British | Hong Kong Chinese
The recent conversations which have been brought to the forefront of mainstream media have challenged the way I have interpreted my own identity. I think that I have hidden behind being mixed-race; thinking that I did not have to educate myself and acknowledge my own unconscious participation in racism and racist structures because being mixed-race is not perceived as a typically privileged group or identity. I recognise that this internal conflict is unimportant. On a personal level I continue to feel dis-attached from what I feel being mixed-race should feel like, and my own reality.
I have become more aware of being mixed-race and what it means as I've grown up. I was so sheltered as a child that I didn't know I was any different from my fully White friends. In some ways that was nice; I never felt ostracised or outcast. But we have to embrace difference rather than ignore it and as I get older I want more and more to recognise in myself the culture of my Dad and his family. I just don't know how. I think I might have hidden my background so well it ceased to exist in some ways. But because I was raised in such a classically White, middle-class culture, this helped to erase that difference over time. I rarely volunteered the fact that I'm mixed-race unless I was directly asked, and barely ever engaged in conversations about it. When asked to participate in the questionable 'Asian Week' at my secondary school, I refused. It wasn't that I didn't want to draw attention to myself because I never shied away from that at all, but I didn't want being mixed-race to be the reason for attention.
I think that I have a lot of privilege in most of those areas which means @cambridgeuniversity is considerate of them by default. I can only speak on a personal level about how I feel and my experiences, but @cambridgeuniversity has a lot more to do to make it a welcoming place to a diverse range of cultures and accommodating of different genders and sexualities. A lot of this change and momentum comes from the students which is incredible, but the institution itself needs to step up.
Studying History at University of Cambridge
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