English | Guyanese
I identify as mixed-race, or as my Mum likes to say ‘race rich’; meaning rich in race and culture. I am half Guyanese and half English. I would not identify with any religion and my sexual orientation is heterosexual. My Mother is English, and my Father is Guyanese. They met in the UK and have both lived in the UK for the majority of their lives. My Dad was born in the UK, and my Mum was born in Australia as her family travelled for her Father’s job, however she soon returned to the UK and spent most of her childhood there.
My Mother has always been very open about her culture and this has always felt easy for her to do. Her brothers, and their children, as well as her parents have always been very open and warming to be around at family gatherings. My Grandad served in the war, working on the HMS Belfast and on the Mothers day of 2019 my family and I went to visit the ship. This was a very important moment for me as I was able to see the historic implications of my Grandad’s service and felt some connection with the English side of me as he did fight in the war for his country, being Britain. My Mothers’ family have always been lovely to my Father and myself and two siblings, although we are the only people who are non-White on that side of the family I have never felt particularly different or apart from them. My Father has too been open about his culture; however it is not as ingratiate in our day to day lives. Growing up, most of the experience I had with Guyanese culture would come from my Grandma; her cooking, her accent, the phrases she uses and the family she connects us to. Although my Father does have a big family, a lot of the family is spread over the globe and the immediate connection is not as explicit. I do believe that the smaller amount of connection I have, has driven me particularly in my teenage years to yearn to know more and feel a deeper connection with my Guyanese side.
I think the fact that interracial relationships are becoming more common is definitely a good thing. Definitely in my Grandparents generation interracial relationships were very uncommon, they themselves were both fully Guyanese and met each other in Guyana before migrating to the UK. To be aware that when my parents got together they were likely to be more of a minority than a majority in terms of couplings is somehow strange to think as in today’s society the concept of being partnered with someone of a different culture or ethnicity is far from being a minority. Today I think there is a greater understanding of the benefits of growing up and being part of two cultures, whereas before it might be frowned upon as going against your own culture and mixing with the wrong type of person, now those barriers of racial and cultural integration hardly exist.
I think it is very possible that people’s culture affects the way they choose their partner. I think we gravitate to people who are similar to us or feel that we can connect to those who might have had similar experiences or upbringings to them. I think this is also evident in the way in which we choose our friends and people we associate with, I certainly feel that with my mixed-race friends I am able to connect with them about the concept of growing up around two cultures and having exposure to cultures that are contrasting to one another. I certainly find that with my boyfriend, there are some aspects of his Nigerian culture that are similar to my Guyanese culture and that often makes me happy in a sense that we have had common experiences and can relate to one another. However, I think it is important to recognise that culture is only one factor of why you might choose a partner or friends, and in fact the ability to share culture and connect with people could come in a form of teaching or learning from culture, hence why I think interracial couples are so important as this sharing and learning of one another culture would happen.
The positive experiences I have had being mixed-race are being able to feel like I can, and I am included in different cultures. I think this is a very special thing as you have the ability to construct and develop yourself with the influence of more than one culture. Being mixed-race I think has allowed me to feel comfortable and accepted in many situations. I also feel that being mixed-race has encouraged me to be very eager to want to learn about a variety of cultures, I often find myself really willing to want to learn about where my friends are from, their family history and what they identify as.
The challenges I have experienced around my mixed identity have had racial undertones. I have been in situations where a racial slur or joke has been made, and initially people think they aren’t offending me personally as I’m mixed-race, I’m neither one nor the other so I can’t be offended. However, I feel the need and rightly will defend or challenge what has been said, and only then do people realise that I can personally be offended.
I have also been in a situation were I feel like a minority in terms of my colour, in a situation where the people around me are all one colour and I am the only brown person I feel like people look at me as being the only ‘exotic one’ or the one with ‘really amazing curly hair’ and although this specifically doesn’t’ offend me I do feel marginalised and feel like my differences are standing out.
I have connected to each of my cultures mostly through communication and listening to stories and events told by my family about their experiences. The way my Grandma tells a story there always seems to be an extra detail that she forgot to mention the previous time, so I do continue to learn. Ideally I would want to experience some of these stories first-hand by going to Guyana and that is what I plan to do. When I am around extended family I notice the differences between my two cultures from the type of music played to the food, I would never find ‘roti and pumpkin’ in my Mums Mum’s house but I certainly would in my Dad’s Mum. Growing up I did find that my Dad would share stories about his culture, but I did ask a lot of the time and I did always want to know more, and I would wonder, and sometimes get annoyed about why he seemed detached from his culture. I think as a child who is second generation, I have a more inquisitive and positive standpoint, as my Dad did have, as his childhood very different to mine and to get to where he is now was not as easy as it might be for me and partly I think this is associated with his culture or what he remembers in his childhood. Whereas I have grown up with a mixing of culture and the opportunity to explore Guyanese culture from a different angle, not having the same experiences he did.
The outlook on my mixed-race ethnicity has definitely changed from a child compared to an adult. As a child I noticed that I looked different from both White and Black people, I had hair that was different to my White and Black friends. I had two different types of family gatherings and I had two very different meals cooked when I went to either of my Grandparents houses however I don’t think I fully understood what this meant, I just assumed that was how things were and that was normal. Not until my teenage years did I start to process what being mixed-race meant to me personally, and I started to want to know more about being Guyanese and would begin to ask more questions to my Dad and my Grandparents about their upbringings. I now feel like I have a better understanding of what constitutes making me who I am.
If I was to be born again, I would want to return as I am, as myself as I cherish the fact I am mixed-race and am proud to be half English and half Guyanese, without the influence of both of these cultures I wouldn’t be the person I am today.