British | Greek/Armenian/Bajan
My Mum was born in London and my Dad was born in Turkey and he moved to England when he was 14. Dad’s parents were a mix of Greek, Armenian and Bajan and Mum’s are British. Over the last few years I’ve been doing a bit of research on my heritage and ethnicity as part of the quest to work out who I am and where I fit in in the world (not sure if this existential crisis/investigation happens to everyone in their early 30s?!) and I did the Ancestry DNA test. It was so fascinating and it really helped to give me a greater understanding and context of myself, which was really empowering. I believe that there can be so many benefits of being mixed-race and being exposed to different cultures, and all that that entails, such as hearing different languages, visiting different countries and eating different food. However it also confused me in terms of my identity and working out where I fit in in all this and where I belong, because a big part of me is still English. In some areas of my life it has helped that I’m quite English and I’ve had to conform to that side of myself more to fit in, especially in the work that I’ve done that’s been in a more corporate environment. I think my parents combined their two cultures well in some ways such as with the food they gave us and the different music and languages we were exposed to, but I also can see how maybe the English side was more prominent, especially because of where we lived and that we didn’t have many other mixed friends that lived there. My Dad is a musician and he would host massive parties at our house where people from all around the world would come, which I loved and is one of the best things about my childhood – we would eat food, hear music and see instruments from countries from all around the world. If I was to be born again I would want to come back pretty much as I am but return to a world that was more accepting of difference so that it isn’t even seen as ‘difference’ anymore because there’s an understanding that we’re all different.
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