Mariah according to my yt mama

when I try to talk to my mom about what it was like

to grow up surrounded by yt people in the prairies

in the 80s though it seemed like the 50s

she tells me in a so-there tone

that Mariah is a mixee and that people love her

I tell my mom that Mariah has talked publicly

about feeling some type of way about

being what she calls biracial

which is why on the early album covers

her hair is obscuring her face

there is a long pause then a I didn’t know that

I wish her first response wasn’t a disavowal of my experience

I wish when I said this to her she didn’t disavow my experience again

by telling me that my sibling didn’t feel shame about being a mixee

my sibling who in adulthood says

you’re more Chinese than me