost a chameleon? To be able to be sometimes Latina, sometimes Asian, sometimes whatever you want to be? Is there some fun in that?

A: It's a little nice in the way that people always... if I go to Hawaii, people think that I'm Hawaiian and they treat us nicer than they would tourists, or when I went to Mexico they see that I'm at least part Latina and they treat us like you're a little bit more part of the family. The Hawaiian Miss America from a couple years ago used to say, no matter where she went everybody was really nice to her because they thought that one of their own had made good in America.

Q: Everybody wanted to claim her.

A: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] I don't know if I feel everybody wants to claim me but... [LAUGHTER]

Q: [LAUGHTER]

A: Kind of the same thing.

Q: Do you ever say to yourself, where do I belong?

A: I used to, a lot when I was younger. When I was 13 everybody wants to have something that they fit in with, but I found that where I belong is my family. It's same thing there, my mom is mixed as well, so there's enough people in my family that are like me. A lot of times nowadays I don't feel like I have to have everybody be mixed the same as me. Or, I don't feel the need to categorize myself as much as I used to cause I can find my identification from who I am as a person rather than what racial stereotyping or racial edicts tell me that I'm supposed to be.

Q: There were a couple of things that you said about that, that I heard in a commentary you did on a perspective piece that you did. And one had to do with piecing your identity together from scraps, do you remember what you said about that?

A: Yeah, I was talking about the way a lot of times Caucasian women come up to me and ask me, what are you? And then I tell them and they say, you are just so lucky, because they kind of feel like oh, that's so different and that's so exotic and, you know, I'm just a white person. That's what some of my friends tell me... I wish I wasn't just white, that's boring. But I think that particularly girls... you kind of put together who are from what people tell you that you're supposed to be. But in my case... that it's a lot of information coming at me from all kinds of different angles. I think young white women... they have a lot of the media telling them who they're supposed to be when you look in the magazines and stuff like that and didn't have that exact same thing. But, I think that you put together, a lot of times, who you are from what you get out of your family and your friends.

Q: You also said something about conflicting generations bringing on emptiness. And I thought that was interesting. Tell me about that, the conflicting heritages.

A: I think that's because when there's so many things that are coming at you -- you feel that you have to live up to, you kind of want to push it all away. With the Latin culture being so different than the Japanese culture, the Jewish culture... even there's Irish and English way back there somewhere that I don't know anything about. It gets a little bit confusing and it just, for a while I didn't care. I didn't want to be identified with anything. I just wanted not to have to live up to anybody else's ideas of what I was supposed to be.

Q: Do you get a lot of pressure from those different sides of your family to be like this side or like the other side?

A: I don't think necessarily so much pressure, but I think that I know what they value in people. Where the way that an Asian family treats a guest or the way you're supposed to comport yourselves at other people's houses is very different than maybe my father's side of the family. Not that they're rude or anything but it's... you do different things, and I know what my mom values is very Asian -- like you go before me, and you let me do this for you, I'll wait here, [LAUGHTER] and more sacrificial type of... I don't know.

Q: Is that not you?

A: No, it's not me, but I just think that it seems a little strange when I go to different places where you're always supposed to pay for everything that you do, and you make the people go out of their way. And you always, if they're a guest at your house, go really out of your way for them. [LAUGHTER] People say I'm a really good houseguest. A lot of Asian culture you're taught to put other people, like the greater good before you. Whereas, oh...

Q: No, go ahead.

A: Whereas sometimes I think in Caucasian America, maybe, it's the individual before the group, definitely conflicting there.

Q: Tell me then about your family. How would you describe your family to someone who knew nothing about it?

A: It's crazy. It would be a long story if I had to do that. My grandfather's Japanese-American and my grandmother is Jewish. And I get a lot of my influence from my maternal side of the family because I've been with them my whole life, and my mother divorced my Mexican father when I was very young. Everybody in our family is very artistic and colorful and got a strange sense of humor. I think that we're sort of... when people come to stay with us or when they're surrounded by us, it gets a little bit overwhelming. A lot of times we didn't necessarily have people to identify us, to identify ourselves with. Our humor is sort of enclosed and esoteric cause a lot of times we're all that each other has. And on my dad's side of the family, it'd be sometimes hard to explain because I feel very foreign from them, and I think that they feel the same way about me. But when I go there it's, you know, Mexican-Catholic. There's ceremony to a lot of things and a lot of the... the man comes before the woman type of behavior.

Q: Male chauvinist.

A: Oh, I don't know if I can say that...

Q: [LAUGHTER]

A: But the Latin culture a lot of times tends to be macho, and the things that they're proud of you for are different than here. Whereas with my mom, I get rewarded if I do well in school or the things that I do for Youth Radio. Whereas, over there I don't know if they care about that so much, but they know I can't cook [LAUGHTER]. Definitely not.

