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It's been a struggle for me because I had a chance to be white and refused.

It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.

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.

I definitely think the fact that I come from a multicultural background, my mother living life in a white skin and having white skin privilege from the time I was little, I was aware of that.

Disguising your own origins is a deeply American impulse, but that doesn't make it any less compromising. The way I live my life is to try to foreground the tensions and paradoxes of being a white person who's interested in racial justice and reconciliation, rather than disguise or obliterate them.

I grew up in an all-white community.

I relate to both my Caucasian side and my African side, and I love that.

When it comes to racial issues, I'm very passionate about young girls just loving who they are in their own skin. Because I remember going to an all-white school and being the only black girl in an all-white school, think - looking around me, thinking there's no one else here that looks like me.

I'm Armenian, but I'm very fair and I look white... I would always get such hate about it.