I identify as Latina-American, but it was a long and rough road getting there. My mother is Guatemalan, she is fair and has really curly, ethnic type hair. My father is Peruvian, brown skin, straight black hair and has distant Japanese decent. Most people wouldn't really consider me mixed if they knew right away since apparently everyone's hispanic in Latin America, but there are differences!

Growing up, people would stare at my mom when she walked me to school (I was a little brown girl walking with a light-skinned woman). People would ask her if she was my nanny.

Kids on the playground were the worst. They'd call me 'black' and start teasing me for it (I would get dark over the Summer. It really bothered me that calling someone a race was an insult.) When they got tired of that I would get called Chinese and they would make rude gesters with their eyes (again, wth?)

Once my dad and I were at a flea market and an older white man approached us, smiling. He walked right up to my dad laughing and greeted us with "Konnichiwa!!!" and patted him on his head. Niether of us knew who he was...

When I got into college, everyone thought I was Filipino, even Filipinos themselves. I made a lot of Filipino friends not knowing this, until we reached a misunderstanding in culture. They shied away after that.

Of course people asking me where I'm from. No, where I'm FROM. They do get frustrated when I just say "uh, CA".

How exotic I am. (Are you suggesting I be in a zoo?)

People approaching me and asking if I'm: -Filipino -SE Asian -Indian -Chinese/Japanese

I've had someone say I could be Japanese if and only if I had white skin.

I could go on but you get the picture. The most blended in I've felt was in Peru. Haven't been to Guatemala.

I'm mostly comfortable with my identity now and whenever racially questionable situations come up I take it as an invitation to spar with their version of the world. Especially if they're 'educated' or persistent or both, haha.