Q: But they care whether you can cook, in other words.

A: Yeah. They care if I'm staying skinny, stuff like that. I don't know if I agree with that all the time.

Q: So then how do you make it all work? Because you do have these what seem to be conflicting sides of your family, in terms of characteristics at least, that the people themselves aren't conflicting. How do you make it all work for you?

A: I think, from my own experience and talking to a lot of people who are mixed race, you kind of just, like I said before, you take the little pieces out of it that you appreciate. I really like the way Latin cultures are so effusive and people are so vocal about what they're thinking and really a lot of times very romantic in their writings. And I love that part of it and I like to think I have that outgoing part of my personality. And then from my mom's side and the Asian side it's about really valuing your family and your elders and the people around you and really trying to do things nice for them, and sacrifice for the people that you love. It could be a little bit reserved sometimes, but, I think with the Latin... [LAUGHTER] it can balance out.

Q: And then the Jewish side?

A: My grandmother, she is actually converted to Buddhism, and she just became ordained this past June as a Buddhist minister. But we still have Seder and Hanukkah and it gets a little crazy around the holiday times... confusing to outsiders but I think just friendliness, I guess. She's such a friendly talker and she's always making nice relationships with people wherever she goes, and my two best friends are both Jewish also and so I think that it's kind of a common trait that they have.

Q: So as you were growing up in elementary school and in junior high and in high school, did you have any particular group that you tended to gravitate toward or did you feel there was a place that you fit in? In other words, did you find people like yourself? Or, how did you work that through as an adolescent?

A: Well, it was a little bit hard for me because I went to Berkeley schools when I was young, and I never really knew that I was different. There were all kinds of mixed kids all over the place, and I did really well and then my mom re-married and I moved to Piedmont, which is a... pretty much completely Caucasian suburb of Oakland, when I was eight or so. And I was there until when I was 16. That was really hard because there were no Mexicans. There were very few Asians. It was just all white people. And I remember when I was in sixth grade or something and there was a girl who said, why do you always talk about being Mexican? You act like you're proud of it or something. And after that it kind of silenced me from being proud, and I just sort of didn't talk about it at all. I tried to pretend like there wasn't any difference there cause that made it easier.

Q: Did that hurt, for her to say that?

A: Yeah, it did, But you know, when you're a kid what people tell you, believe me, you believe it. I believed that I wasn't supposed to be proud. That it was kind of wrong for me to think that it was good to be Asian or Mexican. Those people used to tell my sister that our grandpa bombed Pearl Harbor and all kinds of really mean stuff and so the way my sister responded to it was by making sure that everybody knew who she was, and I did the opposite and kind of withdrew and kind of made sure nobody did.

Q: So, now I'm getting emotional thinking about this because I'm thinking as a little kid I would cry. I would cry if somebody said that to me, I think. I'm about to cry now, just thinking about it.

A: [LAUGHTER]

Q: You know that somebody comes up to you and says, why do you think you're talking about being Mexican like you're proud of it. Cause that's such a put down. That's such a real big put down. But you were pretty brave then?

A: Well, at the time I just was like, well, O.K., um, you're right. I won't talk about it anymore. And it was kind of just something that I put out of my mind and tried to fit in as best I could. But I remember in middle school there was this girl who was African-American and I was, I think, the only Mexican and part Japanese girl that there was. And at school dances she was always standing on the wall and nobody ever asked her to dance. It was like it was wrong and I rarely... you know, so we were just kind of standing there. And we'd do our blonde friend's hair when they came back from the dance floor and... [LAUGHTER]

Q: And so, never... nobody asked you to dance?

A: Well, not never. But it was not as social an experience for me as it was probably for my Caucasian peers because it was... everybody around there looked like that. And it's also very wealthy, so it was hard coming from being a poor, [LAUGHTER] mixed kid with a single mom and then she gets re-married and quite a change.

Q: So how did you handle all of that? You weren't sad then? I mean you weren't feeling -- when nobody was asking you to dance and you weren't getting to be social, to participate in the way the other girls were -- you weren't feeling sad, angry, what?

A: Well, I thought it was a common experience to feel nerdy. I think everybody does at that particular time. Everybody. When you're in junior high and early high school you're really trying to find out who you are, and I just thought that it was like that for everybody. But I guess in retrospect it wasn't. I'm glad for everything now because I think it made me a lot stronger and I'm a much nicer person because of it. But yeah, it was hard, but you know, when you go through things at the time it doesn't seem as bad cause you don't have time to figure it out while it's happening.

Q: Uh-huh.

A: And I think the way that I dealt with it was... first I just tried to mask who I was and fit as best I could and, after like four years, realizing that that didn't work, there was, a group of kids who actually turned out to be mostly minorities who were the bad kids and had to go to the bad kids school. And so I went there. And it didn't end up being much better, but at least there were some African-American students and there's like one or two other...

