Mexican | Salvadoran - Research Assistant @ The Alan Turing Institute
There is a word in my country that is frequently used to describe ourselves racially: ‘Mestizo’. It recalls the fact that most of us come from a long process of mixing people from different places of the world-particularly Europeans and indigenous Americans. The mixing process was not particularly peaceful nor willing, but we still remember until this day that it is where we come from.
Although we recognise the diversity from which we stem, the society where I grew up is still embedded with racism, aggravated by classism and xenophobia. White skin is praised as something better than darker tones like mine. In some contexts, ‘whiter’ friends/partners would be praised, while others would be judged. I still remember an old lady pejoratively describing her own skin colour, which is the same as mine, over dinner.
To identify and value yourself outside of them is an act of resistance. I am still trying to find value and beauty in my background and my skin tone. In many ways, I started resolving these identity issues when I moved abroad. I think that solving this for me would have been more difficult back home, where racism/classism is so embedded in our daily activities.
By living in such a diverse context like the one London can offer, I realised all the bias I used to hold against myself. Listening to life experiences from people with completely different backgrounds who have also experienced discrimination has incredibly helped me in this regard. It has been a slow process of self-care and self-love. Mixing races is a process that naturally goes hand in hand with migration. Half of my family being migrant, and myself becoming a migrant later in life helped me to value and cherish this. Coming from a mixed background means in most cases also coming from a background where someone at some point had the courage to emigrate.
I would say that @theturinginst is a diverse place, with plenty of representation of different backgrounds. I feel recognised by my team and managers to come from a mixed-heritage background.
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