Welsh | Filipino
I am from Epsom, which some people consider to be Greater London, but I definitely don’t. My parents are nurses, and I grew up in a loving home with an awesome twin sister. I’m a musician and a photographer and I work in education for a local authority. I’ve lived in London for the last 15 years or so. My Dad was an only child but my Mum has 3 brothers and 3 sisters, most of whom also live in the UK now. So despite growing up in the UK exclusively, I've always felt very close to the Filipino side of my family. My Mum is from Batangas in the Philippines, a few hours south of the capital Manilla. My Dad is from Carmarthenshire in West Wales. My Mum moved to the UK in the 1970s when the NHS were recruiting foreign nurses to make up the shortfall in front line staff at the time. She chose to go to St David’s in Wales, because she’s Catholic and thought going somewhere named after a saint would bode well for her. They met working at a hospital near there.
Surrey is not a very diverse place, and the schools I went to were not very ethnically diverse, so I always felt different as long as I can remember. I have early memories of having racial slurs shouted at me by kids in the street, others ask if I am Chinese. It seemed to frustrate some people that they could not place my ethnicity off the bat. I have friends from all sorts of cultural backgrounds, but predominantly the circles that I move in are populated by White, middle-ish class people. While I am very proud of my racial heritage, culturally I am quite ‘White’. A person’s ethnic or cultural background has no bearing on whether I would date them or not. But I guess due to the fact that most of the people I socialise with are White, so are most of the people who I have dated.
To some extent, it feels like it is more ‘hip’ to be mixed-race now. While I dislike the way that it has been fetishized, I’m glad that something that was almost a taboo when I was younger, is now considered aspirational by some people. I can't help but think that some people see me as some sort of manic pixie dream person sometimes though, but I guess that's better than being derided. The experience of mixed-race people must vary quite widely depending on where they live, but the anonymity that living in (arguably) the most cosmopolitan city in the world is something that I enjoy. My personal experience is that attitudes have improved towards people with mixed racial heritage in recent years, which is obviously great. And projects like yours, which celebrate and highlight diversity, are so powerful and healthy, and I'm super excited to be involved.
I’ve experienced racism from people of all races. A lot of people struggle to place my ethnicity, and often when I’m abroad, almost anywhere I go, people assume that’s where I am from. The most profound, negative experience that has always stuck with me, happened when I was about 13, and I was talking with one of the other non-White kids in my year at school. I was trying to chum up I guess. We started talking about our respective backgrounds, and when I told him my parents were different ethnicities, he told me I was ‘messed up’. I’d always felt more ‘Brown’ than ‘White’, but in that moment, I suddenly felt like maybe I didn’t fit in anywhere.
It’s hard to say if my background has had any effect on my relationship with others, not having anything to compare to. But it must have, surely. There are occasions, where I suspect people have discriminated against me because of my ethnicity, but prejudice is a complex thing so I’m not sure I could mention a specific example of the effect it has had.
If I had the opportunity to be reincarnated I would want to come back with the same Welsh Filipino mix, I love my weird and diverse family. However if you’d asked me that before my 18th birthday I probably would have said that I wish I’d been born White.