Q: So you didn't fit in there either?

A: No, I don't think so, either, cause I... I just don't want to get in trouble. [LAUGHTER] And I also don't like the way that we are kind of identified as... the minority kids are equated with the troublesome kids and that was horrible.

Q: Did you talk to your mom about it, cause your mom had grown up as a multiracial person so, had she had an experience that was similar? Could you talk about this?

A: She's always been really good at trying to communicate everything to us and making sure that we knew that she was somebody who we could go to with our feelings. Of course, when you're 16, you're a girl, you don't want to tell your mom anything. But she was always available for that. But yeah, I know that it was hard for her too. Particularly being the generation ahead of me, there were not as many biracial children and the way, a lot of times, that my grandparents and she say, that they handled it, was that she kind of identified more with being Latin because of my dad at the age that I was. Because my personal theory about it is that Latino, Mexican culture at least, is mestizo, which they have the European and the Indian mixing within themselves. So I think that in a way it's kind of like being hapa because there's those two influences coming down.

Q: And hapa means?

A: It means half Asian, or part Asian and part something else.

Q: So now, your identity you have claimed for yourself is the pie chart identity?

A: [LAUGHTER]

Q: When you have the census form or any other form to fill out, what do you check off?

A: Well, I know they always say please check one, and I never do, cause I think that's rude, for them to tell me what I should check. So I check them all and, you know, since you'll figure it out. [LAUGHTER].

Q: Do you think there should be a category that describes who you are or do you think it's better to just check all the boxes and say, I'm part this, I'm part this, I'm part that? Or should there be one category that says... you can fit into this?

A: I think that the way that they have the other box now is not quite what I'm going for, but if they said mixed race and then, please check all that apply. I don't think that it matters that much. Most people like me, they grew up with having to deal with that stuff all the time, so you'd have to have mass overhaul of racial stereotyping and society. I don't know [LAUGHTER] if everybody's ready for that.

Q: So you don't have other friends who are multiracial? So you didn't gravitate toward that group, or was there such a group?

A: There wasn't any.

Q: I see.

A: There was, no... [LAUGHTER] I'm trying to figure some out. But no, there wasn't. When I came into Berkeley High, when I was 16, there were lots of people like that, and I had lots of different kinds of friends. It was one of the best things that I've ever done... being able to have people that you identify with. And you can really learn to appreciate -- even if I'm not part African-American -- appreciating having African-American people even around me at all, cause I never saw any when I went to Piedmont. It gives you a greater appreciation for other people, and they have a really good curriculum and stuff, like Chicano-Latino history and things like that where they teach you about where you came from.

Q: Now, when it came to dating, you said you didn't get asked to dance in middle school, or junior high school...

A: Not so much.

Q: Did you ever get asked to dance?

A: Not really, I had one boyfriend who was Caucasian. And then when I came to Berkeley High I ended up dating a couple of Caucasian guys, and I think that when I would be in groups of Latina and Latino people they kind of thought I thought I was white. Or the boys thought it was really like rude or I was snooty to go out with anybody...

Q: This was the Latino boys.

A: Yeah, the Latino boys were kind of like -- oh, you know, every time I'd walk by they'd do, "white girl!" But yeah, [LAUGHTER]. So the dating of the Caucasian boys was not necessarily well received by my racial peers.

Q: They didn't ask you out.

A: Well, yeah they did, but I think that it was more like demanding or that macho element that we talked about earlier that I didn't feel that comfortable with. Because in my mom's side of my family, which is who I've pretty much completely been around, the men are not having ego trips about being male and I definitely would not want anybody in my life who was doing that.

Q: So did the Asian guys ask you out?

A: There didn't seem like there were that many. A lot of times, because being such an enormous school and so many different kinds of people, you didn't really see. I know they were there. [LAUGHTER] I know the Asian people were there but they didn't push themselves forward, like some other groups of people did, you know? And I think that that's a little bit part of Asian values -- to not get up there and grab what you can for yourself. So there weren't very many assertive Asian guys that I ever [LAUGHTER] encountered.

Q: So when you were dating the white guys and the Latino guys were sort of taunting you and saying white girl, did you stop dating them because you felt badly about that or did you say, eh?

A: I didn't stop dating them, but it made me much more adverse to dating any of the Latino guys which was not necessarily a fair thing either. I wasn't going to change what I was doing but just get away from the people who thought it was wrong. Which was kind of limiting in a way also because not everybody was like that, but just the more vocal ones kind of scared me off.

Q: So now you're out of high school...

A: Uh-huh.

Q: You can chose whatever, now what do you do?

