What it’s like growing up biracial in a predominately white town

Childhood 

My mom is from Haiti and my dad is from Massachusetts. When I was a little kid I didn’t really think much about being biracial. All I knew was my mom and brother looked different compared to my dad and most people in this town. I grew up in Croton-On-Hudson, New York a very small town 45 minutes north of NYC. Our town has a little over 8,000 residents, and my graduating class was about 155 students.

Growing up nearly all of my friends were caucasian. I remember in elementary school a few of my friends were different races, but as school progressed I had less. I never thought to myself that anything was different between my friends and me, I just happened to be “chocolatey”. My friends accepted me for me because they liked me for who I am not what I looked like. Overtime I grew apart from some of my friends but the ones who did stick were and are Caucasian.

My mom and I

My dad and I

My brother and I

My grandmother from my mom’s side (right) and my grandmother from my dad’s side (left)

Fourth grade class

My friend Summer and I

Middle school and high school

Looking back to when I was younger, I was never excluded from any activities or spoken to differently by the people around me, but as I grew up people’s actions towards me were not always pleasant. Middle school wasn’t too different from the beginning of my childhood and elementary school. As for high school, I definitely started to become more curious to why there weren’t many African-Americans in Croton. At this age I started taking note of how people treated me. In high school the students, staff and parents never changed from the sweet and lovely people they were when I was a kid. As I went out of my town, that’s when I wasn’t  talked to nicely or even approached due to the color of my skin. I saw how people would just be so quick to judge me because I was a little darker than everyone else.

I started to grow a thicker skin when I would go into the city or visit other towns because of these people. A lot of my friends would think that because I was mixed I would never get treated as badly as some others, and honestly that was true sometimes. I never understood and to this day still don’t understand why people think it’s okay to treat others differently based on the color their skin. Growing up in a town like Croton, I thought that everyone was always going to be as open and friendly, but in reality that was not the case.

Top picture: At Sydni’s Bat Mitzvah; Bottom picture: Same place, same people years later

My birthday last year

Tianna and I

Now

As I continue to become an adult I couldn’t be more thankful for the town I grew up in. Croton made me into a person to never judge and always be friendly to others no matter what they look like. I know that my town isn’t going to be like every place that I go to and that I will experience unpleasant encounters. However, I do wish that as I grew up I had a few more African American friends to experience new and different things with. Now, as I go into my third year of college, my friend group there is predominately black. Due to my mother and father’s backgrounds, I’ve become even more open to meeting new people and trying new things. It such a blessing to be mixed so I could understand different backgrounds and experience two different cultures and lives through my parents.

Loving life the way I was made