French | Sri Lankan
I identify as a mixed-race woman of colour; Sri Lankan and French Caucasian dual heritage. Culturally, I identify as British, Sri Lankan and French. My Mum is from France, and my Dad is from Sri Lanka. They met in London. My Mum was renting a flat with her friends, and my Dad was helping one of his friends manage that flat.
I wouldn't say it was overt discrimination, but as we know, discrimination and other-ing have many contexts, subtexts, tones and layers. On my Sri Lankan side, it was the comments from the Aunties to ‘not go outside without a sunshade, or you'll get dark!’, and ‘isn't she pretty, she's so fair!’. The aspiration to be 'Fair & Lovely' are as entrenched as other aspects of a model minority's association with the 'Global North's' definitions of physical desirability, and ensuing success and safety relating to Whiteness.
On my French Caucasian side, it was the prickling awareness that my Grandparents and other family members so rarely socialise with people of colour, other than with my Father and I. He and I will still walk through my Grandmothers' French village and be stared at like oddities, and my White side of the family's default response will be: ‘it's because you're so good looking’. Therein lies the other side of the coin of fetishisation, this time with the exoticism of melanation.
There has been, for a long time, a deafening silence and 'colour-blind' dismissal on both sides of my family. There was an inherent refusal to acknowledge or engage in a discussion about any lived experiences of racism, much less our realities as racially and culturally mixed children. This has slowly started to change, but I don't think it was until 2020 that my parents, and other family members in their own mixed nucleus, spoke about my generation, their children, as being mixed-race.
I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, at 31 years of age. Turns out, women of colour are often diagnosed much later in life. This is in huge part because of societal expectation and conditioning through that intersectional lens of race and gender; as well as cultural taboos around neurodivergence and mental health in our minoritised communities.
I've been learning a lot about myself, why my brain works the way it does, as well as looking into the intersectional reasons for that lack of diagnosis, and understanding and support, for women of colour. Talking about how I do things, with other people with ADHD (and realising it's not just me!) has been helping a lot. Learning that there are very real tools and systems and habits that can help, has been really liberating. Dealing with anxiety and depression as symptoms of that diagnosis, rather than root issues, has also felt like I can take a deep breath and find my footing more steadily.
The last time I cried was when watching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Some of those tears were in part due to the beautiful way grief was explored and acknowledged regarding Chadwick Boseman/T'Challa's passing. The majority of them were in frustrated despair that we were witnessing two historically oppressed indigenous communities (no matter how fictional) be pitted against one another. And helplessly feeling like I was watching history repeat itself. Watching them try to destroy one another in the name of protecting themselves, and their highly attractive natural resources, from the hands of colonising White supremacy. It's the tale as old as time: diverse child in a predominantly White environment straightened and sometimes bleached very thick dark curly hair; wished for a nose job to fix that peninsular 'ethnic nose'; and lamented that tenacious South Asian facial and body hair. She encouraged Anglo- and Franco- phonic nicknames to be made out of her 'exotic' first name. She utilised her severed alphabet-long Sri Lankan name to serve as a more tolerable titular. She heartbreakingly didn't pursue the earlier possibility of learning either of Sri Lanka's languages. And she often hid behind her European cultural bilingualism to avoid questions about her mixed-race background, in an attempt to try to fit in.
Eve L. Ewing is one of my role models. She's a brilliant poet, writer, educator, cultural organiser, scholar, baker... the list goes on. I deeply admire her aptitude to so eloquently and so lovingly infuse her work with intention and care; all whilst making it relatable, and grounded in community. One of my favourite poems of hers is called 'I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store'. Check it out. And if you don't know who Emmett Till is, learning about the tragedy of his death will touch you all the more once you read her words.
Language around race has and (hopefully) continues to evolve with the socially progressive times. I have friends who understandably dislike the term 'mixed-race', for example, and prefer 'multiracial' or 'dual-heritage'. I strongly believe in the good habit of asking people how they identify, in all different aspects of identity; and respecting their preferences, without causing harm to others. This is especially true to me when any individual from any kind of minoritised community wishes to reclaim a term that has a painful past. Reclaiming the term 'mulatto', for example, is someone's right, though not my preferred identifier of choice. Lest we forget, the term 'half-caste' was still actively being used in the U.K.'s national census as late as 2001. The evolution of language is constant, as is our weighted association to it.
Ethnically ambiguous' is a term that has recently been used to describe me, and I had quite a visceral reaction to it. I liken it to being called 'ethnically confusing'. Why does 'ethnically ambiguous' trigger me? It echoes the same parts of me that are hurt and other-ed by the questions: ‘what are you?’ and ‘No, but where are you *really* from?’. Why does one need to know where I am from? Why is there a need to put me in a box? To label me for their satisfaction? To assuage the problematic curiosity of placing me within a comfortable racial frame of reference? What is *even* a comfortable racial frame of reference??
For me personally, 'ethnically ambiguous' reinforces all of these binaries, frames and structures. It attempts to blur all of the narrow lines of the ever-evolving census boxes from those Used To Have Colonies Nations, but it feels like a careless catch-all for the 'unknown'. 'Enter undefinable non-White [here]'.
I don't know if I was proud to be mixed-race when I was growing up. It wasn't a term we were raised with. Conversations about race, the makeup of our racially multicultural family, and racism in general just weren't had at home. I think I was just aware that I was different, and I was grateful for all the different cultures and places that made me 'me'. But I certainly didn't have the language or developed understanding of myself, and how I fit/didn't fit in.
Today I feel fiercely proud of all that makes me who I am. I feel like there are slowly, but surely, more conversations being had about the plurality of mixed-race realities and widely varied lived experiences, especially in the UK. This incredible project is proof of that. I'm very mindful that my children will be mixed in their own way, with different cultural and racial backgrounds than my own. I want to ensure my partner and I have those conversations with our children from an early age, and curate a safe space for them to explore and define their own mixed-race identities.
I am separated from many members of my family, from both sides. We're spread out across continents, over many different countries and separated by many bodies of water. It has been painful to live so far away and apart from them. And at the same time, it has always been a part of my family dynamics, so it's all that I've ever known. The opportunity to travel to visit them has always been a blessing and a privilege. Being grateful to see them and to spend time with them has balanced the bittersweet feeling of not really belonging when visiting those countries; of not fitting in culturally or physically.
As I plan to move my life away from the UK. and to the US, I've made peace with the fact that I will be far away from my close family members. But I'm also looking forward to creating my own home and family over there, and for the next generation to still be connected despite the distance. I'm hoping my own mixed children will too be able to visit and be visited by their grandparents, aunts, uncles and future cousins. I hope they will also be able to find the beauty, complexity and connections in the plurality of their mixed backgrounds, cultures and selves.