Irish/Italian/Guyanese | Indian/Portuguese/Irish
My Mum was born in Dublin (Ireland), her background is Irish/Italian/South American (Guyanese). My Dad was born in Bangalore (India), his mix is Indian/Portuguese and Irish. Funny enough, they lived on the road next to one another and that’s how they met!
When I first learnt about my mixed identity, I would tell my friends about it and they would accuse me of making it up. It wasn’t until they saw my Dad and the colour of his skin, they thought ‘oh maybe he’s telling the truth’. I guess I face challenges all the time with my mixed identity, especially when I talk to people about it. It can be frustrating sometimes but over the years, I’ve realised that it’s only an opinion, everyone has them. At the end of the day, I am who I am; and I am blessed to be mixed-race, there’s no reason for me to lie about any of my races because, well, what’s the point in it? What would I gain? I can only tell the truth about who I am.
As a mixed-race performer, I would say it’s been difficult, more so for the acting side of things because people don’t know what casting bracket to put me in. Different Casting Directors, different opinions I guess. It’s always been a struggle for me and I think it always will be, because of the wide range of ethnicities I come from, I am put into all these different casting brackets, which can be good, but it can be bad because of different casting opinions, it’s a catch 22 situation.
I remember listening to this Comedian called Russell Peters one time. He was born in Canada, but both his parents came from India, he said he remembered when he was going to India for the first time and how Patriotic he felt. But when he got over there, the sight, the sounds, even the smell was so different! He felt like a bit of an outcast which led him on to say ‘Racially, I’m Indian, culturally, I’m Canadian’. I couldn’t help and think about that with my situation. Yes, racially I’m all these things, Indian, Guyanese, Italian, Irish etc but culturally, I’m British.
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