Interesting perspective, thank you.

I have to be careful here as I am not from the US. Apologies in advance if referring to myself as mixed heritage, mixed race, ethnic or just mixed is not appropriate in America.

Sorry if all this is offensive. Obviously your experiences are 100% valid and I cannot pretend to speak for anyone else and don’t wish to devalue the wonderful writing on display here. This is me checking my personal perspective. I hope that’s what to do?

I feel I cannot live up to expectations of what it means to experience being multi-racial. I never know these days what I am supposed to read as a microaggression. I give up. I used to just be me. Now I seem to offend everyone, not by my existence but my refusal to read people’s intentions as less than neutral. What should I do? I don’t have the energy to start reading into everything people say.

I guess in your terminology I am multi-racial. Both parents are immigrants to the country where I grew up and live. I also refer to my husband as exotic because his family has been from one nation for generations and to me that is exotic. It is so different from my scattered global heritage. I apologise for myself using the term but I can’t make myself feel offended when I hear it.

All my life until recently I have taken all the above terms you mention (including mutt, mongrel and moggie) with pride. I am mixed. Humans like categories. I don’t fit into any, especially since my personal mixture is not easily defined or explained being genuinely uncommon, spanning the Indian subcontinent through native tribes in Arctic Europe and various between. I live in the UK. Who else has a personal culture I can identify with? Nobody and everybody. If culture is a diamond, I have many facets.

People think it’s odd. Shrug. For them it is. Yes, of course, I do get snide comments from time to time but mostly people are curious and excited. Either way, I am an opportunity to expand their worldview, perhaps merely by my very presence on this earth.