By Rayan Al-Sumait

For a person with blonde hair, green eyes, and an American accent, having an Arabic name confuses many people. My name is Rayan Al-Sumait, and I want to share my experience as a mixed-race individual, highlighting the struggles and insecurities that I face. When people ask where I’m from I tell them I’m from Kuwait. Because of my appearance, they are always surprised when I say that. For clarification, my dad is Kuwaiti and my mom is British.

Then they’ll ask me, “Are you sure?”, as if I am lying about my nationality. In Kuwait, I’m seen as too British and in England, I’m not British enough. Any mixed-race person knows what it is like to be judged based on where they are perceived to be from. You may be wondering, “Why is it such a problem?” Well, let me explain it to you.

I read an article titled, “I’m mixed race, and sometimes I feel like I don’t belong anywhere,” by Jeremy Ratt, a Canadian podcaster with a Caucasian father and an Indigenous mother. In it, he explained: “Indigenous people said I didn’t look Indigenous, and white people said I definitely wasn’t white. I didn’t think it was a valid problem to speak about, so I kept quiet about it.”

Jeremy was expressing an insecurity about his race with a self-consciousness that I could easily relate to. It was only when I started seeing connections with others facing similar challenges, such as Jeremy, that I started to understand the significance of the judgment often faced by mixed-race individuals regardless of where they lived.

While preparing for this article, I spoke with a mixed-race friend from school who said, “Being brown-skinned and born in a foreign country, people would ask me if I was born in Africa. I would tell them I was from France, and it’d confuse them because of my skin color. Because my last name is “Brown,” at times when I was pale, they asked jokingly why my last name wasn’t ‘white,’ and when I was tanned, they questioned why it wasn’t ‘black.’”

She added that the derogatory comments and questions about her race have left her feeling complex emotions, as her race often becomes the focal point of attention, overshadowing her character.

An older Kuwaiti-American man I spoke with told me that some of his earliest memories involved people asking him which country he preferred, America or Kuwait. They would often follow up with their opinions on what they believed was better in one country or a problem they imagined with the other. “So, for example, in Kuwait, they might ask ‘Do you prefer Kuwait or America better? Because in America they don’t focus on family as much,’ or someone from America would ask ‘Which country do you like better? Isn’t Kuwait dangerous?’” he said. “People already had an opinion but asked me just to seek validation for what they already believed.” He added that people’s comments left him feeling confused and insecure, causing him to question the role of race as a system used to label people.

I face issues like these almost every day, receiving the same kind of questions and underlying discrimination, as do countless others around the world who have parents who come from different backgrounds. It is disheartening to witness the closed-mindedness of some people when it comes to our diverse “racial” heritage and how this usually seems to get wrapped up in questions about nationality, loyalty, or authenticity. When you really think about the question of race over the long course of human history, maybe it has contributed to more trouble than clarity.

I believe that mixed-race individuals often feel insecure because of the constant comments and questions we get about our race. Society’s judgmental attitude often makes us feel discriminated against or left out.

But there’s so much more to us and what we can offer to society than just being used to supporting other people’s views about race and social status. Let’s work together to bring about a positive change, creating a society that celebrates and embraces our diverse identities instead of bringing each other down. Wouldn’t we all be better off that way?