English | Sri Lankan
I’m a queer biracial woman, and I probably have ADHD as well.
My Dad is Sri Lankan; half Tamil and half Sinhalese. He was born in England shortly after his parents arrived in the UK. My parents met through a mutual friend. My Dad’s parents met on the boat on the way here!
My parents have shared so many stories about what it’s been like for them as a mixed-race couple. As a young couple in the late 80s/early 90s they used to get stopped in their car on a Saturday night when they went out. The police would assume my Dad had stolen the car. My Dad endured humiliating and pointless searches. When these revealed the car was in fact his, the White policemen would leer through the windows at my Mum and ask why she was in a car with my Dad, of course using racial slurs. This happened every week for a number of years.
Once my parents had me, they and I have so many memories of confusion and hostility from people. My Mum used to take me to the park and women would ask her what it was like nannying me; they’d also assume I was a lot older than I was (I was born with lots of hair, like a lot of South Asian babies are) and would scold my Mum about my perceived underdevelopment for my age. People never understood my identity when I was with one of my parents; only when we were out as a three did we make sense to others.
Early in their relationship my Dad’s family especially were very suspicious of my Mum, for class as well as as cultural reasons. Although my parents have made a huge effort to integrate into each other’s families there has always been a cultural divide between my two sets of extended family. To be honest, I assumed that was an inevitability growing up.
Especially because my Dad was born here, I am definitely more British than Sri Lankan culturally. His parents, concerned with assimilating, didn’t pass on the Tamil and Sinhala languages to their children, so my Dad couldn’t pass those onto me. My parents made an effort to ensure I was connected to my Sri Lankan heritage. I used to go to Sri Lankan New Year celebrations and Buddhist Dane events with my Grandparents as a child. But I have only been to Sri Lanka once.
I’d love to connect more with my cultural heritage but balancing this with my queer identity feels really hard. It feels like returning to Sri Lanka or connecting with extended family would mean having to come out in a very hostile environment. Queerness is still punishable by death in Sri Lanka and this knowledge makes me feel further still from being accepted by this side of my heritage. At the same time I know that homophobia was a colonial imposition and I’d love to connect with queer communities in Sri Lanka.
We always talked about race growing up, and I was always proud of being mixed. I feel like my identity has made me less judgmental of others and more aware that our faces hide so many stories about our cultural inheritance. I’ve found explaining my mixedness harder as I’ve got older; as a child, people at school had seen or met my parents and this gave my skin colour and features context. Now as a young adult, I’m hyper aware that most people I meet have no idea what my race is and are probably leaping to all sorts of conclusions based on what they can see. Because I am light-skinned, I am sometimes assumed to be White. And while this means I benefit from assumed-White privilege in some spaces, it can be really confusing to be viewed as something so different from who I actually am.
I’ve often felt very isolated when in groups of all White people who I don’t know. This happens quite a lot at friends’ birthdays etc, when you go along and realise you’re that person’s only friend of colour.
In big groups of White people I’ve tended to find they assume that I’m White as well and it’s quite awkward when they realise I’m not. It’s amazing what people say when they think there are only other White people around. It’s helped me to be really upfront about who I am from the get-go; it makes me feel more empowered and less like power over identity is in the hands of others.
Especially in the past couple of years, I’ve realised I’m a person with many mixed or ‘split’ identities. Heritage-wise, not only am I half Sri Lankan, but my Dad’s parents come from two different (and historically opposing) ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, and they have different religions as well. I’m also bisexual, and while being bi is of course an identity of its own, you’re often made to feel like you’re ‘half gay, half straight’. My queerness is a big part of who I am and I definitely think I’ve leaned into the queer community as a response to feeling never fully part of a cultural community growing up.
These experiences have led me to feel pulled in different directions, never feeling like I truly belong in one space. I’ve tried to come to terms with this feeling by reminding myself that I’m not actually split down the middle at all, my identities don’t have to be halved or in opposition to each other. I’m not half of something, I contain many wholes that make up my identity. I’m also able to make connections with so many people in many different spaces, and I’m grateful for that.
I tell others it doesn’t matter what other people think you are: it’s enough to know who you are, and you can share that information with the people closest to you. The world expects us to fit into very narrow categories that don’t ring true for us, and it’s okay to push back against that and show the full diversity of who you are to the world.
I’ve not consciously hidden any part of my mixed-race identity. In my particular experience I’m more likely to feel erased so I end up pushing who I am more. I do find that different parts of my identity are highlighted depending on the space I’m in, though I don’t do it consciously.
I’m often called ethnically ambiguous, and people have also referred to my identity as ‘the best of both worlds’ because I look ‘exotic’ without being ‘too dark’. Colourism is a huge thing throughout our society, including in South Asian cultures, and I’m very aware that being light-skinned is seen as an advantage by some for all the wrong reasons. Comments like these make me feel very exposed and objectified; my mixedness isn’t an accessory, it’s integral to who I am.
I try to do small things to stay connected to Sri Lankan culture. I’ve started reading more Sri Lankan novels, learning more about my history, and I often wear Buddhist pirit strings that my Seeya (Grandfather) passes on to me from the monks in his circle.
I did History at university but was never able to learn about the history of colonisation that has directly led to my existence. In response I got involved in decolonial and anti-racist student activism. I’ve followed that path in my career and mainly do decolonisation work in higher education today. My sector is still overwhelmingly White, and it’s also extremely culturally White. I see the effect this has on staff and students of colour and am constantly aware of how my work comes incredibly, uncomfortably close to my loved experience. Because of my work I am very clear about my identity and a lot of mixed people I’ve interacted with have talked to me about how rare and valuable representation is. I feel like one of the biggest struggles of being mixed is that it’s really rare to find someone who actually has the same ethnicity as you, but I have found such kinship with mixed friends and like to think we form a community of our own.