British | Kenyan
I am a mulattress of Kenyan Celtic origins. I am a sexual lover of men and an emotional lover of females. I am as comfortable crossing myself in a Russian Orthodox church as I am chanting in a Buddhist temple. My Mother is from a village near Kisumu, a city in western Kenya which borders a body of water they call Lake Victoria. She is of the Luo tribe, the blood of which runs through the veins of Barack Obama and Lupita Nyong’o. My Father was born on The Wirral, a peninsula nestled between Liverpool, Chester and North Wales. It is the birthplace of British dignitaries Daniel Craig and Hyacinth Bucket. My Grandfather was a proud Welshman who was born in a coastal village called Abergele in North Wales. My Grandmother was a working-class woman from St Helens, and they married in the 1950s and settled in Higher Bebington in a 1930s semi-detached house. My parents met in the late 1980s or early 1990s in Kenya, where my Uncle had already met my Auntie and played matchmaker with him and my Mum. They married in Birkenhead in 1992, had me in 1994, and were divorced in 1996.
I experienced their cultures separately; the first eight years of my life were spent with my Mother, and I remember dancing to her old Kenyan tapes in our terrace in Rock Ferry. My Dad is a hippy, and I would spend my spring and summer school holidays in Wales, camping at festivals, living in green wellies and pebbly streams. In the ‘Outside World’, I was ultimately embarrassed by my parents’ eccentricities, living with the shame of my Mother’s African-ness every time I looked in the mirror and the shame of my Father’s mud-stained 1980s’ Volvo every time he’d pick me up from school.
I and the rest of this generation have access to educational material and images of empowerment every time we log in to social media. The looming shadow of colonialism and dehumanisation is being lifted with each day, and we now wield a power that previous generations could have only dreamt about. In the past, those living in the darkness were powerless to the roles of oppressor and oppressed they were handed by the world. Now, we have agency.
My childhood was spent looking out of my dark-brown eyes, mesmerised by the ‘White Beauty’ put in front of me. My defiance is going onto the dancefloors of this world, kissing and dancing with all beautiful Brown and pale pink boys who come my way, letting go of the guilt internalised oppression can leave in a person. It’s all a game, so let’s laugh!
I am a superhero – I am a European and have an innate connection with this continent and can enjoy this culture from as far as the palaces of St Petersburg to the pubs of Northern England. Russians see my noble mulatto features and the first person that comes to their minds is Alexander Pushkin, an octoroon and their greatest writer. I am an African and am embraced by sub-Saharan aunties as their ‘African child’. In a Spanish-speaking context, I am a Latino, and can morph from country to country, landing in Brazil with no qualms.
I went back to Wales this month after a decade and felt a frozen part of my heart melt away when a Welsh Father told me ‘You’re a bloody Celt, and don’t forget it!’. The Welsh still see themselves as an oppressed ethnic group colonised by the English, and the ‘White vs. Black’ paradigm evaporated as I understood that’s playing by their rules: it was never about colour, but always about power. Being guided through the pronunciation of that ancient, mystical language was humbling in a way I never felt when learning the languages of the old colonial powers. I adorn myself in kente cloth when dining in the restaurants of Babylon, greet my people in Swahili and shout “Vive l’Afrique” when speaking to Africans in France. I wear my négritude as a glistening jewel as I occupy space in the Global North and will sip a glass of cognac worth thousands whilst I spoon more shito onto my plate at Auntie Julie’s house.
I visited Kenya in 1996 and again in 2011. When I went to my dani (grandma’s) village, I was greeted by everyone as mtoto wa Anna, Anna’s son. Watching Rafiki this year reignited my ‘Kenyanhood’, and I’ll be back soon.
I have been blessed in this life with beauty, intelligence, brilliance and kindness. And blessed with the confidence to see it. My mission is to hold onto this light and shine it onto others so they can see it too.