A: I don't think it matters any more. In high school people where kind of all into each other's business, but in college everybody's gotten to the point where you don't have enough time. You're choosing your life path here. You don't have enough time to care about if that girl over there is dating outside of her race. So, I'd like to be involved with somebody who is mixed race also. Just because I think that they could identify with certain things and understand aspects of my personality that other people might not.

Q: You really can't date outside your race, can you? [LAUGHTER]

A: [LAUGHTER]

Q: You have all...

A: I could if I tried real hard.

Q: [LAUGHTER] I mean, you have sort of everybody mixed in there so it's going to be hard to do that. Tell me about what you want to do with your life. You're out of high school now, you're starting college, what is it you want to do with your life?

A: Huh, take your job! [LAUGHTER]

Q: [LAUGHTER]

A: Probably broadcasting. I think that part of the appeal comes from my heritage. Because I think that in my family history -- the internment camps, all of the atrocities that happened in World War II, to the Jews in Germany -- those things probably still would have happened, but if the media hadn't been kind of covertly saying that maybe this is okay, by using the word "Jap" in their headline three inches high and it probably wouldn't have been so bad. I think there's incredible power in just being able to get up there, on your own, and tell the truth. And I love the idea that one person can make a difference like that.

Q: Is the media handling this whole issue very well today in terms of this whole topic that we're talking about? Race in general and then specifically people who are multiracial, people who are biracial? How do you think the media is covering this and handling this?

A: Well, in terms of multiracial people, they're kind of put into the little, oh, that's so exotic. Like Tiger Woods is all these things, that's why he can play golf. I don't really know if they're accepting it necessarily as just the same as if you're African-American or just plain Mexican or something like that. It's kind of still a novelty in terms of the media coverage. I think that even completely pure African-American or Mexican or Asian, they're really under-represented and I think that a lot of the progress that's being made is still way back there. Whereas women, originally in Hollywood, only got the roles of the sexy sirens and stuff and they were there to ornament the screen. I think that they've come to a point where they can represent all the aspects of personality within a woman. And the Latin girls are still kind of just ornamental, back there. It's really frustrating. I love the idea of being able to see somebody who looks like me on television.

Q: So then would you ever, you mentioned even the pure African-Americans or the pure Asians or the pure Mexicans, would you ever wish that you were one or the other? Just Latina or just Asian or just whatever?

A: I used to. It would have been so much simpler to be 13 and be just one thing and know what your religion was. But no, I don't anymore because everything that's happened to me and all the things that I have in my life I'm grateful for because I'm really happy. And I think you learn a lot. And I know this is kind of egotistical in a way, but I have the theory that people who are mixed race, once they get their identity, they have a stronger hold on it and more pride in it than people who are being told all their lives who

they're supposed to be. Cause when you're born it's kind

of like you get labels stamped on you, like white Protestant or Mexican Catholic. This is what you're supposed to do. And mixed race people have to figure out on their own. They don't get the little rubber stamp. And I think in a way that's a gift.

Q: You're the future.

A: [LAUGHTER] I don't know.

Q: I mean, there will be more people like you in the future.

A: Yeah, there was a cover of Newsweek, I don't remember, a couple of years ago, where they said when all the races start mixing together this is what the future human is going to look like, and [LAUGHTER] it kind of looked like me and my family.

Q: Is that good?

A: Yeah, it would be nice seeing people that looked like you.

Because a lot of times being from the Bay Area, no matter where I go there's always an Asian person or a brown person. I spent the summer in Washington D.C. and I would go to neighborhoods where everybody around me was all white, and then other neighborhoods where everybody was all black and I found myself really searching for somebody that kind of looked like me maybe, [LAUGHTER] and I think that would be nice.

Q: Did you feel uneasy in those neighborhoods when you were there, in neighborhoods that were all one thing or the other?

A: I don't think I felt uneasy. It was just that I never realized when I walked down the street, if I see somebody whose culture I shared, it's like a little anchor. There's somebody the same as me. It was just a little bit, I don't know, unhinged. When you didn't know what you'd do if you fell over and hurt yourself, or you didn't know what friendly face you could go up to cause you didn't know if anybody would accept you if you did.

Q: Now you have siblings.

A: Uh-huh.

Q: Do they look at this the same as you?

A: My sister is two years younger than me and we're very different so I don't really know if she does. She doesn't acknowledge being part Caucasian as much. A lot of times if people ask her, she'll just say, oh, I'm half-Mexican and half-Japanese. And I think that's a little unfair because I don't know if it's ever right to discount parts of yourself because if you discount parts of yourself or if somebody teaches you that you should hate these kind of people, you're going to hate what aspects of those people are within you and I think she and I are really different on that. And I have a little brother who's six and he's mostly Asian because we have different fathers. Sometimes he'll ask us, are you a Mexican? [LAUGHTER] It's like, yeah, I am. It doesn't mean anything to him, he just has heard the word. [LAUGHTER]

Q: What do you think he means by that at six years old when he comes up and says, are you a Mexican?

