One who understands

When Matt Kelley was growing up in the United States, he often thought to himself, “Who am I?” Of course, there is nothing unusual about this; most teenagers ask themselves the same question from time to time. But Matt’s problem was special. When he saw his schoolmates, he didn’t see anyone who looked like him. There were white kids and black kids, Asian kids and Hispanic kids, but none like him. And when Matt went home and switched on the TV or opened a magazine, he still didn’t see anyone who was quite like him.

Matt Kelley was a multiracial teen: his dad was white and his mum was a Korean. He felt that he didn’t quite fit in with white kids because of his Asian side, and that he didn’t quite fit in with Asians because he was half white. This made him feel confused1 and frustrated,2 and he often wondered if he was the only teenager in the world with this problem.

In Matt’s first year at university, he met other multiracial young people, and he began to talk with them about the problems that they had in common. He soon realized that there were lots of multiracial people in the U.S. and that they didn’t really have a place to discuss their experiences3. So in 1998, when Matt was only 19, he founded MAVIN. MAVIN, which means “one who understands” in Hebrew, is a magazine for young multiracial people who want to read about other people of mixed race and their experiences. It publishes articles about the unique problems that affect multiracial teens and invites its readers to write their own stories for publication in the magazine.

In a recent survey, when a group of American teens were asked if they had ever dated someone of a different race or ethnic background, 60% said yes. This, and the popularity of murtiracial celebrities4 like Tiger Woods, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey, has made people reconsider the old concepts of race. “Multiracial means disregarding old models,” explains Matt Kelley. “It means there are no boundaries to race. We can be comfortable being whatever we want to be.”

Today, in addition to editing his magazine, Matt is President of the MAVIN Foundation, an organization that gives support to multiracial teens and their families. He is truly “one who understands.”