English/Irish | St Lucian
I identify as mixed-race; UK & St Lucian if the world asks but just Brown to me. My mum is Irish-English born in England and my dad is St Lucian and came over here by boat when he was nine. The first recollection I have I was mixed is when I was probably about 6/7, one of the boys in my class asking me why my skin was browner than his, not in a nasty way just out of curiosity. I remember going home and looking at my parents and comparing our skin and thinking it was like paint, if you mix dark brown and white together it comes out as light brown, so that what must have happened to me. I was always aware that I was different shape to the other girls in my class and always used to compare the size of my lips, bum etc to them and be sad I wasn’t the same. I think the media has something to do with that as well though as in the 90s there weren’t as many people who looked like me on TV or in books. Even my Black barbie was basically White barbie dipped in dye. I remember joining the police cadets aged 14/15 and well and in the interview being told ‘I would double the ethnic quota’. I think there are bias attitudes towards mixed-race people to an extent. In the UK I’m classed as ‘Black’ but in St. Lucia I am the English girl, so no country really classes me as belonging to them. People also assume that you should sound a certain way to match with the way you look, and my voice never seems to fit what people expect. I have lost track of the amount of times I have been called an Oreo, or a coconut. The world can sometimes make you feel like you don’t belong. A positive I can take from my mixed heritage is that I’m different, who wants to be the same as everyone else! If I that the opportunity to be born again I would come back as myself, but with the knowledge that I wasn’t always going to feel left out. The future of mixed-race is endless, we are the fastest growing race now I believe. One day everyone will be mixed-race in some way. The more diverse the world becomes the more everyone will understand each other’s culture, tradition and religions and I think that’s brilliant.
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