Anne Marie Nakagawa’s documentary on people of mixed backgrounds and various cultural identities provoked some serious soul-searching on my part. Being half French, half Northern Irish, but born and brought up in Hong Kong, I can absolutely relate to the people whose stories were shared for the film. Now I am studying in Canada, having to explain where I am from constantly, as well as the reason as to why I have an accent (or no distinct one at all?). People like me are, as one person in the film said, “resident aliens living in the hyphen”. We belong to more than one nation or race, and yet we will never truly fit in to where we might call home.

Whilst watching the documentary I noted several patterns from a number of the people who shared their stories. The first was that they longed to be something other than what they were, especially in the teenage years. However, in childhood, many did not notice the difference until a significant moment in there lives when they realised they were not the same as most other children. In my own memory, I don’t remember any moment in my childhood where I felt out of place. However, I do remember being on a crowded train in Hong Kong a months ago and the thought occurred to me that I was the only white person on the train. Perhaps the normality of this in a previously British colony made this fact go unnoticed to me for so many years. And whilst watching the film I realised that I will never really fit in.

From the film I picked up two abstractions that provoked a lot of thought: racial purity inauthenticity. Is someone not “pure” if they identify as being of more than one nationality or ethnicity? Am I not telling the truth if I tell a stranger that I am simply French, whilst omitting the other two very important aspects of my identity? As one speaker mentioned, being questioned actually “revokes ones identity”, which in part I agree with. I do believe however that although the film highlighted many aspects of being of multiple nationalities, it did not touch upon the beauty of being mixed. I found that it victimised the speakers rather than embracing their backgrounds and exciting stories. This may have been the purpose of the film, but in an increasingly multicultural world, I believe that racial “purity” should no longer be regarded as superior, and that those of mixed origins should not feel inferior. It should be seen not as a problem but as a positive result of how our world is changing. I think that although the film focuses on Canada, this phenomenon of mixed races is ever-growing in many parts of the world and should be embraced more, especially by those who are of mixed backgrounds.