German | Japanese
My Father is German and my Mother is Japanese. I first realised that it was because I was mixed-race when I went to secondary school and I related more to my South Asian peers than I did to my White ones. I think it was from a shared experience of being a third culture kid. I have childhood memories of Japan, but I spent my formative years in the UK. It absolutely affects how I identify with my heritage. Because the influences outside my family were mostly British, my humour and cultural references are from here. I kept in touch with my heritage with TV, books and food, but I still feel a disconnect when meeting Germans or Japanese people because I don’t fit their expectations. I have childhood memories of Japan, but I spent my formative years in the UK. It absolutely affects how I identify with my heritage. Because the influences outside my family were mostly British, my humour and cultural references are from here. I kept in touch with my heritage with TV, books and food, but I still feel a disconnect when meeting Germans or Japanese people because I don’t fit their expectations. My last workplace was very diverse and often people made automatic friendships via their shared nationalities. I will never have that. I struggle to identify with any nationality. I have a German passport and was born there, but never lived there; Japanese people don’t see me as Japanese because of my European features. Many people see me as British, which is fair because of my accent (thank you BBC News) and my mannerisms. But I can’t identify as British after Brexit, which is threatening my future in this country. I’m not eligible for residency or a British passport. If I was born again, I’d want to return the same, but to a world where nobody questions your identity. My childhood struggles with my identity shaped me as an adult, but as the number of multicultural children increase, it is sad to think they would be subject to the same prejudices and associate negative emotions to a unique life experience. I hope that the world will move forward and leave their prejudice in the past where it belongs.
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