A teacher at a predominately Chinese school urged his sixth grade students to look toward the center of the room where a handful of mixed children sat. “Take a good look,” he said. “These will probably be the only non-Asian people you’ll ever have to deal with.” To be dubbed “non-Asian” caused emotional harm to then 11-year-old Shawna McCarthy, of Chinese and Irish descent.

After the statement was crudely delivered, the Chinese children sat in silence and McCarthy excused herself from class and cried in the bathroom. “It was the worst feeling ever, I felt horrible and looking back, I shouldn’t have,” she said. Feelings of frustration and sadness overcame her while she curled up on the bathroom floor. “That’s the most vivid image that comes to mind when I think of how young I was when all of this started.”

A decade later, McCarthy, 21, continues to struggle with being biracial. McCarthy has come to learn that she should be proud of her mixed heritage and embody who she is—both sides equally. “All my life I was judged, I never fit-in anywhere,” explains McCarthy. “I was too white to hang out with the Asians and I was too Asian to hang out with the whites.”

McCarthy’s experience at an all-Chinese school was not what her parents envisioned for their daughter. Not only did her Irish last name stand out during attendance, but her appearance set her apart during recess, school functions, and even helped determine her class ranking.

Children laughed at her when the teacher would butcher her name and ridiculed her when she was grouped in the less-than mediocre “Chinese C” class, where all “non-Chinese” and disruptive students were placed. “I didn’t know the criteria for being placed in Chinese C, B, or A,” she recalls. “All I knew is that the A and B classes had good full Chinese kids and the C-class was everyone else. But I was good.”

Making friends at school wasn’t difficult for McCarthy, but being fully accepted was. “She definitely was different—not your average Chinese kid. [She was] more American than anything else in comparison to the kids at our school,” says former classmate and friend of 15 years, Amber Jeung. “I looked past it and saw her for who she truly is.”

McCarthy recalls asking her parents about her identity and why she was “different.” Observant of how the pure Chinese children bonded and formed a sense of kinship, McCarthy was in search of a reason why she couldn’t have that special connection with her classmates. It was a harsh reality her parents didn’t want her to face. “I didn’t feel necessarily guilty about sending Shawna to an all-Chinese school, but I did feel bad for everything she went through,” says Bill McCarthy, her father. “No one should ever feel inadequate just because of who they are and where they come from.”

McCarthy’s mother, Anna Fong, knew her daughter was strong for everything she went through at school but never quite understood why people couldn’t accept her daughter all the way. “I told Shawna that if the other kids didn’t want to be her friend, then she did not need them in her life to bring her down,” says Fong.

With that in mind, McCarthy switched schools and easily made friends of different races and ethnicities. “I saw different people for a change and some ethnicities for the very first time. There was no problem at all,” she says. McCarthy felt comfortable around people of different races and finally felt a sense of belonging.

She even started dating. “I wasn’t attracted to anything other than Chinese boys,” she says. “So to date a Latino was something that I didn’t think of before, but it was ok to me because I saw past color.”

It wasn’t until high school that McCarthy felt a different and unique acceptance amongst her peers — the acceptance she had been hoping for.

It was freshman year and the cafeteria was swarming with new faces seeking a spot to sit. McCarthy found a table and little-by-little the table got full. “It’s funny how all my good friends sort of found me,” she says. “We all got to talking and we realized we were all mixed. It’s like we sensed it from a mile away—we just clicked.”

She met her African-American boyfriend of five years through a friend when she was 16 years old. “I didn’t see color when I met him. I just really liked him for who he was,” she says.

The hardest part of their relationship is to deal with how others see them as a couple. For years they have felt a struggle to be together. “It’s the outsiders who make it seem like we shouldn’t be together,” she says. “I try not to listen to their remarks but it’s hard when they’re being so hurtful.”

When McCarthy and her boyfriend go out to dinner, it usually consists of good food, conversation, snickers, and stares. McCarthy recalls a time where they went into one of their favorite restaurants and had to wait to be seated.

The loud waiting area went silent when the two walked in. “It was this indescribable tension and I felt really uncomfortable,” she says. “An African-American family started to talk about my physical appearance and tear me down to shreds.”

McCarthy’s experience with the African-American community hasn’t been a smooth one. “Even my boyfriend knows how some people can get,” she says. “The African-American community—especially the women—treat me like I’m stealing him away from them and that we are wrong together.”

McCarthy’s parents are no strangers to this type of treatment and did not expect their own daughter to go through what they went through 25 years ago. “I will always remember the looks the elderly people would give me and Anna when we would walk hand-in-hand,” says Bill.

While McCarthy has dealt with many things in her life that had emotional repercussions, she continues to grow and love herself and stand up for what she believes is right and just in her life. “I cannot worry about what other people think,” she says. “I just have to keep my head up high, live my life, and forget the rest.”

McCarthy has come far since her middle school days and has figured out that the only person she needs to count on for full acceptance is her own self.

“We couldn’t be any more proud of her,” says Fong, “She is a living testament to everything that Bill and I have taught her.”