||photo by Zoe Raines||
DJ BEATNICK: What do you get when u take a Filipino into a Jewish restaurant ? 🔯 #TedLeitnerSpecialOnRye
Aaron Baker: My mom is Filipino and my dad is an Ashkenazi Jew of predominantly polish descent. I identify as mixed, half Asian half Jewish. I think my parents view my identity the same way I do, but we never really discuss it.
My family has influenced my identity as any family would, they’ve helped cultivate who I am as an individual. In terms of identifying myself through a racial perspective they’ve influenced me by maintaining the cultural values and practices associated with their respective heritages. And by doing doing so they've made me much more likely to ascribe to both of the traditions, affirming my identification as mixed.
I normally feel comfortable expressing both my heritages. I always thought it was cool because it made me a little different. When I went to a Jewish day school I identified more as Jewish, now its more of an equal balance. Being raised with two sides of the family that celebrate different holidays, often eat different food, and speak different languages aside from English when we’re around each other, has definitely been beneficial.
Despite these differences I have family members on one side who are a lot more similar to someone on the other side of my family than any on their own side of my family. It’s made me realize that we’re all human, and while heritage and appearance are part of our identify, there are much more important aspects of a person such as opinions, actions, personality, etc. So making blanket generalizations or assumptions about people because of there heritage or appearance is totally stupid.
