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You gotta understand, my great-grandfather was German and Irish. My grandmother was Indian, and my grandfather was African-American, so we all got a little something in us.

To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined. Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear. In fact, it creates a grey area.

All of us are so mixed. My great-grandfather was white.

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.

I think that people assumed I was white because of my last name. My father is Caucasian, my mother is Hispanic. But English was my second language, believe it or not.

White Americans have the option of not having to think about race on a daily basis. People of color don't. Race is a major deciding factor in their lives and the histories of their families.

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

I'm writing in English; I'm writing for a Western audience, but the people I'm surrounded by in my daily life are mostly non-white.