Authorrrising Zine

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A UT H O R R I S I N G issue 01

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Vol. One Autumn 2015 If you would like to reference or reproduce any content from Authorrising please contact the contributors listed or us first. editor@authorrising.com facebook/authorrisingzine

Editor: Gabriela Chase

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Authorr i s i n g aims to interview people who identify as mixed race, people who don’t (politically) identify as mixed race and those who bring into question the definition of mixed race identity entirley.

There is no right or wrong written here, political identity is principally whatever the creator benifits the most from perpetuating.

AUTHORRISING is principally a research project because nothing else does it for me. All entries do not align in opinion, all are varied, conflicted and continous. This is the point We ask for an open mind, when reading- a mind ready to DECOLONISE .

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Intro to vocabulary & subject 5 Yasmine

6-11

Noah

12-18

Stacey

20-27

Cecil

28-33

Sunshine

34-39

Andy

40-45

BUT HE’S WHITE!!! 46-47 Jene

48-51

Eve

52-57

Grace

58-61

DE-colonise

62-63

Andreas

64-69

Anni

70-75

Maari

76-79

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‘wanting to fit into a mould that just won’t flex’ The subject of will try to unveil the socio-political complicities of people who DO AND DON’T identify as mixed raced. The questions will help to discuss the feelings and understandings subjected by mixed race people who try to assimilate into cultures that do/don’t reflect/accept their combined culture(s).

In theory, the questions will dissect the parameters of the mixed race identity. Questioning what the mixed race identity even is, to whether mixed race people should even try to adhere to political racial identities.

Some defintions, just incase:..

MONO-RACIALS

{Mono-racials are the majority. Mono-racials are the political electives that mixed raced peoples have to always choose between to exist formal-

ly in society}

MICRO-AGGRESIONS {Micro-aggressions are the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights,snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, which communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership}

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See Yasmine’s Zine - VaginiaDentata: http://shop.dittopress.co.uk/products/vagina-dentata-yasmin-akim

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Do

you feel that, with racial essentialism, people are pressured,

whether they’re

White, Black, Asian, to be a certain way because of their racial identity?

Do you feel mixed raced people suffer that as well?

DEFINITELY! PEOPLE ASSUME THINGS FROM YOU, THEY ACT OUT, WE CAN SAY THE SAME ABOUT GENDER POLITICS, YOU’RE TAUGHT HOW TO ACT BECAUSE OF SOCIETY- TYRANNISED EVEN, AND ITS OBVIOUSLY SERIOUSLY BAD, YOU END UP NOT BEING ABLE TO FIND YOURSELF WITHIN THIS SOCIETY BECAUSE OF ALL THIS ‘ESSENTIALISM’. YOU’RE ENCOURAGED TO GET LOST IN THE PARADIGM - SO HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO BE SEEN OR TO ACT IN THIS WAY? HOW DOES A MIXED RACE PERSON, HOW DOES A WHITE PERSON, A BLACK PERSON ACT ACCORDINGLY TO THIS SITUATION? IT ISN’T LIBERATING, ITS ALL STILL SO VERY RESTRICTIVE.

Ya s m i n e A k i m

08 WHERE DO YOU CONSIDER HOME? I see myself as home. If my mind is in sync I am at ease. I wouldn’t really label myself as any heritage, I just see myself as a person within the world, I am British, but I call myself home.

WHAT IS IT THAT YOU IDENTIFY AS? I identify as Yasmin. A woman. Whether I have masculine or feminine traits, I’m not a ‘girly girl’, a ‘mixed raced girl’. I KNOW WHAT I AM FORMALLY; I just like to express myself as a ‘person’.

WHEN WAS IT DECIDED FOR YOU THAT YOU NEEDED TO CONCLUDE UPON YOUR IDENTITY? When I was 10, my Dad would have a lot of friends over at night. I’d be at a completely different wave­length to them but we’d still have some really revealing conversations. SO, THERE WAS THIS GUY CALLED PEPE, HE WAS LIKE: “ARE YOU WHITE OR ARE YOU BLACK?” AND I FELT LIKE, PEPE YOU CAN’T SAY THAT TO ME, I AM MYSELF, I’M NOT WHITE OR BLACK, I’M BOTH, THEY’RE BOTH A PART OF MY HERITAGE. I CAN’T BE ONE OR THE OTHER”. THAT’S A SOCIAL NORM! (of course I didn’t talk like this, I was 10), BUT I WAS EXPRESSING THAT PART OF MY EXISTENCE- I’M NOT WHITE NOR AM I BLACK! ITS CONFUSING AND YOU’RE MAKING IT EVEN WORSE FOR ME, BY PUTTING THIS LABEL ON ME! Pepe says: “I don’t agree with you. You’re either white or you are black!”

E v e r s i n c e t h e n I ’ v e t h o u g h t , t h a t ’ s w h a t s o c i e t y ’ s l i ke . T h e y h a v e , ( n e e d ) t o s i t w i t h i n a b o x , I’ve been thinking about it seriously and when you’re in the arts,

if you’re only surrounded by White and middle classed people, which is a generalisation,(that is completely true!); I’m seen as a white person within that. It sounds extreme, but its true. People see you as white, but know that you’re not. They’re not accepting you as you are- they put you in a bracket. You’re a white acting mixed raced person, that’s what it’s like. I had to think like that because there was just no other option.

MOST FREQUENT MICRO-AGGRESSION*/INSULT EXPERIENCED? I

suppose

tually.

I

‘catcalling’. Mixed

raced people get confronted on the street quite a lot ac-

know this happens to every man and woman, white, black etc, but mixed arced

woman for some reason it’s just more! women are perceived as

‘strong

We

are fetishized.

Objectified. I

feel black

and that no one wants to fuck with them’.

are inclined to give them a really hard time.

So

And Black men (black woman) are seemed to again, by Black men, you’re in

mixed race

be able to put themselves in the category, generalising

FUCK WITH YOU!

I’ve grown with this, it Black men do this to me, because they want to make themselves feel superior, because they’ve been shunned from society, so they are trying to put other people, (Black, mixed women) down to liberate themselves, but it’s forced liberation in itself. Because it’s constructed. And I have to see it from this standpoint and if I react in an aggressive way, adding to the cycle of discrimination, and need to stop to liberate them and myself. It’s all that you can do. Because when someone shouts at you, “Oi sexy”, its really traumatizing that you have to see it for how it is. It a personal attack, but it’s also society. the same category again but they can still upsets me.

Why

do people do this, why do

09 Do you feel wholly accepted? Have mono-racials accommodated you as a mixed individual?

I suppose my friends love me for who I am. I’ve got friends who are mixed raced and I identify with them and we understand that it’s quite challenging and that sometimes you don’t really belong to a “social group”.

But as I said before, that’s a liberating thing. It was difficult when I was younger, I suppose I internalised racism in a sense because I wanted to be White, and that’s really hard to say out loud, when you’re young you’re pushed to think that being Black isn’t beautiful.

ALTHOUGH I SEE MYSELF AS A PERSON, NOT SIMPLY BLACK AND WHITE, THAT WAS WHAT I WAS TAUGHT, THAT BEING WHITE WAS THE BEST AND BLACK ISN’T.

Do you mind the mixed raced definition?

