Being a Teenager of Color in the Bay Area

The Bay Area is known for its sports teams like Warriors, Giants, and Sharks, big tech companies like Google, and beautiful locations like the Golden Gate Bridge and Baker Beach. As a majority-minority state, California is also known as a beacon of diversity. However, diversity alone has not led to the advancement of People of Color (POC), and they often face added stressors.

Living in such a highly competitive area as Silicon Valley comes with its own set of challenges for students of color due to the pressure to fit a certain image and stereotype, whether it’s that of the Black scholarship athlete or scholarly Asian student excelling in the classroom. This can be a lot to grapple with as a teenager still figuring out their identity and how they fit into this world of categories and labels.

Jaden Norwood, a Black and Filipino rising senior at Pinewood High School and varsity basketball player, takes honors and AP classes and is one of many who, at times, may feel out of place due to their ethnic background and outward appearance. “I guess for the most part I always feel different than everyone,” Norwood said “I’m super tall so that only adds another aspect leading me to stand out. In my area, not very many African-Americans are walking around, especially not half-Filipino.” 

For Norwood, this can lead to a lot of added pressure in his performance on the court, as well as in the classroom in order to be a sufficient representation of his race for those who may judge solely based on appearance and skin color. Norwood went on to explain, “I feel like I always have to carry myself in a different way than everyone, too, and hold myself to a higher standard both on the court and in the classroom because I have to represent my family and my ethnicity.”

Similarly, Jonathan Mackey, a Black and Filipino soon-to-be junior at Santa Clara High School, has dealt with both the positives and negatives that come with being a POC in the Bay Area. The brutal police killings of Black people in the country over the last year and the malicious hate crimes against Asian-Americans ignited international outrage, but it also hit close to home for teenagers like Mackey. “It made me sad…It had an effect. It made me really think about how there’s inequality, still, in the world. And there’s still a lot to be done. I think even just here, in the Bay Area, we can make a difference by keeping conversations about these issues going. They are important to have if we want to see change.”
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Nonetheless, both Norwood and Mackey are proud of their Black and Asian heritage. Though at times it can be hard to gauge who they are amidst both day-to-day high school stresses and civil unrest, they wouldn’t want to be anyone else. “I know I got a lot of culture. I like being Black. I like being Asian. I like being mixed like that,” said Mackey.