English/French | Jamaican
I identify as a mixed-race British woman of Jamaican, French and English heritage. I am still exploring how I want to identify, but this is what makes sense to me right now.
Both my parents were born in London. My Dad’s Mum was French, and his Dad was English. My Mum’s parents were from Jamaica and came over to the UK as part of the Windrush generation. They met at art school when they were teenagers, then ended up going to the same college to study design. They were friends before they started dating and know a lot of the same people.
Both creative people, I would say that my parents raised us in a culture of their own creation; they encouraged us to be whoever we wanted to be. My parents took my brother and me to Notting Hill Carnival as kids to learn more about our Caribbean roots. We also spent a lot of time at our Jamaican Grandparents’ house, so were exposed to Caribbean culture there, often through our attempts to decipher our Nanny’s Patois whenever she asked us to do something (we often failed and were admonished in yet more Patois).
To add to the topic of languages, my Dad got us into the habit of using ‘bonne nuit’ (the French for goodnight) as a farewell before bed, something his Mum used to say to him. Unfortunately, this is close to the limit of my French language skills nowadays.
We were brought up on Jamaican food in combination with English food as well as other European and international cuisine. My Mum is a brilliant cook and I feel grateful that I got to try so many different types of food from a young age. My brother and I have definitely not grown up to be picky eaters! Most of the cultural traditions I follow are food-related, like eating bun and cheese at Easter (and also at other times of the year, which in Jamaica I found out isn’t the custom). I don’t follow any French traditions but do observe a lot of the English ones, many of which I don’t even realise are traditions until I go abroad. I briefly lived in the Netherlands for university and paid for some very expensive imported mince pies from the British and American shop that Christmas!
I have visited France multiple times but don’t really feel connected to it as my Dad did not take on his Mum’s culture. However, I would like to visit where my Grandmother was from in Normandy.
I visited Jamaica for the first time last year with some members of my extended family, which was a great introduction to the island. The weather, the food, the lifestyle, everything was quite different to the UK. The 30 degrees Celsius heat was a welcome change to the British winter, and I enjoyed tasting Caribbean foods I hadn’t tried before. Hearing Patois spoken everywhere was definitely a special experience; it’s a beautifully melodic language. I would like to go again to see the towns that my Grandparents and some of my Aunts and Uncles grew up in.
Something that I have been struggling with recently is finding where I fit. I don’t feel that I connect much with being French or Jamaican. I mostly relate to being English, or British, because the UK is where I have been born and raised, but because of what I look like, I don’t always feel accepted by British society. I often feel like an outsider, especially amongst homogenous groups, and am most at home in a multicultural setting, which I can attribute both to my mixed background and my being from London. People need to face up to their own prejudices and do the work to deconstruct them. Whether we want to admit it or not, we’ve all been socially conditioned to think a certain way about certain types of people. I believe that acting subconsciously on this conditioning is the cause of a lot of microaggressions.
I often hide parts of my identity to avoid drawing attention to myself. It is a bad habit of mine to just let people assume things about me, including about my ethnicity, rather than speak up and make people rethink their judgements. It can be scary to open yourself up to criticism if someone doesn’t like what they’re hearing, but it is also exhausting keeping important parts of yourself hidden. As someone who is big on self-improvement, I am working on being braver and presenting my authentic self to the world. Sharing my story on this platform is one way I am doing this!
I don’t feel that my ethnic background is represented as much as it could be, considering how many people there are in the UK of Black and White heritage, but progress is definitely being made. In the past year I have read two books about the mixed experience, ‘Mixed Feelings’ by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and ‘Biracial Britain’ by Remi Adekoya. I have never felt more understood. I hope that in the future mixed heritage is something that is recognised and celebrated rather than oversimplified or questioned.
I would say that my younger brother is a role model for me. He is often the first person I go to when I want to talk about race because I know he’ll understand my experiences as a mixed-race person and be able to share his own. He is confident in his identity and encourages me to be bolder in how I interact with the world.
In school I felt very comfortable being mixed-race. There were quite a lot of us with the Black/White mix, so I never felt like the odd one out or anything. In primary school a number of us went round calling ourselves ‘mixed-raise’ because that’s what we thought it was called, which is quite funny looking back on it.
When I went to university, however, I was surrounded by White people, many of whom weren’t used to seeing anyone Black or mixed. I didn’t think too much about this most of the time, but it was uncomfortable when the topic of race came up in a seminar, for example, and I suddenly noticed everyone noticing me.
Now, as a young professional, I am trying to find ways to navigate my mixed heritage in what appears to be an overwhelmingly White world. Some people see me as Black, some mixed-race, some racially ambiguous. I am still getting used to people not knowing what to think of me but endeavour to become more confident in time.
The positive side to this is that I can often see situations from an observer’s perspective and understand where different people are coming from. I find that I can get along well with most people, even if I disagree with them on certain issues. I love to play devil’s advocate in a debate because I can almost always see a clear line of argument for the opposing side.
I have been growing out my hair since I cut it short about two years ago and have found this challenging. Not knowing how it will behave and learning to look after it at its various stages of growth has been a fascinating and frustrating experience. I am still figuring out what products work best in my hair bonus points if they don’t make it dry or hard!
Cutting and growing my hair has been a great way of exploring how I want to present myself to the world and has brought me more in touch with the difficulties I have with my identity as a mixed-race person. My hair texture, although not uncommon amongst mixed Black/White people, is unfamiliar to many, and because of this it is the part of my appearance people comment on most often. I think that the attention my hair has garnered throughout my life has made me especially conscious of how the way I choose to style it can change how others perceive me, and more importantly how I perceive myself.
The pandemic has made me appreciate the present moment more and has taught me not to get too ahead of myself, who knows what could happen before you get to that plan you made! We only ever experience the future as the present, so we shouldn’t get too caught up in what’s coming next. I am saying this as someone who used to plan everything super far in advance, so the pandemic has really helped me to embrace spontaneity when the moment calls for it.
The Black Lives Matter movement that became widespread during the pandemic got me thinking about my Blackness in a way that I hadn’t before, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Before 2020 I didn’t really identify myself with being Black, partly because many of the Black people around me didn’t see me as such, and partly because I was so focused on the mixed-race part of my identity that I neglected to consider what I was mixed with. I regret not taking the time to educate myself more on Black history when I was younger but am trying to make up for lost time now. A DNA test that I took in 2021 has also prompted me to look into my ancestral West African origins.
The last time I properly cried was watching a cover by Ravi Adelekan & Friends of 'A Million Dreams' from The Greatest Showman. It was incredibly heart-warming to see Ravi, who was treated for a brain tumour about a year ago, unite in song with his friends, family and supporters. Moments like this make it seem like anything is possible.
The video's bio includes a link to a Crowdfunder supporting people living with brain tumours through donating the funds collected to The Brain Tumour Charity and brainstrust, so please do donate if you are able! You can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/NDETq8P88SI
Being mixed-race can often make you feel both invisible and hyper visible at the same time. I want to thank Mixedracefaces for providing us with the opportunity to share our authentic stories and feel part of a community.