If not, what is your solution to changing it in your everyday conversations?

I suppose I had to live with the emotion and make my own mind up, and I’m happy that I have.

Do you think by going through your particular experience, you’re idea of racial consciousness quite literally is going to be your whole life? That it isn’t a fixed mindset, it’s going to be your whole life?!

I

feel

think in

like,

that

the

times

suburbs

Holland Park, ple

Its will

from

all

something judge

I

when

me

then it

to

was

different

I

will

but,

changing,

are

went

to a

a

of

walks live

it’s

school

school

full

I

in

peo-

of

with

easier

life. and

it

when

live in London. I HAVE TO BE HOPEFUL AND REALISE THAT PEOPLE WILL SEE ME FOR WHO I AM, INSTEAD OF PUTTING ME INSIDE THE BRACKET OF A ‘MIXED RACED GIRL’.People will hopefully soon just see people not colour. That’s what I’m hopeful for. you

Well I suppose when someone calls you half­ caste, I’ll call them up for it, as it means ‘half­ -decent’ in latin. I don’t like to confront people but if people ask me: “How do I feel as a person?”, it’s kinda awkward. Its like, I’m mixed raced, I’m just me, being mixed race is just another category, and I just don’t like these restraints, I don’t want to be seen as anything, I want to be seen as a genuine person who cares, that’s all that matters.

Do you feel your voice is heard and accepted about your idea of your racial identity?

Y h , w i t h i n m y c i rc l e I ’ v e g o t a l o t o f wo r k t o d o . I ’ m a w r i t e r , I ’ m a p h o t o g ra p h e r a n d I s u p p o s e t h a t i s m y m e a n s o f ex p re s s i n g m y s e l f . I d e f i n i t e l y fe e l I a m a cce p t e d w i t h i n m y ow n c i rc l e , i t s j u s t t h a t I k n ow a n d fe e l i t s n o t e v e r y o n e o u t s i d e o f it.

DOES HAVING A MIXED IDENTITY ENCOMPASSES A VIEW/POSITION WITHIN SITUATIONS THAT A MONO-RACIAL PERSON COULDN’T THEMSELVES FLEX?

Its hard for me to discriminate against another person, when i know we’ve all been socially conditioned. We can’t in someway help but be racist! I feel I can’t be racist although I am still racist because of my social conditioning. Because of my background, my mixed raced background. I suppose if you’re not from two different cultures and it’s not physically viewable, it’s hard to relate to a mixed raced person.­it’s hard to be prejudice basically. I know that. It goes without saying.

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WHAT IS MIXED RACED TO YOU? Two different cultures. Definitely. Two different cultures, an understanding of two different walks of life from a personal level, because of family, and also the rejection of racism internalised­because “she” can’t really be raci s t a g a i n s t W h i t e o r B l a c k p e o p l e , i t s c o u n t e r ­r a c i s m , i t ’ s practically impossible. You have empathy when you’re mixed.

HAV E YO U E V E R R E J E C T E D A PA RT O F YO U R H E R I TAG E ?

When I

I didn’t feel or want any Black in And then I realised, well, why do I feel this way? May be its because of what I’m surrounded by, this racist hierarchy. And I kind of came to realise at a really young­ , like 6 years old, about this whole fucking world, but I liberated it, the world- my world within myself. I felt special for who I was. me

whats

was

so

a

child,

ever.

Ever been rejected when identifying yourself solely with one racial identity? If so, were you encouraged to disband mixed identity?

WELL I’VE NEVER CALLED MYSELF EITHER BLACK OR WHITE. ITS ACTUALLY THE ANTITHESIS, LIKE WITH PEPE, PEOPLE EXPECT YOU TO CONFORM TO ONE THING, THEY DON’T SEE A MIXED RACED PERSON, THEY SEE YOU AS ONE OR THE OTHER DUE TO SOCIAL STATUS. BECAUSE I’M NOT WELL SPOKEN I FEEL THAT THEY THINK I AM RUFF. THEY DON’T SEE ME AS PART OF A CULTURE- ACADEMIA IS WHITE ACTING AND WHITE MIXED RACED PERSONS SEEM TO BE SYNOMOUS WITH THAT PRIVELAGE, THAT THERE’S STILL THIS BIAS WITHIN THAT MIX.

WHAT PLATFORM IS MORE SIGNIFICANT TO IDENTIFY AS MIXED RACED: SOCIAL OR POLITICAL? I usually say women of colour when I’m talking as a activist because that is what I’m generally identified as. I don’t like to identify myself but on that kind of platform people only want to see you as a POC, especially when they ask: “why are you so angry?”. And that’s why I think I should identify as a women of colour in that situation.

I’m not mixed, I’m not Black, but I have colour.

I think that’s a more a neutral term. There’s no platform to incorporate being mixed with White, there’s just coloured and white. It just doesn’t exist and that’s sad. I wanna bend rules but I don’t wanna identify with anything if I’m completely honest about it.

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ARE YOU EVER SAD THAT YOU AREN’T WHITE? Your eyes aren’t that squinty.

TOO BAD THE ASIAN SIDE DETERMINED YOUR HEIGHT! CAN I STILL SAY “ORIENTAL,” OR IS THAT NOT A THING?

I mean, I don’t expect anyone to call me a Swedish American.

B U T I’ V E A LWAY S C A L L E D YO U A N “A S I A N P R I N C E S S” A N D I T N E V E R B OT H E R E D YO U B E F O R E !!!

REGRETTABLE THINGS OUR W H I T E

O

WHY HAVING AN ASIAN PERSON I N

“ l e s s

COULD YOU PASS THE FRIED RICE? HA HA HA

I read somewhere that hybrid people have better genes.

SURE, THE INTERNMENT OF JAPANESE AMERICANS WAS PRETTY BAD, BUT HINDSIGHT IS 20/20 AND WE WERE AT WAR.

WHAT’S THAT KOREAN DISH CALLED AGAIN — “BULDOGGY”?

Your dad had such a funny accent, remember?!

You’re lucky you got the Asian skin, it won’t age as fast.

Seriously, you just look like a kid to me.

You’re pretty tall! For an Asian, I mean.

I

t

d o e s n

’

t

m a t t e r

,

s o m e d a y

w e

w o n

’

t

h a v e

“

r a c e s

”

Thank you for bringing all that melanin into our family!

YOU KNOW I DON’T SEE YOU AS ASIAN.

BY NOAH CHO

a n y m o r e

.

13 W H A T ? !

You’re not like other Asians. You know, the real Asians.

Were you closing your eyes in that photo? I can never tell with you.

Of course I was surprised when your parents adopted a Korean, but I wasn’t unhappy about it.

YOU SHOULD BE GLAD YOU WERE RAISED IN A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY. Yo u s h o u l d b e g l a d y o u w e r e r a i s e d i n a c o u n t r y t h a t v a l u e s girls.

RELATIVES R

HAVE SAID TO US.

Y O U R FAMILY DOES NOT MAKE YOU

W h i t e ”

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READ

Noah Cho

‘s other articles on the mixed race experience: ‘How I learned to be undesirable’, ‘Half White, no privilege’ and ‘Other people’s skin: Why To kill a Mockingbird was taken off our english cirriculum’.

