Hello Fellow Blasians, I'm Fatima!
I am half Black/African American and half Chinese. My mother is originally from Beijing, China and met my father, who is from Cincinnati, Ohio when she went to college. I'll write a blog with more information on my upbringing, but I thought you guys would be curious about my mix! If you're a Blasian like me, you must get people who are FASCINATED by you all the time, people asking good-intentionally "what are you?". I usually either grumble "I'm human" before taking pity on their confusion and relieving their curiosity or I ask them to guess. And the amount of different ethnic groups that have been guessed about me is truly staggering...Malaysian, Egyptian, Middle Eastern, Indian, Mexican, etc... There's usually a little squeal of delight or a bit of shock when I admit my actual mix before people move on and realize that's probably the most interesting about me. Jokes, jokes, but not really...
I grew up in the desert of Southern California in a predominantly white and Hispanic town. Turns out race isn't even the biggest deal when you're the only person who wore a hijab in your school district. My father had converted to Islam at some point in his life and when my mother married him she converted as well so I was raised in a fairly strict Muslim family. A lot of my K-6 years were spent wearily responding to the same question by another curious classmate; "why do you wear that thing on your head". I took it all in stride. I mean, it was the early 2000s and my parents had taught me not to bring too much attention to myself.
Thankfully by high school, I had actually already moved on to college, or rather taking community college classes in place of advanced high school classes. This was mostly the product of my mother, who often likened herself to being a standard Asian 'dragon' mom, but really was just doing what any good parent would do. My three older sisters (oh yeah, I have three older sisters) had all graduated top of the class from the same high school and had gone on to study at UCLA, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. In respective ascending order, I told myself I would get into Harvard. Instead I graduated second highest in the class and sent myself to the cold of upstate New York at Cornell University.
My time at Cornell will always be divided in my heart and mind. Now that the four years are over, I can look back with some fondness, but often while I was actually attending school I. Hated. It. I had a good group of friends and I didn't mind being far from home, but the academics killed me after the first year. Despite passionately arguing to my mother to major in English (I believe my true passion is in writing), I still clung to the hope of one-upping my sisters and pursued a degree in Environmental Engineering. While I had a strong background in mathematics, my small town ways had still severely unprepared for the vigor of Ivy League engineering courses. It wasn't until my third year, after I had been thoroughly skewered by my sophomore year classes and a particularly frigid winter, that I decided I needed to get away. I arranged my classes and prepared for a semester abroad in Melbourne, Australia.
There is a lot to tell about what happened during my semester in Melbourne, but I'll cut it short for you. Girl gets off plane and is ready to party in new country. Girl meets boy. Girl likes boy. Girl spends all her time with boy and proceeds to fail three out of her four abroad classes. Boy is going away to Europe and Girl is returning to America. There was a couple weeks of heartbreak before I reunited with my boy, Harrison, in New York City (a place I used to despise) and we vowed to do long distance. Almost two years later, I have graduated with my full degree after a stressful last two semesters packed with classes and I am back in Melbourne living with Harrison. I'm here on a Working Holiday Visa so unfortunately cannot use my engineering degree, but once Harrison graduates, I hope to move back to the States with him and continue working in the environmental field.
Thanks for bearing with me until the end of my life story! This was just to give you a little insight into how I came to be the way I am and why I say the things I say. If you were looking for a short spill about what this blog will be all about, I have an introduction video below that you should check out. Otherwise, enjoy the blog you beautiful blasians!
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