Spanish | Mauritian
Growing up with this background was bitter sweet. Part of me loved it; I loved being unique and ambiguously different to others in a way that couldn’t be categorised by face value. However I struggled greatly with understanding what I was. Being Mauritian in itself confuses people as culturally there is a lot of Indian background both culturally and ethnically, and then adding Spanish to the mix means that a lot of times my identity would be lost or misunderstood even by me.
I encountered the difficulty of knowing what to class myself as. There are many mixed-race people in London where I grew up, but perhaps not with my mix of ethnicities which made labelling myself or even stating who I was in regards to my background difficult at times. I think another very known difficulty for anyone who isn't explicitly White British growing up in London is the question of 'what you are', which comes up very often, and when you have a situation where people are actively unsure about what race you even are it comes up a lot. You are reminded that you are not seen as English despite having lived here all my life. I am aware that I am 'ambiguous' as people rarely guess where my background is from, however being labelled that way externally feels wrong as I think people feel they have the right to comment on something they really have no ownership over.
I think my parents have shown that despite differences, there are more things that join us as people. They have always shown me that I should be strong in my identity. There are a lot of mixed-race people, but their story is particularly interesting as they had never interacted with anyone from the other’s race before meeting each other. They have differences including their religion, their country, language etc but this didn't divide them but brought them closer. This inspires me as it sets a standard for what it means to be a mixed-race person.
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