15 MOST FREQUENT MICRO-AGGRESSION* /INSULT EXPERIENCED? Since I’m East Asian presenting in terms of phenotype and appearance, I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing mostly East-Asian based microaggressions. As a young kid, I got the typical “ching chong” and “go back to your country” and “where are you from?” microaggressions that most monoracial East Asians would be quite familiar with. As a teen, it shifted into anatomy based things – specifically people asking if my dick reflected my white or Korean heritage, things like that. I heard that one really frequently. As an adult, the microaggressions are closer to the true microaggressionexperience.

I am a middle school English teacher, and people usually first ask me if I teach math when I tell them I’m a teacher. Once, a family was on a tour of the last school I worked at, and the sign on my door read “Mr. Cho/ English.” The father on the tour, a white man, paused

DOES HAVING A MIXED IDENTITY ENCOMPASS A VIEW/POSITION WITHIN SITUATIONS THAT A MONO-RACIAL PERSON COULDN’T THEMSELVES FLEX?

Oh, yes. I mentioned above about monoracial parents of specifically biracial children, like my own. I don’t think any monoracial person can parent a multiracial child and truly offer that child full understanding. As a teacher, I know that when I have students from both monoracial Asian or multiracial backgrounds that I’m far more equipped to understand their adolescent experience than my monoracial white coworkers.

HAVE YOU EVER REJECTED A PART OF YOUR HERITAGE?

Until I was in my mid to late 20s, I was pretty angry about the way Koreans had treated me.

I’m still pissed at it sometimes, but it was actually teaching that led me down the road to embracing that side of me again.

My first job was at a school that was like 65% Korean students, and many of them were actually FROM Korea on student visas. I felt a level of acceptance from them that I’d never experienced before.

Many of them wanted to teach me about the culture and seemed genuinely pleased that I was their teacher. This totally turned me around, to the point where I finally travelled back to Korea as adult. When I arrived in Seoul for the first time as an adult, it was electric. I felt like I was home; I almost cried, honestly. It’s been getting better and better since then.

DO YOU FEEL YOUR VOICE IS HEARD AND ACCEPTED ABOUT YOUR IDEA OF YOUR RACIAL IDENTITY? It’s heard in the places I need it to be heard. I am a facilitator for a national student diversity conference where I help run the multiracial affinity group, and our numbers grow exponentially every year.

My coworkers recognize my identity and how I feel about it; my partner – she hears my struggles and does her best with them. On social media I love engaging with other multiracial people and I’ve found a lot of solace there.

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Where do you consider home?

There are times where I no longer really know, actually. I was born on a Navy base in San Diego, California, moved to Orange County (Anaheim, specifically, near Disneyland), and lived there until about five years ago, when I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Orange County is where I spent the majority of my youth, but I don’t have memories associated with it that are rosy or warm, at least not anymore. Since college, I’ve not spent more than 3-4 years in any particular house, so home has been transient.

What is it that you identify as?

I identify as a multiracial person. I used to identify as hapa, which was a common word for a lot of East Asian/ White multiracials to identify as. As I’ve gotten older, though, I’ve stopped using that as an identifier; I feel it’s too appropriative of Native Hawaiian culture and was not a word that was originally intended to indicate my particular ethnic and racial identity.

17 When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

I’M NOT SURE THAT IT WAS EVER FIRMLY DECIDED FOR ME AS MUCH AS I’VE HAD TO DECIDED HOW TO NAVIGATE MY IDENTITY DEPENDING ON THE SITUATION. If it’s the case of things like college applications or educational testing, when I was in school (the 90s), there was no “multiracial” or “choose all that apply” option. It was either “other” or I’d just ignore the directions and fill in both white and Asian. I remember fighting with test administrators over this, frequently, during my youth. It’s tricky thinking about this question in terms of family; the Korean side of my family, my father’s side, never really saw me as Korean, and my mom’s side, the white side, never talked about race with me. My father died when I was 13, so I was quite cut off from my Koreanness, if that makes sense, for years until I made the personal decision to dig into that side of my identity more in my late 20s.

Have these experiences, cast by heritages you share, ever limited you? (That is, Academically, socially or mentally?)

YES, on a lot of different levels. I often felt like a failure at school because I wasn’t good at the subjects I was supposed to be good at – math, science – and instead was really into reading, writing, history, and film. I had shit math grades, really, and even though I loved the college I went to, I didn’t go to a prestige place like a lot of my high school friends did. As a result, I felt like there was something wrong with me, and some friends half jokingly chalked it up to the white side of me superseding the Korean side. My high school was a majority of Asian American students, and I definitely felt like I was less than in that world.

It wasn’t until I was in college and expanded my friend pool that I realized that I actually was a pretty good humanities student.

Mentally,

though, always feeling like an outsider has

been draining at times. diverse group

–

I’m

most comfortable around a

that is, one that is more than just one

or two racial groups.

I’m

When I’m

around a large group

When I’m Korean American group of people I ’ m VERY u n c o m f o r t a b l e , m o s t l y d u e t o t h e s h i t w a y Korean Americans treated me when I was growing up.

Around a multi-ethnic group of Asians, though, I’m fine. of white people

extremely uncomfortable.

around a specifically

18 It depends on the group. I think multiracial people have a far more nuanced view of race than monoracial white or East Asian people do in the United States. I don’t think biracial Asian/White people recognize their own privileges enough in terms of race in this country; they’re still far more privileged than Black and brown folks. And far too many people automatically think “half white” when we talk about multiraciality in this country when in fact there are so many Asian/Black multiracial people who have completely different experiences than me, and I can’t walk in their shoes.

WHAT PLATFORM IS MORE SIGNIFICANT TO IDENTIFY AS MIXED RACED: SO CIAL OR POLITICAL?

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE DIFFERENCE IN BEING MIXED RACE AND MONO-RACIAL?

I’m going to take the cop-out and say that identifying socially as multiracial is a political act in and of itself. The history of multiracial people in the United States is one of colonialism and oppression; how many multiracial people existed over the course of the existence of the United States due to rape and slavery? The existence of me, as a multiracial American, is relatively new. Anti-miscegenation laws existed in some states until the 70s and 80s. That I exist as a choice – as a symbol of choice rather than oppression – means that my existence and identity is political in and of itself. I THINK THAT’S SOMETHING A LOT OF MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY NON-BLACK AND NON-NATIVE MULTIRACIAL PEOPLE DON’T THINK ABOUT WHEN CLAIMING THEIR IDENTITIES..

The multiracial experience is one of layers and depth, of pain and promise.

We are specifically monoracial white people’s hope for some vaguely utopian, nonracist future; those of us that actually are multiracial know that this is bullshit and racist in and of itself. Because of the very nature of multiraciality it is impossible for the experience to be described in monolithic or easily categorized terms. Multiracial people are some kind of future, but we’re not the future monoracial white people seem to think we are.

COULD YOU ISOL ATE THE MIXED RACED EXPERIENCE INTO 3 GENERALISED CHARACTERISTICS- A UNIVERS A L M E N TA L FAC E T T HAT PEOPLES OF MIXED RACES COULD IDENTIFY?

