English | Jamaican
My Mum is White English and my Dad was born in England to Jamaican parents. They met at work, they both worked for Newham social services and continued to do so for almost 30 years, until my Mum retired in 2019. I never really questioned it at the time, it seemed completely normal to me that they should work together but upon reflection it takes a really stable relationship and probably a lot of hard work to not feel suffocated by being around each other constantly. They are a true inspiration.
Unsurprisingly, as a chef, food and cuisine play a huge part in my life and it is a great representation of how my parents combined cultures. The great British institution that is the Sunday Roast would often feature rice and peas or jerk chicken alongside the usual roast potatoes and gravy. Interestingly, as my Dad can't cook to save his life, it fell to my Mum to carry on the traditional Jamaican cuisine in our family after Granny (Dad's Mum) died. Through recipes that she picked up from my Granny or from some of the West Indian foster carers she worked with Mum is now a highly proficient Jamaican cook. In fact, I'd put her Stamp and Go up against anyone's (except mine of course).
I think that my parents were keen for me not to be defined by my race, and the cultural elements that come with it, but instead to be shaped by it. My Dad, being first generation Black British, but of Jamaican descent was a great example of this. He loves Trojan Records and gave my brother and I an education in 'Toots & the Maytals' and 'Desmond Dekker' and all the classics. It was clearly important to him that we understood our heritage. But he himself is just as likely to listen to opera or classical music. His tastes aren't defined purely by his culture.
When my parents got together I think my Dad's Mum made life very hard for my Mother. She had a very traditional West Indian outlook and was in no way ready to accept Dad being in an interracial relationship. I'm sure this is a narrative that you hear from a lot of the people you talk to. But, in showing an interest in the culture and in being a loving partner to my Dad and devoted Mother to my brother and I, my Mum was able to completely win over my Grandma (Granny to me). She became a daughter to my Mum and I would hope that that changed my Granny's attitude to interracial couples.
I'd like to think that things are easier these days. In many ways I think it is. The overt racism that interracial couples would have dealt with in decades gone by, such that they don't feel safe simply being seen with one another in public, has to my mind largely gone. Of course I am biased by living in London, a place where so many ethnicities coexist in relative harmony. I'm not sure this would necessarily be the case in a far-flung rural part of England where there may only be a handful of people of an ethnic minority, but it is at least a sign of progress being made.
Where the attitudes to interracial couples in public may have improved I think the pressures on interracial couples within families persists. I have had my own experiences of having been treated in a racist fashion by some members of a Vietnamese ex-girlfriend’s family. That was incredibly hard to process having been bought up in an interracial home myself. But I reasoned that if my Mother had to toil for acceptance and change an opinion then I should do the same too. I was determined that my race should not be a factor in my relationship.
We should start making a change by having people in the western world take ownership of their colonial past, rather than reminisce about the glory of the empire. This includes acknowledging all of the ways, of which there are many, in which the West African slave trade and the British Empire still effect our society today. I also think that we need to understand the economics of racial politics. The slave trade was a capitalist endeavour and the same capitalist greed that powered one of the most barbaric regimes in modern history still exists today. Wealthy multinational clothing companies, whose board members and CEOs are always White, profit off the back of impoverished ethnic minorities working in inhumane working conditions. This is a form of racism. They do so in the knowledge that they would never expect people in majority White countries to accept the same wages or conditions.
I went to a primary school in Walthamstow where there were several children from mixed Black Caribbean and British backgrounds and almost by definition we were the cool kids. That was a very powerful and uplifting experience as a child. I identified as 'mixed-race' and I couldn't comprehend if I identified myself as 'Black'. For me that was only part of my identity.
As I have grown older (and hopefully wiser) I would say that although I still agree with this mindset my thoughts on it have become a bit more nuanced. Secondary school had a large effect on this. I went from studying at a school that reflected the diverse cultural backgrounds of the local area in which I had always lived to going to a Grammar school in Redbridge, which did not. The association that I had felt with a core group of friends of the same background suddenly disappeared. At an age where everything becomes about pigeonholing and compartmentalising groups of people (the ‘nerds’, the ‘cool kids’ etc.) I perhaps felt like I didn't easily fit into any one group.
I think a lot of mixed-race people feel like at certain points in their life they are encouraged to 'pick a side', to identify with one of their cultures over another. I certainly felt like this at secondary school and it took me a little while to assert my power as a unique individual.
I have only visited Jamaica once, for my Auntie's wedding when I was a teenager. I would love to go back and understand the culture more, to really experience it. For now, life gets in the way, but who knows?
Within my industry I would say that Black chefs are few and far between and even then it is only ever for cooking traditional French fine dining. I would love to see a Black Caribbean chef achieve success and notoriety cooking food that honours their heritage, because I think it is one of the most undervalued cuisines in the world. But I’m not sure that is my story to tell.
If I had the opportunity to be reborn I'd like to return as myself, I don't want for a great deal more and I actually think I'm pretty decent. But I'd like to come back as the finished article, knowing all that I know now about how the world works, what's important to me etc. Without having to suffer through the chronic insecurities that everyone experiences when they grow up, safe in the knowledge that it's all going to be alright in the end.
Being a chef has been quite difficult in the pandemic. The idea of the better part of a year off work may, at one time, have seemed like some kind of dream to me. But given the fact that the vast majority of that time has been spent confined to my flat it has been a tough process to negotiate. During both lockdowns, I’ve found it quite difficult to maintain any motivation and drive, which is very unusual for me given that being a chef requires a good deal of both of these attributes. In spite of the fact that I have tried to be as active as possible