I wanted to share a little about myself, and I had the idea to write about what it’s like being mixed. Living the life that people dream about. The ones who buy all the products in the world to be tan, who sit in the sun and accept the possibility of skin cancer. The reason people date and marry different races, they are in search of that light-skinned baby boy. I wanted to write about what it’s like. I wanted to write about myself.

For most of my life, I have been in a position of having to fit into different worlds, working with what I have and what is in front of me. I’ve always seemed to be able to walk into a room and fit in and be able to work with everyone in there. Essentially, I saw myself as the same as everyone else, whether they had color or not. I just made sure that I fit the standard of who I was around.

I was scared I wouldn’t be accepted in the Black community and I was scared I wouldn’t be accepted in the white community, because I am part of both. It was hard to know where I work in.

For a while, being mixed was hard.

It wasn’t until I came to CSU that I realized that my color has an impact on who I am. Why do I have to fit into the stereotypes and the people around me? Why am I not just Aja?

The answer was simple. I was so used to fitting in with others that I forgot the facts. I lost sight of who I am and the color that makes me so special.

I lost my voice.

Like most people my age, I gravitated toward social media when it came out and, for a while, it was just a place for entertainment. I didn’t realize that it could be a platform where I could find my voice and use it to help others that feel the same weight of being mixed.

I started to play around with TikTok and make videos, none of which had a ton of importance or said anything crazy; it was just me being me. Slowly, I got more comfortable with it and expanded on the opportunity it gave me: to use my voice more and more to give people insight into my life at college and who I am.

I was thrilled with the platform I had built, but I wanted to do more and I wanted to show others that being mixed at a PWI was a good experience and that we can do it. I wanted to share with others no matter who they are that with a little bit of hard work, they can go far.

So here I am, the new social and digital media student co-creator, and although I am stuck between two worlds both perfect and imperfect in their own ways, I can use my voice to help others out there alike or not to understand that being different is okay. I realized that through all of this I learned that at the end of the day you don’t need to worry about the people you are going to offend or make uncomfortable, you just need to worry about the ones you’re going to inspire, all while embracing the color that you are.