By Shruti Bhatt
The Stamp Student Union showcased a photo gallery of several Asian American and Pacific Islander students to share their journeys of finding belonging as multiracial individuals.
The gallery was sponsored by this university’s Multiracial Biracial Student Association and Multicultural Involvement and Community Advocacy as part of the university’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month (AAPIHM).
Haley Ihmels, a senior psychology major, was one of the organizers of the “Mixrepresented” photo gallery. She is also an advocate for the AAPI campus organization. She said she was interested in focusing this event on multiracial people.
“The theme of this year’s AAPIHM is belonging,” she said. “A lot of multiracial people feel like they have to choose between being one identity or the other.”
Ihmels said a photo gallery gives the viewer a first-person narrative from the subject.
“This is letting people tell their own story instead of letting others define it for you,” she said.
Although the photos were black and white, Ihmels said that was the only editing done to any photo.
“This is a place where multiracial people can embrace the way they look and feel without feeling misrepresented,” she said.
Freshman psychology major Lindsey Burke said her professor told students in her psychology class to go to at least one event they would not normally attend to educate themselves and learn something new.
Burke said this event caught her eye because she thinks a photo gallery depicts people with different races and it’s something new for her. “I don’t know much about multiracial culture since I’m just biracial.”
Jamie Fleishman, a senior community health major, is transracial and was adopted by a white family. She said she has faced trouble growing up not knowing where she belongs.
Fleishman has attended multiple events hosted by the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association and she said events like this help people who face the same struggles come together to share those feelings.
She said these types of events make her feel like she has a place to belong. “I can identify with the struggles since I don’t really have a culture,” she said. “It’s interesting to see what others have gone through and overcome.”
“This is somewhere I feel at place because I can identify with the struggles since I don’t really have a culture,” she said. “It’s interesting to see what others have gone through and overcome.”