America ReFramed

- I drove from Augusta, Georgia, to Gulfport, Mississippi, to meet these relatives I never even knew existed.

Aunt Barbara's daughter, LeAnna, she shared some troubling memories of the way she was treated for just being half Black.

- I do know that when I would go back and visit my grandmother... you know what?

There were times when I would- my feelings would get hurt, because I realized, I can't even say right now that she was prejudiced or she was racist, because she was very loving and she was very caring to us.

I remember going to California to visit her, and me and my brother couldn't play in the front yard.

And I think I talked to my mom about it, and my mom said, "She doesn't want the neighbors to see y'all in her front yard, because she lived in a white neighborhood."

So, my grandmother, I feel like she never really fully accepted us and fully accepted the fact that my mom married a Black man.

However, she didn't treat us any different.

And I do know that my grandfather did not accept us at all.

And my parents did have some difficult times in their marriage.

And my mom wanted to leave my father, and her father said, "No, if you come home, you know you can't come with those kids.

You have to give them up for adoption."

I really, really had to keep telling myself, "Okay, she's from a different time."

- Yeah.

- A different generation.

And because she had us in her life and she spent time with us and we hung out and went shopping and did different things together and went on vacations together, maybe she wasn't as bad as what she could have been.

Without my grandmother having these Brown children in her life, she could have been worse.

- Like when we're all walking together in stores, like, we don't think, you know, "Well, we're walking with our Chinese grandma," you know?

So, like, when we're out in public, some people, they do stare a little.

- Yeah.

- Or, like, when we go to Six Flags and stuff all the time, it'd be our time to get on the ride, they'd be like, "Okay, how many people?"

We're like, "Four."

It was me, my brother, my sister and my grandma.

And they'd get me and my brothers and then they'd stop her.

"How many for you?"

I'm like, "We just said four.

She's with us."

They're like, "Oh, sorry.

Okay, okay."

- Yeah.

- Because I've had a few Asian friends growing up.

I don't, I don't think that Asians really...

I just don't see a lot of Asians hanging out with Black people.

- Yeah.

- I don't.

I feel like they fall more in line with white people because they're not...

I know Asians can get dark like Filipino- I've seen a lot of darker Filipinos and stuff like that.

But they're not Black.

And I feel like, I feel like also they feel like they don't fit in with Black people.

- Why are some Chinese so uncomfortable in Black space?

Or any space outside our own, for that matter?