Italian | Pakistani
My Mum is Italian & my Dad is Pakistani. I’m London, born and bred. Being part of a melting pot of different cultures has become core to my identity. It’s helped shaped my political beliefs about equality and opportunity too. I think it’s a beautiful dream to pick up and try somewhere else, it isn’t an easy thing to do and I think immigrants deserve more respect than they get for putting themselves out there like that. We need to start being more honest about how we need immigration for the good of the economy.
I think the culture clash was difficult for both my parents. They had that between their own expectations and ideals with each other, but also trying to make those fit in with the UK and London. They had different ideas of how they wanted their children to be brought up. I think it was a significant contributory factor to their break up when I was little. I sometimes think how different my life would have been if my parents had stayed together.
When I was younger I perceived myself as being different and an outsider. I remember when I was a teenager wanting to have lighter skin and even bought and used bleaching creams.
I used to hate my name and planned changing it when I was older. I hated my ‘ethnic’ nose. I used to wish I was blonde. I wanted to conform to Euro-centric ideals of beauty, there were no Asian people to look up to. I’m proud of my name now, I’m named after the first empress of Iran. That’s actually pretty cool, so thanks Dad. I text him that after reading this empress’s autobiography and learning about her properly and he text back, ‘better than ‘Rose’ or ‘Poppy’ no?’. I think a lot of people still associate mixed-race as being Black and White, so that’s why projects like Mixedracefaces are so important, so we can celebrate all the amazing variations and stories out there.
If I had the opportunity to be born again I would be me but I wouldn’t waste time feeling different or inferior. I would try to be more comfortable in my own skin earlier on. I think it’s good to be different now, I just wish I had figured that out sooner.
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