What Are You? A Question That Follows Me

The Journey of Rediscovery Series - Post 4

by Valerie L Valentine

The Question

It seems like an odd question to ask a person, doesn’t it? Yet it’s one I’ve been asked more times than I can count.

“What are you?”

The first time I heard it, I blinked, unsure if I’d misheard. I mean… what am I? A question mark? A mystery creature? A riddle in human form?

The smart-ass in me always wants to answer, “I’m human. What are you—Martian, Andorian, Vulcan?” But I usually restrain myself.

Instead, I reply, “What do you mean?”

That’s when the real question slips out, the one I hate hearing:

“What race are you?”

And in my head, my sarcasm gears up again: “Human. Female of the species.” But experience has taught me to keep that one to myself.

This is a picture of me from 2010. I got the "What are you?" a lot during this time period.

Then comes the guessing game.

“Are you Hispanic?” 

“A little, but not really.” 

“Native American?”

“Yes, a little.”

And always, silently, I’m thinking: What difference does it make? Why do you need to know before you know me?

Finally, I offer the simplest answer I can:

“My dad’s Black and my mom’s white.”

And almost inevitably, the first thing out of their mouth is,

“You don’t look Black.”

Then I sit back and watch them try to piece me together like a puzzle missing its box lid.

The Simplest Answer Isn’t the Whole Story

All my life, I’ve never fit neatly into any one category.

“My dad’s Black and my mom’s white” might be the easiest answer, but it isn’t the full truth.

I started tracing my family history back in high school — a world history assignment that became a lifelong fascination. And what I found was a lineage so rich and diverse it could fill a library shelf.

On my mother’s side, there’s European aristocracy, royal lines, and revolutionaries — people who signed the Declaration of Independence — the kind of ancestors you find in textbooks and family crests.

A U.S. History poster project created for my youngest daughter. It shows eight signers of the American Declaration of Independence and their genealogical relationship to her.

My father’s side was harder to trace. War and fire took much of that history, burning records and scattering names. But what remains tells a story as varied as the American landscape itself.

A great-grandmother who was Native American. 

A great-grandfather who was a fair-skinned, red-haired, blue-eyed Jew. 

Another great-grandfather — a Buffalo Soldier. 

A great-great-grandfather born into slavery.

And, thanks to DNA testing, a connection to Ramses III of Egypt.

So when people ask, “What are you?” the real answer is this: I am the product of survival and migration, of love that defied boundaries, of history braided across continents.

I am, quite literally, the sum of every empire, tribe, and rebellion that came before me.

The Melting Pot Made Flesh

In my family tree, you’ll find Irish, Scottish, British, Welsh, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Prussian, Egyptian, Hebrew, African — and likely a few stories yet untold.

It’s all in there.

Which makes me, in every sense, a walking embodiment of the so-called American ideal — the great melting pot, stirred by time and tempered by resilience.

But beyond that, I’m just… human. Messy, curious, evolving. Full of color and contradiction.

So to answer the question once and for all:

I am Human. 

I am beautiful. 

I am the living example of the ideals this country was built upon. 

I am the American Melting Pot — in motion, in breath, in art.

Blending in, standing out, and learning to glow in my own hue. *Image created by ChatGPT

And honestly?

 We should all be so lucky.

Reflection

It’s funny how people ask “What are you?” as if a tidy label could make me easier to understand. But labels only shrink things that were meant to expand.

I’ve stopped trying to make my story small enough to fit into someone else’s question.

Because what I am isn’t something to be solved — it’s something to be celebrated.

When someone asks you to define yourself, what parts of your truth do you leave out for the sake of simplicity? What would happen if you stopped editing?

Artist’s Notes: 

This post follows Square Peg, Round Hole: On Not Fitting In and expands on the theme of identity — shifting from being defined by others to defining myself. It’s about claiming space in the in-between and finding strength in complexity. It is the fourth installment in my The Journey of Rediscovery Series.

Further Reading / Inspiration:

• The Color of Water — James McBride

• Becoming — Michelle Obama

• Born a Crime — Trevor Noah

• My posts: The Story of a Second Best Career, Tempering My Fire, Square Peg, Round Hole

• Coming soon: Relearning How to Shine