Welsh/Trinidadian | Scottish/Ghanaian
I identify as mixed heritage & agnostic. My Mother is half Trinidadian and half Welsh. My Father is half Ghanaian half Scottish. So I have two mixed-race parents, which comes with its own set of problems and benefits. They met in London when they were around 17. My Mother was born in London, my Father came to London when he was 13 from Ghana. There wasn’t any combining needed to be honest, they were both ‘Londoners’ and had had similar lives growing up London. The British cultures were not that prevalent in our daily lives (apart from the fact we lived within it!). My Father wasn’t massively present, so the Ghanaian culture wasn’t integrated into my everyday life. My Trinidadian culture was the main culture woven into the surrounding culture of England.
My view is, it’s no one’s business who you love, except the people involved in the relationship. Yet I see that people seem to believe that with the rise of interracial relationships and mixed-race children that this is an indication that racism in the UK is going to naturally decrease. In my opinion this is not so, and the idea of the normative standard is still prevalent and has no signs of going anywhere soon.
I have to be with someone who understands the structural racism that is present in our country. Otherwise there can be no true connection. My cultures don’t wholly determine who I fall in love with and who I decide who to be with. That feels restrictive and archaic. An understanding and if needed, a willingness to learn is attractive.
Being of mixed heritage has given me a view/insight to the problems that exist within this nation. Which I feel people of one or the other monoracial groups can fail to see or are unable to see because their nurture has focused their beliefs towards a certain direction and feel. Another positive experience has been that I feel I can dabble in many cultural experiences without fear of rejection.
I have had negative experiences due to my ethnic backgrounds; I live in England. This has generally come in the form of being asked (normally not explicitly) to ‘join a side’ which is ridiculous. There are no sides, I imagine many people would disagree with this sentiment, but this is what I believe. I have also experienced too many times to count, certain people believing that I must be a drug dealer, or some type of thug. In other instances, some strained experiences of not being ‘enough’ of each culture. Not Black enough or White enough. My family brought me up to be thick skinned and these comments/conversations generally rolled off like water off a duck’s back.
I am enveloped by my British culture as I live and work in London, so this includes everything that comes with that. My Welsh and Scottish cultures are underutilised if I’m honest. My Ghanaian culture I have recently been taking an in-depth interest in. Sourcing fabrics for clothing and furniture. I am planning on going to Ghana in 2021 to hopefully develop some working relationships and to understand more about where I come from. My Trinidad culture is present in my everyday life. From the language/slang I use, to the music I listen to and the food I cook/eat. I have a great connection to Trinidad with my family there and will continue to visit and integrate it into my life.
I have been to Trinidad many times as a child and as an adult I will be attending a family reunion this Christmas 2020. It will be my first time there at that time of year. I have been to Scotland and Wales. Wales several times and with my Grandmother to find out about her heritage. In regard to Scotland, I’ve been several times but not in any capacity to discover my culture there.
I believe my outlook on my identity has changed as I’ve grown. I now have a more of an understanding of what it is to be from a mixed heritage family living in the UK compared to when I was a child. As a child I understood I was not like the majority but didn’t feel uncomfortable about it. This I believe was down to the fact that both my parents and the majority of my immediate family look like me (most of us are of a mixed heritage). This meant at home I didn’t have to choose which culture/parent to associate with. Now I see that my mixed heritage can be a burden as I am judged before I am known. I know my opinion will change as I get older. As the landscape is changing and all is ever changing.
I’m self-employed, so my workplace has been created by myself. My industry is that of commercial casting and event staffing is one that originally was not inclusive. It is no secret that modelling and castings in the past has tried to perpetuate a stereotype of what beauty is and what is expected as acceptable. The agency I run promotes diverse and inclusive representation within the consumer-able media space. I came to do this after experiences and seeing how insidious this agenda was with the industry. Within staffing there are less barriers of inclusion, but it is there. We work in the same vein of where possible to give a balanced representation of staff and performers.
If I had the opportunity to be reborn I would return exactly the same as I am now. I feel blessed that I wake up each day to this unknown and non-promised experience called life. I am grateful that I can experience it. No matter the experience. Why concentrate on life after death when you have a life now?