A: I don't really know. I think he doesn't really understand. He's starting to grasp the fact that we have different fathers and I don't think he really likes that much. Whenever we ask him, he doesn't like the idea that some other man could come and take us away or something like that. But I don't think it means anything to him. At his age he's really trying to figure it out, but I'm sort of worried for him, as well, because he goes to school in Piedmont which is predominantly white, as I said before. And it's going to be hard for him, I think.

Q: What does he say at this age, if anything, that he is, at six?

A: He knows he's Chinese and Japanese and Jewish. But he'll just say, I'm Asian. I mean, he's really proud of it. It's very cute.

Q: [LAUGHTER] It's tough living in this multiracial stew, isn't it?

A: Um...

Q: Not just for you, but I mean all of us.

A: I think in a way it's a little bit harder, but I don't think that I would ever want to give it up for anything. I was reading about in South Africa they have an Afrikaner Colony that you can only live there if you're white and you speak Belgian. That seemed so wrong to me. It's so limiting and there's no reason why you'd want to seek that kind of ignorance, if that's not too harsh a word.

Q: Let's start by... I'd like to know your full name.

A: It is a pretty long one. Belia Melissa Meiko Saavedra Mayeno Choy.

Q: And how do you identify yourself?

A: Kind of get a little fraction action [LAUGHTER]. I'll say I'm half-Mexican, quarter-Japanese, quarter-white. Be very democratic about all the representation and the amounts. I think that for some reason I said the white last. I don't know where that comes from, but I do.

Q: You don't know why you say that?

A: I think that Caucasian people are not really taught to be proud of their heritage. It's kind of not PC for that anymore, and in my family we're not really, so I guess it's probably an internalization of that.

Q: You mentioned before that you had dated Caucasian boys in high school. What was the reaction of your family? Did you bring any of them home?

A: Uh-huh. They're not really against it, but it was always a little bit, maybe, disappointing. My step-dad is Chinese and he's just waiting for the day when I bring home a nice Asian boy. And my mom and my sister always... they would meet them and be very nice, but I think they always wished that he was not a white male...

Q: Why, do you think?

A: I think, maybe, the way that my mom would say it sometimes is -- if there's a ladder where everybody of color and sex is standing, the well-off white males are at the very top of the ladder -- minority, middle class girl, quite a few rungs down. So how could we have all that much in common, if we're so far apart like that.

Q: And what do you think your dad would say, or has he commented on your dating white guys?

A: My step-dad or my biological dad?

Q: Your biological father.

A: He says I'm a white person, too. Or I think, you think you're Chinese, because my step-dad is Chinese. He, I guess, probably would think... well, it's Belia being snooty again. I think in his family, and I think unfortunately for a lot of minorities, if you speak intelligently or if you care about what's going on in the world around you, current events, you want to be smart and you want to work towards that, a lot of minorities, I've heard them say, you think you're being white. Why do you act white? And I think that's so unfortunate that minorities would say that intelligence or ambition is a white quality. Because that first of all would make you think that you can't do it yourself, if you're not a white person. And second of all it's really unfair to the people who are willing to work for what they want out of life... to learn or read a book.

Q: Does this happen a lot when you visit your dad, your biological father?

A: We have a real hard time communicating with each other. I find him very, very frustrating. He's, you know, I'm the father and my word is law and go clean up. I watch TV. I don't even know if I should say this, but when I was... it was when George Bush and President Clinton ran against each other. I asked him who he was going to vote for and he didn't even know who the candidates were, and I think that was the beginning of a big rift, cause he doesn't care about the same things that I care about. And I don't think that's really even necessarily all racially based. Partially I think it's also a class thing because his family and he, himself, really don't have very much money, and my step-dad, being an attorney and my mom having a job, when we go over there it's really different. Like there won't be any food in the refrigerator and you just kind of have to deal with it. And I've never had that before. I've always, even when my mom was single, we were always provided for. We never thought we had to worry, but when I go there it's much more community because all the families and cousins will come together and everybody will throw down some money to go the hamburger place and everybody gets a fourth of a hamburger and [LAUGHTER] five of the french fries. When me and my sister didn't know and we just started eating our whole hamburger, we were the bad kids for doing that cause it didn't occur to us that there might not actually be enough to eat.

Q: How did you handle... We were talking about your father and what it's like when you go to visit your father. And I want to make this clear, this is your biological father. First of all -- tell me about him -- describe your biological father.

