My Epicanthic Fold

For whatever reason, people often mistake me for having a non-Caucasian ethnic identity, when in fact my family, as far as I know, is as white as they come. Whenever anyone asks what my heritage is, I usually toss off the standard Irish-German-Scottish reply. However, there are people who are sometimes surprised by this as they thought I was Hawaiian or Puerto Rican (usually after some time spent in the tanning bed) or even Asian, which my boyfriend, whose family is originally from Hong Kong, thinks is hysterical. And my friends who have known me forever think it's funny too but hey, I don't make up the fact that people sometimes randomly ask me, "So, what are you"?

My guess is that usually these questions come because of the shape of my eyes, which have been described as almond-shaped or exotic, as my mom calls them. These eyes are one of the strongest genetic traits in my dad's family and while I was growing up in my small town, people were able to discern who my family was because of them. As for my own personal feelings about my eyes, I was always happy with the color but not necessarily the shape. I felt they lent to the feeling that I didn't fit the definition of what beautiful is (and sometimes these feelings still linger, which I continue to work through...). However, now that my father is no longer alive, I feel lucky that I have his eyes, as they are an everyday reminder of how proud I am to have been his daughter.



As is usual these days, I decided to put off doing school work tonight and do some research into whether or not I could put a name to these eyes of mine. It turns out I have an epicanthic fold, which according to Wikipedia, is a skin fold of the upper eyelid covering the inner corner of the eye. Although this trait is most commonly found in people of East Asian descent, interestingly enough many people of Slavic and Nordic descent have this fold as well. There was also a mention of the Saami reindeer herding tribes of Iceland...


So perhaps I will have to dig deeper into that family tree of mine someday and see what exactly I can find...