English | Algerian
My Mum was born in Leicester, UK. My Dad was born in Batna, Algeria. They met in Casper’s Bar in London in the early 90’s. I was raised by my Mum, with the support of my Grandparents in Leicester; my Dad left before I was born. Mum would sometimes talk about the way my Dad struggled to adapt to cultural nuances in the UK as he had grown up in a conservative Islamic culture in Algeria.
I'm lucky that growing up in Leicester exposed me to more cultures (particularly Indian and Pakistan) than if I had been raised in other parts of the UK. I’ve always admired Indian culture because of the central role in people’s lives and the value placed on the family unit. Although I've always been aware of my Algerian heritage, I hadn't explored it until 2022 when I met my Algerian family for the first time. However, I was always interested in Algeria's unique history; from the philosophy of Albert Camus through to Tim Leary hiding in Algeria with The Black Panthers and obviously the civil war.
Coming from a lower-class single-parent background, I often felt isolated when I was younger by the way many aspects of our culture promote the nuclear middle-class family unit. Over time, I've learnt that being more open about your experiences and where you've come from (when appropriate) builds more authentic relationships with people that truly care about you.
Last year, an incredibly serendipitous text message to my (unbeknownst to me) late Dad eventually led to me meeting my long-lost half-brother and extended family in Algeria for the first time. Within a few days of meeting my half-brother and catching up on over thirty years of life, we were on a plane together to repatriate our late Dad in his birthplace of Batna, Algeria. When I arrived, I met my Nan, five Aunts, four Uncles and over twenty cousins for the first time, staying in the house that my Dad grew-up in as a child. A few days later, we buried Dad in a traditional Islamic funeral where I got to meet many of his childhood friends and my wider Algerian family. It was a life-changing experience that I'm still processing and writing about now.
I think there's more awareness nowadays around the intersectionality of race and class and how this can impact the family unit. If you haven't explored part of your heritage or have thought about it, don't wait any longer. At the risk of sounding corny, you don't know where the journey will take you, what you’ll discover about yourself and the world around you, or the relationships you might be missing out on.
My role model is my late Mum, Keely. To succeed in raising two children with very limited resources as a single Mother was utterly selfless, determined and heroic.
Manners. Help others. Respect the elderly. I think these are the three aspects of British culture I’d want to timebox. Even in a hectic and culturally diverse European city like London, I don’t think these aspects are lost. Long may that continue.
Over the last few years in the arts and entertainment industry there’s been a more explicit push for diversity, in all its forms. I don’t know if this push has led to better representation of mixed-race people on stage and screen or not, but I do see opportunities for actors who are mixed-race. However, appearances can be deceiving and there are actors (Stephen Graham for example) who are multi-racial, and light skinned; this makes assessing representation more challenging if the industry relies on typical/stereotypical indicators and doesn’t ask the artist. The more I’ve shared my story at work, the more that my peers have acknowledged and recognised that I’m of mixed heritage.