Meghan Markle Wrote A Powerful Essay On Being Biracial In America

Meghan Markle has come into the spotlight recently thanks to her role on Suits and her now-confirmed boyfriend, Prince Harry. However, neither of those things define her. In an essay for Elle UK, she detailed how difficult it was for her to find her identity, especially in the light of being a biracial woman, and it's inspiring. "To describe something as being black and white means it is clearly defined," she writes. "Yet when your ethnicity is black and white, the dichotomy is not that clear." This theme followed her throughout much of her childhood, like the instance when she had to check a single box for her ethnicity in class. "Here I was (my curly hair, my freckled face, my pale skin, my mixed race) looking down at these boxes, not wanting to mess up, but not knowing what to do," she remembers. "You could only choose one, but that would be to choose one parent over the other – and one half of myself over the other." Her teacher told her to choose caucasian because that's "how she looked," but her father told her to do something that has stuck with her ever since: "If that happens again, you draw your own box." Her family was a huge part in helping her accept her identity, even going as far as to customize her Barbie sets to make sure mixed-race couples were represented. These experiences are what make Markle's role as Rachel Zane so important. She's playing the "dream girl" by being exactly who she is, rather than what Hollywood dictates — isn't that what a dream girl is, anyways?