A: In a way that's kind of hard because he wasn't there when I was growing up. He is very headstrong. He's one of those outgoing, funny, easy to get along with guys until you don't want to do what he says.[LAUGHTER] But a lot of the macho thing going on, it's not really acceptable to be a homosexual or for a girl to do certain things. It's not that important to read or educate yourself, I don't think, but he's really smart. My sister stayed with him this past year and she'd say... in weird ways you're like him, you know all these stupid little fun facts and like to learn. But he just doesn't necessarily put a high premium on academics and stuff which is not really the same as me.

Q: Your sister lived with him for a year. Was that her choice?

A: Kind of it was, kind of not. I think there's always been something inside of her that needs to know that part of herself and so I think that in a way it was good for her just so she could go and find out who he was. Because when somebody is not a part of your life you can ascribe them all these personality qualities that you wish your dad had. She went and found out the reality, and sometimes it wasn't as good as probably she and I wanted it to be, but she established a connection with him and I think that's good. I think she always leaned more toward the Latin side of our family. She always keeps much more in contact with our cousins and aunts and stuff and talks to them on the phone and I really never do. And her manner of dress, not so much anymore, but used to be very stereotypically like the way young Latinas dress and do their make-up and stuff like that. As I said before, I think it was in response to growing up in a predominately white community. A lot of times you have the choice to withdraw who you are or to be really extroverted about it and make sure everybody knows. And I think the latter is the path that she chose.

Q: She identifies, you said, as Latina?

A: Not completely Latina because I don't think that she would ever disrespect my mom by not even talking about her Asian side. It's still an important influence to her, but I think that that's the side that she's more attracted to. Whereas I go much more toward the Asian, or mixed Asian, because there is kind of a little enclave of that. Especially in Berkeley, there's a lot of hapa people.

Q: How do you feel about your father?

A: It's sort of strange to me that he even is my dad, a lot of the times, because he's so different than me. And I think when he calls me on my birthday and stuff like that -- sometimes he calls me on my birthday, some of the birthdays he forgot -- but I think that it just feels that it's somebody that I don't even know. I speak a little Spanish and I took folklitico classes and stuff like that when I was younger and I did that because my mom, being a single mom, she was really trying to make sure I still knew about that part of myself. I didn't get that from him. And so I just feel like he's unknown.

Q: You recently went to Mexico. Did you learn something about yourself by visiting that country?

A: I think in a way I got more pride in it now. I have a friend who is part Egyptian, and I remember going to the Smithsonian with him, and I was so intrigued by all the Egyptian artifacts, and I was like, that just must be so cool to be part Egyptian and know that somewhere at least a tiny little piece of this is in your veins. And when I went to the ruins at Tulum it was kind of the same thing. Not necessarily I did this, but kind of like they, somehow somebody that you have a connection with, did this great thing that lasted thousands of years. It makes you feel more like you could do it, too.

Q: Now when you're talking about history, let's go back in your own family's history to your grandparents who were one of the earliest interracial couples. Do you think of them as being courageous or brave?

A: I do when the question is posed to me, but it's so normal to us that a lot of times I actually take it for granted. But I actually do think that it was just really brave of them. And they're such a good couple. They've been married very nearly 50 years. It's really an interesting dynamic that I don't think has that much to do with who they are racially. And I'm so glad that they were that brave because at the time, not necessarily where they were married, but in a lot of other states it was illegal. And I just can't comprehend that [LAUGHTER]. But I definitely think that them being different races has influenced our family. It's going to go on down the line. Even if we all decide, like we make a pact, okay, we're all going to marry Asian people and eventually all our kids are going to be completely Asian, but I think it'll still be in there, the mixture, different flavors.

Q: Do they ever talk about how difficult, or maybe it wasn't, what it was like for them?

A: I've read a history that they put together. They never actually say it. A lot of the things that I've gotten have been pieced together, going through old boxes and stuff like that. My grandma, who's Jewish, when she married my grandpa they stayed briefly with my grandfather's mother, who is Japanese, and she's I think that she kind of felt that my grandmother was very foreign to her. Even when we go visit them, because my great-grandmother is still alive, my grandma kind of gets frustrated and she kind of has to... because you know, guests are not allowed to do anything. But it sort of makes you feel like you're not participating at the same time.

Q: There was one thing I forgot to ask you when we were talking about your father. Where is your father?

A: He lives in a predominantly Mexican area of Texas called Corpus Christi. It's a city but it's a little bit run down. It's very different from here. But I really don't talk to him that much. I had my graduation invitations sent out and sent him one cause, you know, courtesy I guess and he found out that I had changed my last name, and they haven't really talked to me since then.

Q: How long has that been?

A: A year or so. Yeah, probably a year or two by now.

Q: So your father hasn't talked to you in a year.

A: I don't think it's conscious ignoring, but I think he just kind of gave up on me because I think he really thinks that I chose a path that's so different from his that we just wouldn't have anything to say to each other anymore. And we sort of don't, because every time we talk to each other, you know -- Hi, how you doing? Good. Alright. Bye.