19 WHAT EXPECTATIONS HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED BECAUSE OF YOUR RACIAL MAKE-UP IN: RELATIONSHIPS, FRIENDSHIPS AND PURSUED LIKES/DISLIKES? AND DID YOU FOLLOW SUITE? RELATIONSHIPS: To be honest, I felt pretty fucking ugly for most of my life. Though I reject the “emasculated” bullshit that most East Asian men fall back on, I have to admit that, aside from my own parents, I saw no interracial couples in the area I grew up in. Few people that were non-Asian ever expressed interest in me, and it was made clear to me through media messaging and the comments I received that it’d never happen. When I did have relationships with nonAsian women, I’d feel inadequate or convince myself I’d be left for a full white person. I self-destructed a lot of relationships this way.

FRIENDSHIPS: I definitely had a harder time trusting white people and Korean people than any other groups. I’m pretty extroverted, and I like meeting people and making new friends. But I always waited for, and usually received, some kind of racist comment from a white or Korean friend. That didn’t happen as much elsewhere.

EVER BEEN REJECTED WHEN IDENTIFYING YOURSELF SOLELY WITH ONE RACIAL IDENTITY? IF SO, WERE YOU ENCOURAGED TO DISBAND MIXED IDENTITY?

I’ve never been encouraged to disband my multiracial identity; on the contrary, most people that are monoracial in my racial identities would often tell me to fuck right off and that I’d never be accepted.

DO YOU FEEL WHOLLY ACCEPTED? HAVE MONO-RACIALS* ACCOMMODATED YOU AS A MIXED INDIVIDUAL? There is only one place that I ever feel truly and wholly accepted, and that is in a multiracial affinity group space. I’LL NEV-

ER FEEL TOTALLY ABLE TO FEEL UNDERSTOOD OR EMBRACED BY ANY MONORACIAL PEOPLE; THEY’D JUST NEVER UNDERSTAND. The closest I’ve come to feeling like a monoracial person understands anything about me is if they’re transracially adopted. Though the experiences are radically different, there are some aspects that overlap in ways I never expected.

WHICH SIDE OF YOUR HERITAGE DO YOU IDENTIFY WITH MOST? This is going to be an odd answer.

I’m very proudly Korean, even though Koreans, as I mentioned, have often treated me like shit.

But when I look at my own face in the mirror, I do not and have never seen a Korean staring back at me, and I present far too much like an East Asian to ever feel like I can connect with a white identity. The world will just never see me that way, even my white family, as loath as they are to discuss it. I supposed I most comfortably identify with others that are multiracial; it’s where I’ve found the most peace and solace. After that, it’s just broadly identifying as East Asian.

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Boadicea, 54yrs. (2013) above

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“As a black kid attending a predominantly white school there were often occasions when I would listen to my classmates proudly lay claim to their Scottish, Irish and English heritage while I would silently acknowledge my own. In many parts of my family on both sides you will find many men from Scotland, England and Ireland. […] The images in the series are an attempt to interpret and explore these relatives from both past and present that I know are out there. They are also a reflection on my own perceptions and preconceptions of “Whiteness”. […] Upon viewing my physical features I am automatically assigned a racial identity by whoever is looking at me.

Skin color often obscures and over-rides the features and markers of other races that may be present in my genetic make-up.”

Stacey Tyrell is a Canadian artist who uses photography to explore themes of race, identity, and heritage in the African diaspora. In her most recent work,

“BACKRA BLUID”

she envisions the hybrid lineage of Afro-diasporans, creating a gallery of self-portraits in which she impersonates her white ancestors.

“Who are these women and what do they mean to Tyrell?

S TA C E Y T Y R E L L

22 C o u l d yo u i s o l at e t h e m i x e d r ac e d e x pe ri e n c e i n t o 3 g e n e r a l i s e d c ha r ac t e ri s t i c s - A u n i v e r s a l m e n ta l fac et t hat pe o pl e s o f m i x e d r ac e s could identify?

Which side of your heritage do you identify with most?

I most identify with the Afro-Caribbean side of my heritage because that was the one I was raised with and I identify with the issues and struggles that accompany it.

Both of my parents often spoke about and speculated about the mixed heritage of our family. On my father’s side they believed that there were people from India and England as well as the indigenous Arawak/ Carib population. On my mother’s side there are multiple people who are bi-racial (my grand-father was half Scottish, my great grandmother was half Irish, another was half English). Even though the whites in my family tree had origins in the United Kingdom I can say with some certainty that their families had been in the West Indies as colonists for generations. When a lot of my family immigrated to England and Canada they faced tremendous obstacles because they were dropped into a society that disliked them for being black and immigrants

Tolerant, fluid, empathetic HAVE THESE EXPERIENCES, CAST BY HERITAGES YOU SHARE, EVER LIMITED YOU? (ACADEMICALLY, SOCIALLY OR MENTALLY?) I have at times have felt limited academically. From the age of 8 until I graduated high school I was in a program for gifted children. I was one of few students of color in my year and program. When I got to high school my grades started to decline due to family and personal issues I was experiencing at the time. What was baffling was the utter lack of concern by the guidance department at my school. I had one counselor discourage me from post secondary studies and actually tell me that my grades were good even though they had slid by as much as 20-40 percent. When you looked at the racial make-up of the general and basic programs that they offered you could easily see that it was mainly comprised of students of color. So in their eyes I guess I was now sliding into their expectations of a black student.

There were also time where I was excluded growing up from social activities though I’ve tried not to let these experiences get to me but I do have to admit that their accumulation and consistency have seeped into my psyche on a minor level. I think that part of the process of maturing into an adult for me has been to take these experiences and gain power from them and turn them into something positive like the artwork that I create.

What expectations have you experienced because of your racial make-upin: Relationships, Friendships and pursued Likes/Dislikes? And do you follow suite?

In the context of relationships I have encountered men who are attracted to the slight “ambiguity” of my appearance. I ALSO HAVE BEEN THE TARGET OF

A CERTAIN TYPE OF MAN FEELS THAT THEY WANT TO CONDUCT SOME SORT OF SEXUAL RACIAL EXPERIMENT AND BECAUSE “I DON’T LOOK TOO BLACK” (their dubious words not mine) feel that I would make a willing to accommodate them. I try to steer clear of anyone who thinks this way and that goes for friendships as well as relationships.

23

Euna, 24yrs. (2013)

24 Have you felt pressure to accommodate your identity to i d i e n t i f y w i t h t h e i r s , ( m o n o - r a c i a l s ) ? e n TIFY WITH THEIRS?

What is it that you identify as?

Do you accept the molded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

I don’t and I think that through my photographic self-portrait series “Backra Bluid” I am redefining (in whatever small way I can) preconceived ideas surrounding what mixed heritage is

Cait- 12yrs old

If I had to tick a box on a questionnaire or application I would check the “Black” or “African Canadian” box though that I feel that that doesn’t really cut it. I usually describe myself as a Black person of Afro-Caribbean descent (which to me denotes that there are a lot of other races mixed in there).

I DEFINITELY HAVE BUT MAYBE FOR NOT OBVIOUS REASONS. The society I grew up in was pretty polarized in terms of racial identity (you were either seen Black, White, Asian or Indian by most people) and because most of my heritage is African (afro-Caribbean) I have always been identified as black. Within that group is where I have felt the most pressure for not “acting black enough”. Conversely most whites in Canada for the majority of my life didn’t really question my heritage and just saw me as another black person (most blacks in the city that I’m from are usually of either African or Caribbean decent). It wasn’t until I moved to the United States that I had people start asking me if I was Hispanic or something other than black.

