Moroccan | Mauritian
I identify as mixed Moroccan & Mauritian, agnostic & straight. My Mum is Moroccan & Dad is Mauritian. They met at work, both worked in Napsbury Park, formerly Middlesex County Asylum. Mum was a nurse & Dad was a district nurse. I recognised I was mixed-race at a young age. At family events I always stood out against the other children. I can be at a Mauritian family party and not fit in although I’m as Brown as them or at a Moroccan family party and not look Arab. Not being able to speak the languages fluently doesn’t help either with the older generation so again you stand out in the crowd. My Dads parents had both passed away before they got married so it was just his elder brother that had an issue with him marrying mum, mainly as she was Muslim. I believe my Mums side were fine with her marrying Dad apart from her Dad as he wanted her to marry a Moroccan guy. I haven’t experienced many challenges based around my mixed identity, but the main challenge I have come across have been with past relationships. It’s been difficult as I have two religions that clash with both sides, but these were mainly from the older generation as their mentality was to marry someone of the same race. I’ve never had any racial issues. There are so many mixed-race people in & around London it ends up being exciting discussing everyone’s backgrounds including my own. I can fluently understand Arabic but not speak as much as I’ve always grown up speaking English at home. Not being able to speak Creole or understand any of it has made me feel like an outsider on the Mauritian side. I connect more with the Mauritian side more than the Moroccan whereas my younger brother has followed the Moroccan side more. It depends on your surroundings mainly from school as the majority of my friends as Asian whereas his are Arab. A positive is that your different to the others (more exotic) and you have more of an understanding of both cultures. A negative is although you’re different, you are different point blank, so you don’t always fit in. If I was born again I would want to return exactly the same, slightly taller and less fat!
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