For as long as I can remember, people have always asked me about my education, race, ethnicity, and background. This haunting question makes me nervous, causing multiple questions to burst into my mind. Why do I have to prove my ethnicity? Do they ask me questions about my place of birth? Or where are my parents from? Or the plethora of countries I've lived in? Now, it's almost like a reflex for me to say, "It's complicated," but I've never felt satisfied with that answer. I want to feel a sense of belonging and have a specific answer. Sometimes I feel like I'm boring the person with my vast experience. Sometimes I can't help but lie and say I'm American because that would justify my accent. This is the simplest option. No questions asked. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Trust me, I speak with experience and explain the whole damn story to you: “I'm Swedish-Ethiopian, I live in Singapore, but I was born in Switzerland and I have a British passport and an American accent”, it becomes too repetitive. Some say: “Don’t complain! It's exotic!' Well, yes, it may seem "cool" from the perspective of a foreigner or a monolingual individual, but it's not all fun and games when it's a reality. I live in this reality – the life of a multilingual. For as long as I can remember, I grew up despising my ethnicity. As a young mixed-race girl, I dreamed of the life of someone who could identify with a race, an ethnicity - something so intangible. In my innocent sleep, it seemed almost real. But as soon as I woke up, I remembered my terrible reality. As a child, I remember feeling strong emotions of frustration and confusion as I felt so much pressure to be defined, to put a label on myself. I felt like an unwanted individual, like a defective product of the human race – like we were made to uphold and represent a specific profile. It was like I was a mule in the middle of a field of beaming horses. I was 11 years old when I first delved into my rich Ethiopian roots. I remember one particular afternoon; my Ethiopian friends and I were on a mini road trip. I remember very clearly stopping the car on Churchill Street in Addis Ababa. Being a naive young girl, I was not aware of the situations I was going to encounter. As soon as I jumped out of the car, a wave of displacement enveloped me. A group of strangers told me “go inside the little girl” and “ferenj nech, teiyat” (she’s white, leave her) in their native Amharic language. Although I was embarrassed, I was jealous of the bonds shared between foreigners who spoke in their dialect. I felt naked and vulnerable among my own people. It was like no one saw what was beneath my skin: a girl who wanted to feel a sense of belonging. Was culture supposed to be exclusive? The emotional and literal distance that separates me from my mother's culture. If I could go back in time, I would have liked to refute his ignorant comment by saying “ayidelehum!” (I'm not!), but I just couldn't, my identity was ripped out from under my feet. I was silenced. Even though I hate it, I'm always inclined to choose sides. It's a strange concept to describe, but when asked which side of my ethnicity I identify with most, I would answer 100% of the time Ethiopian, I feel like maybe it's because the maternal side?