At first I found it odd but soon realized that because of the huge Hispanic population here that there was another category that I could be viewed as falling into.

25

Inghinn, 20yrs. (2012)

26 St a c e y

Ty re l l

b e f ore

m a k e - up.

Do you mind the mixed raced definition? If not, what is your s solution to changing it in your everyday conversations?

I don’t mind the definition. I think that it’s a step in the right direction to a more inclusive society that realizes that identity is not so straight forward when it comes to anything involving human beings.

What do you think is the difference in being mixed raced and mono-racial?

Since I don’t really consider myself mixed race I personally find the term ‘mono-racial’ a bit weird as a concept because no human being on the planet is strictly one race or another. This has been shown numerous times with genetic tests of many populations around the world. There is a whole cottage industry of companies dedicated to showing this.

To me the term is used more as a social construct that alludes to concepts of racial purity particularly in North American / Western societies as a way of being able to neatly classify people.

I would be very curious to see what has been written about the use of the terms in a non-Western context.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/insult experienced?

Over the years there have been quite a few but they all seem to be a variation on three themes. The first being that “ I D O N ’ T B E -

27 Do

you feel your voice is heard and

accepted about your idea of your racial identity?

Though my voice is being heard. I was

shocked at the positive response that my series has received in the past month and a half. I’ve been working on it (and other LONG” TO THE COUNTRY I WAS BORN similar projects) for over 5 years now. I IN BECAUSE OF MY PHYSICAL APused to think that my voice wasn’t being PEARANCE AND HAVING THAT LEAD heard at all or that what I was trying to say TO THE SECOND BEING THAT I OWE wasn’t fully being understood. There are IT TO STRANGERS TO EXPLAIN WHY I D O N ’ T “ L O O K L I K E A T Y P I C A L B L A C K a lot of things are really changing rapidly in terms of racial identity studies. It’s PERSON”.

THE THIRD ALMOST ALamazing to see that maybe people are WAYS HAS TO DO WITH BEING MORE finally more willing to talk about the ideas ATTRACTIVE THAN WHAT THE PERSON CONSIDERS TO BE TYPICAL APPEARsurrounding mixed race identities and that ANCE OF SOMEONE FROM MY RACE. I it is a discussion that is long over due. The have countless anecdotes about these but here inescapable reality is that nearly everyone is of mixed racial heritage and that if we are a few: can openly have these conversations and  I used to work at the concierge desk of a ma- not shy away from the discomfort that jor hotel in downtown Toronto and would con- some people feel about the topic society stantly have people ask me “ w h e r e w a s could come to an inclusive consensus.

I from?” When I would When was it decided for you that answer that I was from you needed to conclude upon your Canada there would be a identity? moment where they would I wouldn’t really say that there was a pivotal purse their lips and then moment for me but a culmination of thoughts s ay i r r i t a t e d l y “ t h a t ’s n o t that gelled by the time I reached my late 20s. what I meant”.

From the time I could remember my parents ingrained in my sister and myself that we are  When I first tried to move down to the USA black West Indians and that as such we were a I was brought into US Customs while driving very mixed bag of the different races of peoacross the boarder. The one thing that the ple who either colonized and inhabited our bigoted agent that I dealt with kept saying island (Nevis). My father was very much into was that I couldn’t possibly have any ties to my country (even though I had shown him my reading about racial politics and identity and birth certificate, my passport, my bank account would have copies of books like “The Castle of My Skin” by George Lamming lying around statements and proof that my family resided the house. But along with telling us about our there). After showing him numerous items of documentation he still kept questioning me on Caribbean heritage (which inevitably included telling us about how people from Engwhere I was land, Scotland and Ireland came to be in our really from (though in fairness I have had this same problem travelling from Cuba and Puerto family tree), they told us that because we are Rico back to Canada). The entire incident ended black we will be treated and seen differently up with me being barred for one day from the and would have to try twice as hard as our white classmates at times. And so I identify United States and being told in no uncertain as a black person of Afro-Caribbean dissent terms “THAT SHOULD I TRY TO ENTER because through my own personal experiencAGAIN TODAY IT WOULD BE SEEN AS es that is how I feel the most accepted and AN AGGRESSIVE ACTION AGAINST THE group I am proud to be a part of.

UNITED STATES”.C

28 Have you ever rejected a part of your heritage?

Of course. I think it’s all down to my family. I constantly test racial boundries. Even though when I am with Black people I don’t have to say that I am mixed race, I am continually trying to align myself with others’ identities, shutting off my White side completely. When I am with White people, I am too concerned on whether they see me as the ‘Other’. So on both sides I am trying to be the perfect way around them.

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

Around 17, a guy from class told me something that really hurt me. He told me that I am a sell-out. So in class I was thinking, “wow, those are very strong words, I hate it.

What does he mean by that?!?” So when I got back home, I became really disturbed, I was thinking: “does he mean that I behave like a White person?”

So I started to feel a lot of guilt, and that wasn’t the first time, maybe previously this guy told me I need to be more Black and should know more about Black culture. So that was when I felt extremely uneasy about this situation, I knew there was a part of me that was seeking for these answers of what a Black identity is. I began thinking, what if I go to another country, maybe it could be clearer. So I decided to go to London.In France I felt the pressure was too high about race, that they were too much open racism and that I was too sensitive to handle it… The words people used: “You don’t fit”, that I don’t fit into this French citizen model of being an idealised vision of ‘Native French’ – which doesn’t even exist. So French people are really torn apart on issues such as burqa and national legitimacy for instance. Plus you feel that the media is permanently focused on the negative side of diversity you just go a bit crazy. In London freedom combined with tolerance are better compared to France . So when applying to a university I focused on where there’d more of a Black curriculum.

Do you feel your voice is heard and accepted about your idea of your racial identity?

No, I think most people don’t understand. Most people don’t want to understand. They don’t want to hear about you feeling uneasy about being mixed race or issues surrounding themselves. The normative paradigm is colours do not mix and must remain divided.

What is it that you identify as?

I tend to identify as mixed raced, but with a black skin and living in a white culture, it kind hurts that I have a White education seperated from my Black culture. It’s very hard to define the boundaries between the Whiteness and Blackness. So what is it to be mixed raced when you have those blurred line?. At the same time I was born and raised in France and am now in London, also a Western country but still, I always had something in my heart that was always very African.

CECILE OLOA

DO YOU MIND THE MIXED RACED DEFINITION? IF NOT, WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO CHANGING IT IN YOUR EVERYDAY CONVERSATIONS? I know people really care about definitions and the wording of terms. But I do mind mixed race as word, I find it kinda disgusting, like a dog that is two breeds. I prefer the French word ‘Metis’ or the Latin word ‘Mestizo’. I find it very difficult to hear, the English definition is always drawing to the fact that I am mixed and how that can never be whole.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/insult experienced?

I would say bad looks, racial remarks and bad jokes about physical appearance. Most of the time it was about the hair. I get dirty looks from certain women, I have an afro and light skin.

