I am not what I am not

It was while I was living in France when I heard for the first time that I was a non-white.  I was living in a small town next to a lake where my roommate from Brooklyn and I were, according to her,  the only non-white people there. 
"Do you realize that you and I are the only ones who are not white?" She said one day. I didn't understand what she meant, when she noticed my confusion about it she asked "What do you think you are?"  I said "I don't know, Mexican?  a woman?."  And indeed I didn't have an answer to her question because I honestly didn't understand it.  She didn't understand either how come I didn't understand something that simple. I remember how astonished and upset I was for defining myself in a negative way, for being something after not being something.

It was clearer for me when in New York, in SVA I had to filled the paper and specify what kind of non-white person I was.

While I was in New York, I stayed for a while at my former France roommate's place in Brooklyn. In a dinner her mom said to me "Z told me about your reaction when she told you you were non-white, and I was surprised also," then she added "But I think that should be the most natural reaction...we just don't see it anymore."