English | Guyanese
I identify as mixed-race. My Dad is from Guyana, my Mum is from England. They met in England through some kind of pen pal dating service (they were a bit embarrassed about this when they told me and my sisters!). As my Dad is quite quiet and we very rarely went to any Guyanese social events, there wasn’t really a combination of cultures – the food we ate was cooked by my Mum, for example, so it was British. But my Dad did tell us a lot of stories about growing up in Guyana, and occasionally we’d do something related to Caribbean culture like going to Notting Hill Carnival (I think he took us once). All of my Grandparents had long-since died by the time they met, apart from my Mum’s Mum – who apparently really liked my Dad and used to give him sweets (my Mum later found a store of them in my Dad’s drawer!).
Interracial relationships were much less common in those days. My Mum and Dad have never really spoken of any difficulties they had but they must have had some. It’s funny we never discussed it come to think of it. Today interracial relationships are much more common but there are still taboos and stereotypes to get over. I see interracial relationships as quite normalised but I have to be careful too as there are some mixes I find more unusual and I want to fall into the trap of exoticising others as they sometimes do me.
I think my environment does play a part in how I choose my partners to some extent. Like other stories I’ve read on Mixedracefaces I’m aware of this sense that you have to ‘choose’ – I feel like I would be seen as ‘more Black’ or ‘more White’ depending on if I date a Black or White guy. Maybe that’s why previous partners tend to have some kind of cultural or ethnic mixture (even if it’s not immediately visible). There’s an understanding I think that comes with living across more than one ethnicity/race that I value my partner being aware of.
I have lots of positive experiences based on my mixed heritage. Being able to travel and ‘blend in’ in lots of countries. Being more open to learning about different cultures and learning different languages. Being more sensitive to cultural differences. And being able to move around different groups, rather than feel confined to one. I don’t think I’ve had any negative experiences. Though it can get annoying being asked, ‘Where are you from?’ A friend and I used to be asked it a lot on nights out when we were younger and would just make up answers and accents to entertain ourselves. There’s also the sense of being exoticised by some White people who see and comment on your hair or skin colour when they first meet you – even in professional situations. These are not so much challenges, just somewhat narrow-minded thinking from people who often don’t realise what they’re doing. Sometimes it annoys me; other times it just amuses me.
I have lived most of my life in the UK so I am naturally connected to British culture, in terms of language, food and some music (like folk music). My Guyanese culture initially came to me through stories from my Dad and family meet-ups, but later through literature and eventually through living in Guyana for 3.5 years. I think now I weave it all together through the food I eat (everything from curry and roti to apple crumble), what I wear (Guyanese jewellery and London charity shop finds), music (increasingly soca and dancehall, alongside music from around the world), and the connections I feel in both countries. I recently returned from 3.5 years in Guyana where I was able to travel around the country, work, make friends, socialise, learn about the culture, attempt to learn some Creolese, and see the world from a non-European, former colonised, Caribbean, South American multi-racial angle (people there may add ‘third world’ to that list, but I’ve been never comfortable with that term or the implication that the West is the only model of development). I feel much more comfortable now saying that I’m part Guyanese and feel more of my own connection to the country, not just an inherited one. I felt I experienced Guyana in my own way – not my Dad’s – and I feel different for the experience (and not just because food here now tastes really bland!).
I’m not sure if my mixed-race identity has changed though attending the Mixed Race Faces event was kind of amazing as I had never been in that kind of space before. In Guyana a lot of people are mixed but something about being in my home city, surrounded by other British mixed-race people, that was something special. It’s like there was an automatic undercurrent of understanding – even though we all looked so different. And public discussions and awareness of ‘mixed-race’ is a lot more visible today. But it has only scratched the surface. I’m about to start a Masters in Creative Writing and Education Masters so I’m hoping through that to keep exploring and questioning these issues.
I work freelance so it’s hard to say but the media in general needs to be a lot more inclusive. Caribbean news and culture is massively underreported or stereotyped – there’s little effort to go beyond the occasional tropical travel piece or something about reggae music. There’s so much to celebrate in the region, and so many issues that need highlighting. Editors need to educate themselves and not assume there’s a very limited audience for Caribbean stories – you have to make people care about these stories and show people that the Caribbean is not a homogenous, mono-racial, mono-cultural mass. I’m still painfully aware at how male, White or middle class the media is (I say ‘or’ rather than ‘and’ as it’s not enough to have greater representation of women and ethnic minorities in the media if they too are disconnected from the reality of life for the working class and those living in poverty).
If I had the opportunity to be reborn maybe I could be born in Guyana this time. I wouldn’t be able to compare the two but it’s still interesting to think about what I would have been like: would my tastes have been the same? Would I have migrated to England? Would I have felt ‘Guyanese’? Would I have felt being mixed race (or a ‘red woman’ to use the Guyanese expression for someone of mixed Afro-Guyanese and European heritage) awarded me some social advantage? Would I have been able to get a visa to travel to England? I’m always curious at looking at the other perspective – maybe that’s another of the benefits of being mixed-race (although it can be exhausting trying to see everything from everyone’s perspective too).