If I Were a Beer, I’d be an IPA

(Note: edited on April 3, 2026 for clarity, and to reflect current terminology. I left the em-dashes to reflect a pre-AI moment when humans, especially poets, favored an occasional em-dash. If, at times, the below conversation about race appears clunky, then it reflects where I was in my ability to discuss being BIPOC.)

A friend declared my IPA status sometime last fall. A friend who can get away with a comment like that, because he’s right—I am a pale Indian being 1/2 Asian and 1/2 white. Also, he’s BIPOC which means he knows, in part, where I’m coming from.

Generally, though, the comment that I get when I tell folks that I’m Indian is “You don’t look it at all.” They then proceed to look me up/down and sometimes even circle around me to punctuate their point. Though the person who makes this comment may be anyone from my professor (who later told me there was something Indian about me, my "negative attitude" when I grew visibly upset with his comments that continued to usher forth as any dam that well should have remained, damned) to an old friend to a new boyfriend to patients or audience members (who wouldn’t look me in the eye at a certain venue, plugged as an event for mixed-race writers, because I pass for white).

Another popular response is, “Oh, which tribe?” In the State of Washington, this may be a more common occurrence, but I have on more than one occasion had to point to a map and show someone that India is an actual country and that Columbus did in fact believe he was discovering it. You get my point.

The next evolution of the surprise is the need to see some sort of proof. Do I have photos to share of my parents or when I was younger in the South and my melanocytes were still expressing enough melanin to justify my 1/2 Indian status.

My ultimate favorite of these moments happened just last year at my book launch. My parents had flown in from CA to watch what was, perhaps, a lifetime goal of seeing my first full-length poetry collection launch. They sat in the back as writers, professors, health care practitioners, friends from all parts of my life took turns introducing themselves and making them feel at home in an environment that was foreign to them. At the Hugo House Cabaret, my mom sat with her 1/2  glass of white, my dad with his umbrella, when someone walked up to interrogate my dad, "Are you her real father?"

That one stunned us all. And needless to say, zapped a lot of joy out of the evening. Because how is that ever an appropriate question?

While there are so many points I could continue to make, I'll leave you with this. Why is it important that you see a person’s race/ethnicity? Does it make them any less (fill in identity)?