So it makes it very difficult to establish connections with people and I do suffer from this, I feel its hatred that I don’t think I deserve. Partly because I haven’t done anything, I A M S Y S TEMATICALLY POSITIONED IN A PLACE OF ‘ENVY’ WHICH I D O N ’ T W A N T T O R E A C H , that I hate. I am not a display birdie for people to view and envy, I am a person, a person that you can just talk to. So I feel, from both communities, Black and White communities I get, from black people comments about my skin, my hair, that I’m too skinny. “Oh, you should eat more, why is your hair like this?” to “You should straighten your hair you know?

Make it more ‘presentable?”. Like it’s an afro, what do you expect?!

Or racial jokes form my Parisian friends, who you always address the fact that I am different. They do it in a mocking way, they were stupid and always the same tired jokes. They made me very touchy about how I am perceived by others.

29

30 Do you think that by identifying as mixed you are just adding Black as an extension, because being Black is your centre when it’s not your only racial identity?

Ye s , I f e e l i m m e a s u r a b l e p r e s s u r e a n d i t ’s c o n s t a n t . I n m y f a m i l y, m y Black family will always remind me that I am not one of them. In a ver y s u b t l e w a y b u t i t ’s s t i l l t h e r e . M y white friends always make jokes and will remind me that I am different from them and should identify as Black. But even this idea of ‘ident i f y i n g ’, o f t r y i n g t o f i t i n , d o e s n’ t work. This is what you understand v e r y q u i c k l y. P e o p l e p r e s s u r e y o u about the part of you, you cannot be.

I d e n t i f y a s . I t ’s l i k e p u t t i n g a f i n g e r o n t h e s c a r, t h e y ’r e n o t d o i n g a n y -

Yes and No. I think the term mixed race isn’t really used outside the West but at the same time, I understand I can very much identify with people of 3rd generation immigration. So the people who have this kind of spilt identity. Where I think mono-racial people who live in a western country seem to struggle with my view points. So the kind of questions I ask myself as a mixed race person, I feel a mono-racial person couldn’t properly access. Being mixed race, mentally is a really uneasy place. I can only talk to people to a certain extent, even with my family as they have so many different histories and of course look more black than white than the other, experience either mono-racial discrimination or white privilege. For example, one sibling identifies as White because he looks white, despite being my sibling.

t h i n g e l s e , a n d t h e y ’r e n o t t r y i n g t o help or guide you, to stop pushing t h e i r t h i n k i n g o n y o u . I t ’s a l w a y s t h e f a c t t h a t t h e y ’r e t r y i n g t o i d e n t i f y themselves towards you, instead may be letting you(self ) identify with them. There is no space wanted for you, as a mixed race nor one they wish to create. But when you conf r o n t p e o p l e , t h e y j u s t s a y i t ’s a l l a j o k e . We k n o w y o u ’r e t e c h n i c a l l y o n e o f u s – i t ’s a l l g o o d .

Does having a mixed identity encompass a view/ position within situations that mono-racial people couldn’t themselves flex?

Where do you consider home?

It depends with who I am talking to.

When I am talking to Black people or P.O.C, I would tend to identify with Africa because I am from Gabon, Cameroon. So I would refer to home when talking to Black people that I’m from Africa. But with white people I noticed that I would say France, though if we talked in more depth I would say my parents are from Africa but that I am French.

31 They expect me to feel great, to feel proud to have this exoticism. That I should know that I am more beautiful.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS HAVE Some people expect me to identify as if I am fully Black. YOU EXPERIENCED BEWith my White side, they expect me to be more CAUSE OF YOUR RACIAL MAKEsoft- a softer version of a Black person. Which is IN: RELAcrude to say, but what they’re saying is that they UP TIONSHIPS, like me because I am a softer version of the Black FRIENDSHIPS that they fear as being the ‘other’. I would say the AND PURSUED LIKES/DIStoughest part comes from boyfriends/husbands etc. Your family expects you to bring someone home who fits within LIKES? AND the family, which obviously should be anyone because we DO YOU FOLLOW SUITE? are mixed, but my family expect only Black/Asian man to come home, to bring more to the mix.

WHICH SIDE OF YOUR HERITAGE DO IDENTIFY MOST WITH? That is hard, but from my experiences from just this year it would definitely be my Black side. Though, I can feel uneasy. It depends on the situation and the people but now I can say that I don’t identify with White people.

B e c a u s e

y o u

c a n ’ t ?

Yes. But not that I can’t but that I see them in a different light, I’m very touchy when it comes to White people. When I am talking about certain things with white people for example, I am always challenging them on their ‘openness’. If they are actually open minded or if actually, they are thinking through the issues and try to fight White supremacy and narrative. And if they’re not I tend to not be interested in that person (laughs).

Though saying this, most of my friends from Paris and the rest of France are White and despite the case most of the time being around middle-classed issues, I was surrounded and pretty comfortable around them you see. So everyone from the middle-class were white in France. But now I have this issue, I’m am tormented about how I can access them. It’s not difficult in the sense, because I love them, they’re my friends, but sometimes whether I can have friendship in the future with them because of their mentality. They will never understand until they move countries I guess. But that I doubt would ever happen.

Do you ever feel with your black side, that they can’t identif y with you?

Yes, very much. I would say there is much more work for me to do regarding my Black heritage, more so than my White heritage. On my White side, I have to counter racism, on my Black side I have to tackle construction, accessing people that are Black but are not ready for someone like me to be a part of the Black identity. But that is changing, or in London it is.

32 Have these experiences, cast by racial identities you share, ever limited you? (Academically, socially or mentally?)

Yes, I would say socially.Though it’s difficult to say now, as I am now in a different country and with this French accent I am identified with French people. They don’t really try to segregate me, or try to marginalise me, anymore.

So for example, back in France, when people are talking about ‘coloured people’, White people I mean, when they looked at me, they would say,

“but nothing against

you”.

There would be a floating moment where I would be “why do you say that?” They feel that because I am mixed race, that’d I just won’t, (or think I can’t) get upset, shout and punch you in the face about something that might be considered racist- when really, it is always racist.

These moments are where people say these things, then think “oh shit I can’t say that in front of her, because you know, she won’t accept it, she will feel ‘touched’.

And it’s like, you have totally missed the actual issue itself. You understand nothing. I feel it’s extremely rude, it’s so not part of the subject! If you think there will be an issue with something you said that may come across as racist, then think about it- Several times. And then just don’t say it. Or go to talk to me, have an open conversation and not just you throwing your remarks.

Do you think that by identifying as mixed you are just adding Black as an extension, because being Black is your centre when it’s not your only racial identity?

Being Black is an extension of me, it’s as if by accessing my Black side I am operating the Right side of myself, the left, my White etc. but my centre will always be mixed. I guess, as human beings, the mainstream representation of being a human being is

So for me to claim mixed identity, back then I thought that I was maybe going too far, that it was a counter effect of me feeling I was either t o o White or maybe too Black. to be either White or Black.

33 Ever been rejected when identifying yourself solely with one racial identity?

If so, were you encouraged to disband mixed identity?

