can i rock out my hyphenated identity?

so i’m reading this girl photographer/artist/writer’s blog and she writes “i’m a 25-year-old female muslim-pakistani-american that has rocked out to her hyphenated identity on both coasts.” i was so struck by that. i have some crazy split identity. its so split i can’t even think about it as hyphenated.. i actually prefer “mixie” to “biracial” or “bicultural” cuz those last two sound so neat. that statement she made was so neat and so far from what it actually feels for me to be mixed/hyphenated. i don’t rock out my hyphenated identity, i just kinda figure it out as i go along. its not that clear. does this make sense? i’d love to be able to say “i’m a 23 year old female questioning -filipino-scotchirish-american-christian-budhhist that has rocked out her hyphenated identity on opposite sides of the world and all over the east coast” but i can’t! it’s dishonest. it’s not a crisis. it’s just inaccurate for me. what’s this about..

pending US military relocation to guam

crouched on a picnic bench under a tree
I try too hard to be still
meditating on muses
I unfold an article from earlier that day
japan is paying the US 6 billion
to remove their military bases,
the US is moving them to guam,
no consent.
i’m not chamorro
but I know that look, limiting
who I can be in your eyes
who I can be in my eyes through yours
forcing me to consider your eyes
I know that unfair, uncalled for need to declare my strength
or else be violated
the need to be strong outside
until I am strong inside
women in Okinawa were often violated by US servicemen
that was a real dynamic.. that became a real expectation..
and this wasn’t every US soldier, and I’m not even putting the blame on the soldier alone
but for some reason the combination of military bases and local women..
so often goes terribly wrong
the wind on my back is speechless, museless
and treetops line the sky in curves,
hemming the land beneath them unevenly
kids play marco polo in the distance,
and thunder rolls from some place far away,
i’m trying hard to be still
i remember my friend and
her brother’s military stories
riding monster tanks,
parting people like moses
over the gray, dusty highway
with a similar rhetoric of saving
it had no choice? it was being driven
the driver was being driven
i hope the driving didn’t drive him crazy
he can’t stand driving in new york
can’t understand why the people don’t part
we said open, we see your land spread out before us
lovely in the early light
we see you..
the US is transferring 8,000 troops from Okinawa to Guam,
the chamorros are marching
but the transfer will happen soon,
i’m trying hard to be still
trying not to be lost for words..
the people are marching
i hope they stop that transfer
soon.

1967

Anti-miscegenation laws were finally declared unconstitutional in the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court Loving v. Virginia case

Sociologists argue that one of the defining characteristics of the U.S. racial/ethnic landscape is the tendency for Americans, White and non-White alike, to prefer a sense of clarity when it comes to racial/ethnic identity. In situations where the racial/ethnic background of a person cannot be immediately identified, many Americans become uncomfortable with this cultural ambiguity. This may help to explain the traditional emphasis on prohibiting the “mixing” of different races, a motivation that continues to drive many neo-Nazi or White supremacist ideologies.