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Delisia Draper
Mary Martin
English 110
21 September 2015
Are you content?
6:30 a.m. has finally found its way to wake me up. As I lay in bed, trying to pry my eyes
open for a glimpse of light shining through the crooked blinds. Next stop the closet. As I stand
contemplating what to wear today, maybe a sweater with dark denim skinny jeans with my
black boots, I think to myself. Alright sounds good. As the morning goes on the coffee kicks in
making my morning makeup routine faster. Alright hair and makeup done, were good, I say to
myself. I grab my backpack and head out the door waving goodbye to my light-skinned mother
often mistaken for Chinese or some other race clearly not accurate, also to my father obvious an
African American, or so people think.
When I arrive at school the hallways are flooded with groggy teenagers not wanting to be
talked to until that first cup of coffee, and maybe not even then. I say goodbye to my friends as
we head different directions to first hour. Walking into first hour everyone is gleaming with
smiles. Oh great a sub for first hour. He waits for everyone to get settled down before he takes
attendance. Dreading the moment when he gets to my name. Almost there, so far he is doing a
good job of saying everybody's name perfectly, then it hits him. Uhmmm, as he pauses, is it

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Delisha or Deles--, Its Delisia I correct him. Oh wow that is a pretty name, he says and
continues going down the list, not thinking twice about it.
After the class had ended a very petite girl approached me as I was heading out the door.
Hi can I help you? I said to her.
Oh I just wanted to tell you, you're really pretty for a black girl, what are you, you seem
so white? said the petite white girl.
I stand there questioning yeah what am I? She walked away hurrying to her next class, as
I stood there replaying her compliment. What does she mean pretty for a black girl? So if I was
white, or Latina I wouldnt be pretty? I mean I know Im an African American but that's not all I
am. How do you perceive someone as acting white? Those questions resonate in my head the rest
of the day.
Walking through the halls not noticing what's happening around me, I storm into the
bathroom. Looking at my complexion in the mirror. I examine my curly hair and my long
eyelashes all the way to the color of my skin. What is it about me that seems so white? Is it my
voice? The way I dress? But I'm clearly a black person. Right?
How do we as a society classify beauty? Is it based on race or ethnicity? If so the only
reason I would be considered beautiful is because I'm black, the stereotypical kind of girl, with a
sassy attitude, because on the outside that is the only thing people can see of me. But if beauty is
based on personality then I guess based on what I've been told, I'm very white on the inside ,the
way I talk, and carry myself is in a very white manner. But for a more accurate description I am
an Oreo. Black on the outside, white on the inside. Overtime this title has consumed me.

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Growing up I was raised in a white suburban neighborhood. Didn't think twice about it.
My only friends were white, so were my parents friends as well. Could that have had an effect on
me growing up? Probably. I remember as a child in a classroom with the other kids and realize
that there is no one else who looks like me close by. Never thought more than once about it.
I identify more with the black culture because of my physical appearance, but soon
rejected when I don't act like them. When I'm exposed for my flaws of not being black enough
to fit in with my own people trying to switch to the white culture theyre more accepting but
curious of how I fit in.
She sounds white but has a name like Delisia why don't you just go by Lisa it makes
things a lot easier.
For who? You? Sorry my name is an inconvenience for you to even try and pronounce it.
Not knowing where you belong can get frustrating at times. It would be nice if everything
was black or white, either youre this or that, it would be easier to define who you are. If you're
white, be 110lbs and not a pound over. If youre black, you better get those lip injections and
have your hair done, basically aim for Beyonc. If youre Mexican, no taller than 54 and curvy,
with a spicy attitude to match.
Just like in Maritza Nios writing she talks about not knowing where to belong, which is
totally relatable, especially when you are younger its easy to be influenced by kids at school.
Nio talks about having a Mexican mother and a Colombian father, but questioned all the time
on why she looks the way she looks. What bothered me was not that they mistakenly took me as
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a foreigner, but that they assumed that people my kind of complexion are Mexican, or vice versa,
which is not the case. said Nio. Even something as simple as your ethnical background can be

questioned by complete strangers. Its hard for anyone experiencing cross-cultural confusion, to
feel like you do not belong.
Is there such thing as bicultural? If so why is it not more prominently known that it is
okay you belong to more than one culture versus trying to fit only into one category. In the novel
created by several personal stories of people relating to bicultural confusion, Half and Half:
Writers on Growing up Biracial and Bicultural by: Claudine C. OHearn, they bring up a good
point. They ask the questions of what name do you give to someone who is a quarter, an eighth, a
half of something? What kind of measuring stick might give an accurate estimation? If our
understanding of race and culture can ripen and evolve, then new and immeasurable
measurements about the uniqueness of our identities become possible.(14)
With all these stereotypes of beauty and personality, either youre not pretty enough, or
rich enough, or if you had this or that youll be successful. But why cant you be success for just
who you are? Who you are is something no can take from you, but makes it easier for people to
judge and try and change you.
Society has created a fictitious world of standard beauty types and with those equate
certain personalities and behaviors that are simply not true. And in return, by not following those
standards you risk the mentality of never fitting in. I know fitting in provides a sense of comfort
and homeliness, because we all want to feel safe and content in some way surrounded by people

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just like ourselves. But at the end of the day Im not like everybody else and Im ok with that,
Im my own home because thats where I know I fit in.

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Work cited page
Hearn, Claudine C. Half and Half: Writers on Growing up Biracial and Bicultural The Purdue
OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab. Print. September 21, 2015
Grealy, Lucy. Autobiography of a Face The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1994. September 21, 2015.

Nino, Maritza. (n.d.). I Am Tortillas & Frijoles: I am Hamburgers & Hot Dogs The Purdue
OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab. September e21, 2015