English/Irish | Punjabi/Pathan
My Mum identifies as an East African Asian. She was born in Kenya to Indian parents who were ethnically Punjabi and Pathan. My Mum spent her first 11 years in multiple East Africa countries before moving to Pakistan to complete her education and then moving to London aged 18. My Dad’s Mother was Irish, and Father was English. My Dad converted to Islam in his early 20s and a few years later had an arranged marriage which is how he met my Mum. As a child I knew that my parents were different and how people might double take when looking at my Mum and Dad together. When we went to the mosque I could see that my Dad was White in a predominantly South Asian environment and knew that I was a different skin tone to most of my peers. As I became older, I think my observations of race lessened because my world became a lot more diverse. I don’t think I saw myself as being mixed, just that I was different from others, but I think religion affected that too. The concept of being mixed-race was not something I delved into properly until I was eighteen, and now even further since I have finished university. I often think about what it means to be mixed and how I am perceived in certain situations. My main positive experience is just the connection I have felt with others, especially when meeting BAME people. I have so many mixed-race friends and it’s mostly by chance but when we talk about mixed issues I do feel so much closer to them. I often find that people think that mixed-race describes someone of mixed Black and White heritage. When I tell people I’m mixed- race they don’t really believe me until I explain where my parents are from. If I ask people to guess my ethnicity, they presume I’m Spanish, Italian or French.
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