Dominican/Jamaican | English
My Mum is from Dominica and Jamaica and my Dad is English. They met via mutual friends. My Mum’s friend was dating one of my Dad’s friends and they ended up speaking to each other at a party and just clicked. The next day my Dad was going on holiday but said he would call her when he got back to take her on a date. Whilst he was away he sent her a postcard of his travels and then arranged a date as soon as he got back, they’ve been inseparable ever since.
My parents' love has made any differences inconsequential. My wider family has been very open in their acceptance of the differences between my parents. Many of my Aunts and Uncles are also in mixed relationships and have mixed children, so they haven't faced too many issues within the family. Outside of the family they have told me stories of when they were first together and people would take issue with the fact they were in a mixed relationship, and said that both should stick to dating their own race.
My Dad is a lover of the culture and has always listened to reggae and enjoyed cooking the food. He made an effort to learn how to cook Jamaican food from my Grandma, and then added onto this with his own cooking . He also made the effort to learn how to care for and style afro hair so that he could get me and my sibling ready for school. The difficulties and criticism they have faced doesn't phase my parents, and their love and respect for each other and their cultures is great to see as both sides get to be celebrated.
I wouldn't say I leaned towards one culture, but as English culture was the predominant culture I would say I naturally put more effort into Caribbean culture. Caribbean music; reggae and dancehall is not typically played on the radio and so as these are genres I like I make an effort to keep up to date with these new releases. In my household we typically ate English food and on the weekend we would go to my Grandparents house who cooked traditional Caribbean food.
My Grandma was Jamaican and my Grandad Dominican, despite both being Caribbean countries their cuisines are different. My Grandma who did the majority of the cooking would fuse their two cuisines to make hybrid dishes, encompassing both of their countries dishes. This balancing of cultures is something I have taken on and I really enjoy making a Caribbean roast dinner to balance my love of yorkshire puddings and jerk chicken.
I grew up in northern England, in a predominantly White area. During school I was one of only a handful of non-White children in the whole school. Skin colour was never an issue or cause of problems for me and no one treated me any different because of how I looked. At times there was a sense of 'otherness' in that I didn't look how other people did, my hair couldnt be worn in the same styles despite my best efforts of straightening but overall I felt secure in myself due to having a close family who instilled in me a high sense of worth and confidence to be myself. Nowadays there is a lot more representation in the media and also an increase in the number of mixed-race people, and people who have mixed people in their families and social circles so I think the awareness of different cultures and customs has increased and this has reduced the feelings of otherness.
I feel I am lucky in that I haven't really felt culturally isolated growing up as I have a big family where there is a lot of mixing and so in my home I have always felt accepted as I had people around who understood what it felt like to have two cultures or were happy to blend two cultures and took pride in it. In the times that I did feel isolated I have spoken up and shared information about my cultures to those around me. I have found that more often than not people want to learn and understand. By sharing my culture and being able to have pride for my cultures I have felt less isolated. In some cases this was simple as suggesting my work team ordered Jamaican food to eat when we all ordered food in the office.
The biggest challenge I have faced is getting people to acknowledge that I am mixed and have two cultures. There have been numerous times where people haven’t thought my Dad was my Dad or that my parents weren’t together even when we have all stood as a family. This always used to confuse me and irritate me because if I saw a man, women and children standing together talking and laughing it would be natural to assume they were a family and so why would the difference in skin colours make you think differently. Growing up other children have asked how my Dad can be my Dad when we look different, which would irritate me because at times it felt like I had to justify my existence.
The words of wisdom I would give are be confident in who you are, embrace your cultures and pass it on for future generations. Identity is fluid and you can resonate with whatever feels right to you.
I've never hidden my identity, I'm very proud to be who I am. If there was a census when I was born there would have been no box for me to tick to adequately identify myself as mixed, this only came into practice in 2001 and so I could never hide a part of who I am. Overt discrimination is less prevalent than previously, however inequality still persists. Black maternal mortality is a cause I am passionate about as Black British mothers are 5 times more likely to die in pregnancy or 6 weeks after childbirth. Women of mixed ethnicity have three times the risk, Asian women almost twice the risk. FivexMore set up an All-Party Parliamentary Group, a cross-party group of members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords alongside charities, organisations and individuals to raise awareness on the racial disparity in maternal health and work on solutions. The women who founded this organisation are role models to me as they are committed to calling out injustice and taking action to save lives.
There have been many terms to describe my mixed ethnicity. The politically correct terms are ever changing, terms such as half cast make me uncomfortable but I appreciate that if an elderly person says this their intention is probably not to be discriminatory and they just haven't kept up with the changing terms. Exotic is another term applied to me, this increased in frequency as I got older and links to fetishisation and what I see as changing popular trends and beauty standards. To some I am a trend or what’s cool right now and this is something I have to discern.
I really admire Sikh culture; I love how as a people they advocate selfless service, equality, tolerance and prosperity of all. These core values are things I think we should all centre more in our lives.
The things I would put in my time box:
Food - Because in my opinion there is no nicer food than Caribbean food. I have been influenced by the different ethnic groups of the Caribbean and each island has its own way of doing things and the influence of all of these should be celebrated.
Music - Old Caribbean music from the 60s and 70s is just as powerful now as it was back then, this music needs to be retained. I would also put newer Caribbean influenced music in as the progression and influence of the music on wider culture has been massive and should be identified as being the inspiration for many popular songs.
Family - Family is such a big part of Caribbean culture and in our ever busy and digital world it can be hard to make time to spend with family. I would therefore put the big family gatherings in a time box to ensure that this part of the culture is retained as I think that all the generations coming together to celebrate and talk is beautiful.