English/Irish | Indian

My Mum is Goan Indian but she grew up in Malawi, then the UK, after it became difficult for many Goans to live in Malawi in the 1970s. She is Anglo-Indian but she also grew up without parents around from quite a young age. She's culturally South London. Saying this, and

Maybe this is the South London cultural influence that I am part of too, but I know I’m from the South Asian peninsula and particularly from Goa because of our food. Although my family did not grow up in India or around Indian culture or speaking anything other than English, we know we’re Indian, we’re proud to be Indian, we know the food, and bits of culture permeate into our lives. We eat certain fruits at certain times of year and get excited when it is custard apple or mango season; we all get our eyebrows threaded; we like certain tastes and flavours. We also have family still in India, Canada and other classic areas within the Indian diaspora. So I lean towards the Indian culture in these ways, through the food and through my family connections.

My last name is my challenge. It is part Irish/British but also part Indian. Not many people can place my surname, I think it is part of its colonial Portuguese origins. People refer to it as It’s ‘difficult’, ‘complicated’ or ‘how do you say that’. I find it funny that people can speak made up languages such as Klingon or know how to pronounce Game of Thrones names but they can’t say my surname. It’s funny as it is a very phonetic name but the foreign-ness or the sounds or the shapes are too hard for many people.

There is very little representation or reference to being mixed race within our organisation and it is not really discussed. I’m not sure if the staff recognise that I am mixed or if being mixed is even considered an identity by many people. People try to guess where I’m from or make assumptions based on my facial features. There are a variety of reactions when I talk about my mixed heritage. People sometimes seem surprised which could either indicate that they had already assumed something about my ethnicity or maybe found my ethnic ambiguity difficult to place.

Tenee Attoh28 June 2023Comment