English | Indian
I identify myself as a mixed-raced Australian. My mum’s English from Devon and dad is a Kenyan born Indian who grew up in Birmingham. I was raised on Sydney’s Northern Beaches, which was a really idyllic place to grow up. I was always a Brown skinned kid but living on the coast everyone’s got a bit of a tan, so it wasn’t until puberty hit and my features started to become less European that I really thought about the fact that I was mixed-race. While I’m ethnically Indian and proud of that fact, I don’t really identify with the culture. My dad’s family’s Sikh, but he’s not into religion, doesn’t wear a turban and very rarely speaks anything other than English. Even if there was more of an Indian influence growing up I would likely have rebelled against it. I love being mixed-race and as I get older I am much more interested in my ethnic heritage, but I’ve always felt more culturally Anglo-Saxon. As far as bias goes, I guess there can be some low-level resentment at the fact that some mixed people can move more comfortably through anglocentric spaces than someone from an entirely ethnic background, which is undeniably true, so fair play I guess. I think you have to try much harder to get a real sense of belonging when you’re bringing two ethnicities to the table. It doesn’t matter how you feel about yourself internally, you’ll always be externally, visibly different. I hate the question ‘What are you?’, I understand that people are curious, but it only serves in instantly othering whomever it’s directed at. It’s such a daft, vague question, it doesn’t mean anything. If reincarnation were real I’d be less concerned with what I came back as than what I was coming back to, given the rapid rate we’re destroying the planet. But assuming we can turn that around I guess I’d want to be born again more or less as I am. Give it enough time and soon enough everyone will be mixed to some degree, which is great. We can only hope that this great mixing of races, cultures and experiences leads to a little more empathy towards our fellow man despite our differences.
Want to read more? – Subscribe here #mixedracefaces