I wo u l d s ay m a ny t i m e s a n d c a n n o t t h i n k o f a t i m e w h e re I h av e n ’t n o t b e e n e n c o u r a g e d t o d i s b a n d my m i xe d i d e n t i t y, e x c e p t w h e n my p a re n t s t o l d n o t t o b e wo r r i e d . W h e n my D a d t o l d m e ‘ C o l o u r i s n o t h i n g ’ , I k n e w t h a t w a s n ’t t r u e , i t w a s s o m e t h i n g , s o m e t h i n g d e e p. H e wo u l d s ay, ‘ i t ’s o k ay f o r yo u t o i d e n t i f y a s m i xe d r a c e b e c a u s e we a re b e yo n d t h e h a r s h e r d i l e m m a s o f B l a c k v W h i t e ’ . B u t I t o l d h i m n o. I n e e d e d s o m e o n e t o s h a re my i d e n t i t y w i t h , t o t a l k a b o u t i t w i t h .

But sometimes I did feel I was going too far in countering the dynamic of being Black that bec a u s e I w a n t e d t o b e m i xe d , w a s I t h e n re j e c t i n g being Black.

Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

I would say that it has been decided for me of course. But both sides of my family have mixed ancestry, my parents are both mixed race so I have a very different understanding of some things compared to others. S O M E O N E C A M E U P T O M E IN THE PLAYGROUND AND SAID TO ME “YOU ARE LESS BLACK THAN THE OTHER ONES”, WHILST POINTING OUT TO OTHER BLACK PEOPLE. I WAS L I K E , “ W H AT D O E S H E M E A N ? ? ? ” I F E LT A K I N D O F R E A S S U R E D F E E L I N G O F T H AT I F H E T H I N K S T H I S T H E N I ’ M O K AY. B U T O B V I O U S LY I H A D TO TELL MYSELF WAIT WHEN I THOUGHT THIS, I LIKE BLACK PEOPLE, I VERY MUCH IDENTIFY WITH BLACK PEOPLE. I WAS MAYBE 6 WHEN I HEARD THIS, A VERY EASY POSITION TO BE I N F LU E N C E D. A N D AT T H I S P O I N T, N O B O D Y E V E R , N OT E V E N M Y PA R E N T S TO L D M E T H AT I’M MIXED RACE BUT I UNDERSTOOD THOUGH. My brother, who shared the same Dad with me was White. So then there was this confusion towards us and him, saying things like “Your siblings? You’re very confused”. Another thing I came understand from some people was mixed race people being treated like a ‘trophy’. Mixed race people are said to beautiful, the object of attention. And I think a lot of people are exposed in this way, people telling them that they are beautiful all the time, or how they’re weird The emphasis on knowing that you are mixed, neither black nor white.

34

SUNSHINE CAULKER

What is it that you identify as?

I identify as mixed raced, well mainly because I think dual nationality or bi-racial could mean something else, I think of Finnish and Scottish and that to be dual-nationality for example and well, you’re still White. And because I have read criticism on identifying as mixed raced like, what even is that? The Black and the White is important to me in equal parts.

35 Where do you consider home?

Well I was born in the UK but my dad was born and is from Sierra Leon, but I’ve never really asserted anywhere else but the UK as my home. Well half Newcastle half London home. When I’m in London I call Newcastle home, when I’m in Newcastle I call London home.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/insult experienced?

I’m conflicted about the identity in general because obviously I have White privilege, so I need to obviously shut up when people that can’t pass have things have things to say to me but… I’d say that when people say to me all the time, “No. You are not mixed raced. You can’t be. Is your Dad like, Black Black?” That really annoys me but I suppose its kinda being mis-identified as White annoys me. Not just in general life, but its when I’ve told them that I don’t and they still question me on it, its really irritating.

M E N TA L LY, H AV E YO U H A D A ‘ R AC I A L C R I S I S ’ ?

T H AT E V E RYO N E O N T H E O U T S I D E WO N ’ T E X C E P T YO U R I D E N T I T Y U N L E S S H E AV I LY Q U E S T I O N E D ?

Yeah definitely, I have like all of the guilt of a liberal white person basically. So every time I ever say anything about race, I’m always thinking – omg what have I said? Even when I’m just with White people I think that they shouldn’t even listen to me, as I’m not an expert on this in the social. So it’s a big existential crisis definitely.

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

Well actually, straight away it was my parents who told me: “By the way, you’re mixed raced”.

When I was younger I used to think that I looked really Black because in Newcastle everyone isn’t, but I obviously don’t. (laughs) I suppose when I was born it was already decided but since moving away and living with people who don’t know my family and all the people I went to school with, and everyone thinking that I am White, I find myself telling people that “blah blah blah, as a mixed raced person” and they’re like, “What? Are you really?..” So since I’ve been 18 its come up a lot more than it used to.

Have these experiences, cast by racial identities you share, ever limited you?

(Academic a l l y, socially or mentally?)

I don’t think they have as I do get the advantages of both. I can get away with being White and I get all the advantages of that when being in academic discussions with White people.

I have the ability to shut them down and say shut up you don’t know what you are talking about. I’d say that I would like to be more involved in… I wouldn’t join a society for BME’s for example because I would feel like a bit of an arsehole. I’d like to be able to but I am not going to go and winge about it being really hard on, like its really hard, I look White. So I don’t feel I’ve had many chances to be part of the solidarity of colour.

36

Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

I think I accept it. If it’s a really positive thing and something I am really proud of. But then obviously I hardly ever get identified as mixed race so I never have that experience of just wanting to pass and not doing whatever I want. Even in the Black, African side of my family, they’ve got a really long history of inter-marriage with slave owners basically.

So even in Africa where all my family is Black the family history has been around Europeans and Africans coming together. I know some people say that they’ve been told they are not Black enough but I haven’t experienced that personally.

WHAT EXPECTATIONS HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED BECAUSE OF YOUR RACIAL MAKE-UP IN: RELATIONSHIPS, FRIENDSHIPS AND PURSUED LIKES/DISLIKES? AND DO YOU FOLLOW SUITE? Well again, because of my privilege, until I told someone I was mixed I wouldn’t have those expectations intialy. The main one I

get though is “Oh that’s so cool! You can say the ‘N’ word”. And I think, wouldn’t I be a bit of a dickhead? Sometimes people kinda think that because I am really interested in politics, left winged politics, because I am not just white. Where I think I would be any way because it’s the only logical thing to do.

Things like: “God you’re so angry!

You wouldn’t be so angry if you were just White”. That I guess is some of the things I experience.

Do you feel wholly accepted? Have mono-racials accommodated you as mixed raced?

Yh, I’ve never felt more accepted. I guess if I was with just Black people I wouldn’t say that I’m one of you. It never really comes up as its either I’m around people who I already know and have already discussed our experiences together or White people have usually just assumed I am white. So I never have to try to fit in with them. I wouldn’t tell a Black person

as I wouldn’t want them to think I was trying to co-opt their experience and say that we have the same experiences when we don’t. They are not the same at all. Its never come up unless I figure its an accepting situation.

WHEN IS A ACCEPTING SITUATION?

If I were with people that I know, people that were my friends, I know we share the same values. So if someone were to say, “isn’t it weird when white people do this?” and I’m like yh, it is.

BUT FOR EXAMPLE, WHEN YOU HAVE INTRODUCED THAT YOU ARE PART BLACK, WHAT HAS BEEN THE EXPERIENCE OF THAT?