Q: So he feels you're trying to deny the Latin part of your heritage?

A: I don't know if he feels that in such conscious things, but I remember the last time that we did go down there he kind of said, you think you're Chinese, you think your Asian. That's what's important to you now. You talk like a white person. I, first of all, found that quite offensive and, second of all, that was kind of the killing comment for me.

Q: What do your mother and your stepfather say when you tell them about your father's comments?

A: My mom really is frustrated by it, but I think a lot of times she just has to let it go. It's so different. It's just so strange. Here, we're like really happy family overall. My aunts and uncles and everybody, we have such a good time. But when I go to my dad's house, not necessarily all of his relatives, but just him and his wife, it's not so much of an effort to try and get along and is it normal for people to be in jail. That's kind of a shock for me. It's funny when I say to people here, my friends, I'll be like, oh yeah, and then my step brother, that they don't even know about here, he just got out of jail. Nobody here knows anybody in jail. It's kind of a weird straddling of way, way different worlds.

Q: Do you think the choices you've made have been influenced more by race, class or culture?

A: I'd have to say that it's really been all three. I don't think I could make a definitive choice. I think when you grow up, and everybody expects you to and you also expect from yourself that you're going to go to college, it's very different from -- if I might of stayed with my dad where I'm, in his family, only the second person to go. And I think that's obviously a class thing. I think here, the people, the mixed race people, and particularly my family, we've made our own little hybrid culture. That has definitely been such a big influence on me. The thing that I would hope that most people would get out of this is -- it influences me what race I am or what races I am and what religions I have telling me what I'm supposed to do. But as long as you have family that loves you, and my family, being kind of different from a lot of other families, is really strong and has that love, and I have that love and I think that all other things really are secondary to that.

Q: What is your religion?

A: I don't really know. [LAUGHTER] I have Mexican Catholics in my family. My stepgrandpa's a Methodist bishop. And my grandmother, as I said, is a Buddhist minister that just got ordained. When I was in seventh and eighth grade I decided that I wanted to be a witch cause that was just so different from anybody else. But now I'm sort of going towards Buddhism. I don't know. It's hard to make a choice like that.

Q: Were you taken into any particular church, synagogue, temple, anything, when you were a kid?

A: We've been to all events like that. I've never been to a synagogue before, but I've been to a church and stuff like that. It never felt like this is what we do -- you go up there and you eat the bread and you drink the wine. And I never understood what that was about. And I think that in a way, even now, I still miss... There's a little... where in my country, I talk about how my Latin cousin, every time you pass a church, you go like that and you kiss your hand. It's just a little ritual that you grow up knowing. This is what we do, and this is an affirmation of who we are and what we believe. We don't really have that a lot, but there are some things that my family, my immediate family, that we've kind of made up for ourselves. And those are things that I value incredibly.

Q: Give me an example.

A: My grandpa is an artist and he has a great appreciation for things that are beautiful. There's this one road that we drive up to go to the park and he'd always say look at the beautiful Japanese fence. And so now, in my family, it's a race to see who can see the fence first and say that the quickest and you win, nothing, but you win. And I love things like that, cause it reminds me of who I am and the people I love.

Q: Now there was something you said before and I can't remember right now... Oh, I know what the one was I left out. Your family has this very unique mix of Asian culture, Latin culture, Jewish culture, and therefore, even some Caucasian culture. Can you tell me what are the differences in those cultures as you see it?

A: I think the Japanese aesthetic, first of all, is really different and I think that that really represents a lot of the ways that they think, too. Where it's really minimal a lot of times and you have to be strong and have your honor within yourself and you don't have to go around showing everybody else what you can do. And it's more about the good of the group before yourself. And really reserved. And then I think Latin culture is just so colorful -- the writers that come from that country, the art, the clothing, everything is just blooming, bursting everywhere. It's loud and raucous and it's really fun, but at the same time a little bit obstructing cause you don't feel like you can go out and do things because you have beliefs placed on you sometimes --that girls can't do this or girls don't do this and you listen to that and you shut up. You know? And a lot of my Latin friends -- the accomplishments of women in the families are not really as valued -- like you might be the president of this or you might have a really good paying job or gone through college, but you don't have a man, or you just got a really great promotion, but you're getting fat.[LAUGHTER] I don't want to say that that necessarily goes for all Latin culture, but I think a lot of times some of it is really so macho based that women are marginalized and... and like that.

Q: The Jewish part?

A: The Jewish part I haven't had as much exposure to as the Latin and the Japanese. But I think it's just kind of self-effacing humor sometimes. Like my friends, a lot of them are Jewish, and my grandma -- you really, you have to be able to laugh at yourself and you learn from your mistakes a lot more. And I think all of them do share an ethic of really putting your family... you know, you're a unit. And I think in Japanese it's the group before you, and Mexicans it's the community, and then maybe in Jewish culture it's the ones that are really close around you.

