In the United States, race is viewed as a binary, leaving very little space for people who don’t fit an exact mold. Race is asked and required in the U.S. census, education documents, work applications, welfare documentation, and many more formal documents.

 

Race is more fluid than the American government has accounted for and therefore identifying one’s “race” can be a challenge for those that live in the middle.

 

I am ethnically Hispanic and racially both black and white. I present as white. In more recent years there have been more boxes that include the terms, two or more races or other. 

 

Race isn’t just exclusive to visually presenting a skin tone or anthropological markers or characteristics, it’s culture and environment.

 

To be empathetic, one must first understand and accept the concept the other individual is saying. To understand my work and empathize with my subjects is to understand that race is not a binary. 

 

This work is about the subject's relationship to color, melanin, and ancestors, and not their whiteness.

 

Multicultural and intersectional people exist, should be recognised, and are a growing population.

 

These categories are performing erasure of all the people “in between.” As if identifying as white, when someone has light skin is obligated, as if that is the only factor that matters.

 

In how many countries are Hispanic and Latin American where individuals exclusively considered white? North Africa? The Middle East?

 

To bridge the gap, we have an obligation to adjust the categorization of people to be inclusive or abolish the system entirely, but first to acknowledge and change our perception of what a “person of color” may look like. To widen our interpretation of race and destroy the idea of a binary and envision it's fluidity.

 

My subjects are Lianne Richards (Filipina American), Kaya Warshawsky (Israeli American), Erin Robles (Peruvian American), and, myself, Noa Lesche (German- Trinidadian American).

 

When I first moved to the U.S. my race was written as white through only apperance and it took my family years to correct. To this day, it feels as if I am constantly forced to chose between my indentities. Our beauty valued by the identity we check off on the box.

The fluids expressing the the thing that separates us and represents us.