"What Are You?" Is Not an Icebreaker

Singer-Songwriter Andromeda Turre wrote a PSA for Huffington Post:

'What Are You?' Is Not an Icebreaker.

I have gotten this question all my life. At school. At the park. At parties. On the subway, a woman once tapped me on the shoulder and had me take out my headphones, interrupting my favorite Mariah Carey song, to ask me, "What are you?" She wasn't ready for the answer she got that day, because it was just a whole lot of side eye.

The problem with this question is, for a lot of us blended people, that it doesn't have a simple answer. In most cases, our identities were not something we were born with or something we inherited from our parents. Because our parents are different from each other and different from us. Our identities are something we chose. They are formed and cultivated over years, and some of us may still not have the answer for ourselves, so we surely can't explain it to you. Nor should we have to. For ANY person, shaping an identity is an intimate process. And it's more than the genetic combinations that make up the color of your skin, eyes, hair types and features.

So, what am I? I'm a woman. I'm a New Yorker (yes, I was born here). I'm American. I'm human.

Read the full article and watch a video interview with Andromeda Turre here.