Q: You mentioned that sometimes people in your family might make comments that are less than flattering about white people. How does your grandma feel about that?

A: I think she just mostly ignores it now. I don't think that they do it so much around her, but I think that she'll pick it up every now and then and probably she doesn't enjoy it. But it's been a while that it's been happening and I don't think people in my family say, you know, white people are bad, but if we do, if somebody makes us mad, it's that white person, she just did this to me and that's so annoying. And I think everybody, no matter how high they might think that they are... I think I'm definitely guilty of stereotyping some, too, but I really -- the same way that people can get away with stereotyping by saying, the group, but not this individual person -- I think we kind of do that for grandma. The group, but not grandma. [LAUGHTER]

Q: We talked a lot about what it's like to be multiracial -- if you were talking to somebody and they said what are the benefits and what are the specific challenges -- let's talk about what are the biggest challenges first.

A: Probably that there's so many ways that people tell you how you're supposed to be that it just gets really overwhelming. Because you can't possibly satisfy what everybody expects of you, especially if you have racial and religious expectations that you're supposed to be living up to that are actually in conflict with each other. Probably feeling like there's not such a strong community of your people around you. Eventually I've come to feel that I just got a lot more people than everybody else. But a lot of times it can actually feel very lonely because you don't have anybody that you can directly identify -- she's just like me and she does this so I should do this too. I think probably the benefits though... you have so many people that you can identify with. And I think sometimes -- I don't want to say that I feel that like so many people are my family, but I think like if I see -- oh, my sister is just like this too, and we don't have very much in common, so it's kind of funny that we both think that -- if we see a little old Asian man, walking down the street, something like, oh my god, that's family. Even though he has no idea who we are -- those weird adolescents over there who think I'm their grandpa or something. [LAUGHTER]. I think that it's also just that I feel lucky that I have so many accomplishments. With Japanese people and Jewish people and Mexicans behind me... I really appreciate the art of Asians and then I read so many books by Latino authors and they're just such incredible role models. Where you can see the piece in yourself that you could bring out to be like them and I like that. And also, even if at times it was isolating for my family, it made us so much stronger and closer. And when I hear people who don't even know their aunts and uncles or their grandparents, I think that they don't know what they're missing. I just feel really lucky that I could have all these people so close around us, cause we have things in common with each other.

Q: So your family has created a safe place?

A: Yeah, I think so. No matter what kind of identity issues that we're having or problems that we're going through, I don't think anybody in this family has ever doubted that we are loved. And I think that that surpasses anything that race could take away or, you know, conflict within yourself. I just think that the fact that I never, never doubted that I was loved and nobody in my family ever has.

Q: Were there ever conflicts within the family because of the different races that are represented within the family?

A: I don't know so much if there's conflicts but I think that all the sisters have married different races of men and so all the kids are different and it's getting more and more chop suey as we go down the line, but if a relative, or son-in-law, or father-in-law, or somebody brought into the family, if they do this and other people don't like it, it might be kind of uh-huh. I think maybe if I had a Caucasian boyfriend, and he did something that I told my mom and sister about -- like he did it cause he's white, not cause he's mean or a bad boyfriend. [LAUGHTER] Not completely because he was white, but you know, that's a factor.

Q: Do you think in this country we will ever get to a point where that won't happen, where we will not classify, characterize, give people certain kinds of characteristics based on race?

A: No. It's really, really sad and I'd like to be an idealistic young person but no, because I think that everybody wants to be on top and in the lead, and you can't do that if you don't have people underneath and behind you. I think you and I were talking about everywhere in the world, even if when, in groups of people where their skin color's the same, they find something that's different that they just don't like because it's different. And I think that obviously great leaps could be made in society if we started valuing what we didn't know about or what was different from us rather than being afraid of it or hating it. But I don't think that it's ever going to be a utopia.

Q: So what will you tell your children when you have children?

A: I'd want -- like for my little brother who's teaching me a lot about what it would be like to be a parent -- I think just for him to be really proud of who he is and try and value the differences in other people. Because so many kids, already at his age... you know you hear stories about little boys who won't wear anything unless it's Nike or little kids who are like, I don't like that kid, he's black... Some of my friend's little brothers won't play with their next door neighbors because they're black. And I guess, get 'em while they're young, to tell them all these things.

Q: Somebody must have gotten to those kids while they were young if they have that idea already.

A: Yeah nobody, well not nobody, but most people probably don't teach their kids that those are bad, but I think it's very much learning by example and I know my values have come completely from my family. And I think they set a really good example, but you can't always be that way.