As I was born into a multicultural family with European and African origin, living in a Place where People from other continents (mostly Asia and Africa)  in that country were mostly refugees or immigrants, who lived in poor situations with little education, I've always been underestimated or expected to be different from how I was. I first started making those experiences in Kindergarten, where other kids were too scared to play with me because they thought I lived in the Savana and I would hunt and eat lions. Later on, on birthday parties, where my friend's grandmothers or older relatieves would compliment me for my 'good german skills'. Sometimes when I was walking around the city  with my siblings and we would run into people looking for directions to restaurants or subway stations, one of those people would say 'let's not ask them, they probably don't even know our language'. Also in my hometown in Germany visiting an art gallery guides would ask if they should translate everything for us, so that we could understand them. Often when I met new people they would feel bad for my mother, thinking she had been left by the father of her children who was some good-for-nothing african. Recently, someone told me they had been impressed by my father's french skills this person said. "...I mean because he's african.", thinking this comment would make me happy and proud of my father.

As I was younger those comments hurt me a lot and would complain about it to my parents, especially in Elementary. But as I was getting older I learned how to handle those things by my older siblings or just handling it my way. Today I just smile at those people thinking their helping me or complementing me and tell my siblings or friends that have often been in the same situation and we laugh about it. So I have often been in the same situation as Alexie, where people underestimate my knowledge and I know how this feels, but I've never been in the situation where I feel leftout from both cultures or environments. In fact I always only look at my two backgrounds and think: I don't really feel similar to any of those people.