Its only ever been White people who have been “Really?”.

What do you think is the difference in being mixed raced and mono-racial?

Well I suppose for a lot of people it is not fitting in either group but for me, I think it’s a nice thing. I kind of in comparison to white people, we can experience a lot more cultures, are a lot more tolerant.

For example, my White grandparents are really conservative but since my parents have gotten together and married their viewpoints have completely changed. So it was unfortunate that it was ever like that in the beginning in that they needed to ever be schooled at all but its better that they were than they weren’t.

37 Does having a mixed identity encompass a view/ position within situations that mono-racial people couldn’t themselves flex?

I suppose again, it’s the best of both. I guess it could also be the worst of both, but again that’s never happened. But often I am in situations where I am seen as White, so often people who appear, open up as racist, in (what they think) is a ‘all Whites’ thing I hear that. And even in school I was the mixed raced one, someone would say something racist and then they’d be like, “Oh, we don’t mean you”. Its like the passing thing that makes it the most interesting thing. People will either, white people, exclude me from mixed raced people comments, as they’d be again like “not you, you don’t act like that”. They assume that its all white and it’s a laugh for us together and the sometimes people would be “omg Sunshine, I totally forgot!”.

Its like, “OH WE KNOW YOU’RE NOT WHITE, BUT WE ACCEPT YOU”.

Have you ever been rejected when Have you ever rejected a part you’ve identified yourself as solely within one racial/ethnic identity? If so, of your heritage? were you encouraged to disband mixed I don’t think so, though I identity? don’t identify as White so Well I don’t think I’d ever be seen as ‘typical white’. I think White people do bad things. I just wouldn’t identify as Black as that would be presumptuous and obnoxious things to, its not something you can turn off and on. If I didn’t want people to know, if I wanted to hang around a bunch of EDL people, I could just no mention it and it’d be fine. But I think that why being mixed raced is so impor tant to me because I can definitely be not white in my head but can definitely feel unentitled to call myself Black because I haven’t had any exclusionary exper iences, so the only thing I can be is mixed.

-BUT I GUESS THAT IS SAD. YOU DON’T FEEL ENTITLED TO ALLOW YOURSELF TO IDENTIFY AS BLACK OR BROWN BECAUSE YOU HAVEN’T EXPERIENCED THE DEROGATIVE EXPERIENCES THEY HAVE, EVEN THOUGH YOU SHARE THE SAME CULTURE AND HERITAGE AS THEY DO ON YOUR BLACK SIDE Well I feel comfortable in identifying as nonwhite. If we can say, for example, more Black and Brown people are brutalised by the police, I am not one of them. The police are always polite to me even though when it’s just me and my Black friends so I don’t want to co-opt a suffering, that isn’t even really mine. -Is that he si-

t an c e b e c aus e of you exp er i encing w hite g u i lt at t h e s am e time ?- YE S

I kinda reject that but I do specifically identify as mixed raced so it that nature it does incorporate that, as it just has to. I kinda see that as a distinct identity within people of colour, who have the experience of both White and Black culture. I think its been important and valuable to me so I haven’t rejected it.

Which side of your heritage do identif y most with?

I suppose, more important to my identity is the Black side because I think: What is White heritage anyway? Its all of a sudden nothing that is meant to be. I am proud of the Black side of my identity; Black liberation movements and leaders are my hero’s. Whereas, I think, to be proud of being white… I’m not.

Culturally I’m probably white, but in terms emotionally, I lean towards my Black side.

Well I wouldn’t categorise other people because some people see it as a low deterrent and wouldn’t want to called it. I just read an article the other day that said ‘I would rather be called mullato’. And I was like, woah I would still not want that to happen to me! I couldn’t stand, I guess that’s what some people prefer but also I know people you cannot stand to be called mix raced.

As they feel it seem you are ‘less’ than. So I don’t think it would ever come up as being ‘you are either this race or you are that race’, I wouldn’t want for someone to say that to. But concerning my identity personally I think it’s about being half or partly involved in the racial hegemony of society you are already in. Partly being and having a culture that is visibly outside of me… so for example I don’t think you can be mix raced if someone says they’re half family is mediterrian and the other Nordic, because that’s just white”. But I suppose that if you identified as two different distinct identities that were both Black, but they considered it to be to different races, I wouldn’t tell them it couldn’t, Its only white people that couldn’t say that. Just because your great great-grandma was half Cherokee, it doesn’t mean you are mix raced. So I think you have to have an active relationship that is viably ‘othered’ in this society to be considered mixed.

What i s m i x e d r ac e t o yo u ?

38

Do you find the mixed raced term s lame attempt of society to allocate space who missed out on a label?

Yes, there’s clearly a limited amount of similarity around the experience between someone who is half Chinese half Mexican to another mixed person. Its clearly a descriptive that invites you to having to explain yourself. You cannot ever just say you are just this, you will be questioned as to “why are you..”, you

can never just be mixed raced, they always wanna know, ‘but what races?’.

If I say I’m white, I know that means, its not like that if I ever identify as mixed race it falls right with people any way. It’s always a conversation starter even though it isn’t really as descriptive as it could be. But I can’t be bother nor do I think I should have to say all the time “I’m half Black, I’m part west African, I’m half…” cause its kinda none of your business anyway. But then I sometimes think is it some kind of joint experience in being a bit of one and being a bit of another?

Can you ever be two others of or? Not being 100% of anything a joint experience so imagine that I do have similar experiences who are half Chinese and Mexican foe example. But I think that is where the similarities end, not being identified as anything completely. Other than that everything else is completely different, but its all a descriptive we will have to change it at some point and as soon as something appears that is better, I will be using it!

I don’t think I have to hold it back though sometimes I feel sick of, Do you feel y o u r v o i c e i s when I have to meet new people, like when I came to university and h e a r d a n d a c - met so many new people at once. I got a bit sick of having to ‘come c e p t e d a b o u t out’ as it were, not that I had any particularly bad responses but the more I say it, it sounds like I’m trying to be different. Like this is the your idea of ‘most’ original thing about me, this is my little interesting… its not your racial how I consider it but it sometimes seems like that’s what it sounds to i d e n t i t y? people.

39 -DO YOU THINK BEING MIXED RACED CAN BE PART OF A NEW THEORY IN, THAT THERE IS A BLACK VIEW OF THE WORLD AND A WHITE VIEW OF THE WORLD, DO YOU THINK IN TIME DO WE REALLY NEED TO ESCAPE THESE. BECAUSE WE ARE STILL ACCEPTING THEE NAMES THAT WHITE PEOPLE HAVE ALLOCATED TO US TO HOLD CAPITALISM. SHOULD WE STILL KEEP THESE LABELS IF WE WANNA HAVE A BETTER LIFE? I think to a certain extent that is true. B ut also resistant about this as there is this discretion in the media , that is

‘ one

day we will all be cappuccino colour ed , none of us will be any race and it will be wonderful ’.

W hy

does that

WHAT PLATFORM IS MORE SIGNIFICANT TO IDENTIFY AS MIXED RACED: SOCIAL OR POLITICAL? I think discussions on race are inherently political. If someone doesn’t want it to be I am not going to polities it for them, and tell them you have to be political about it if you really don’t care. But to me they are inherently political I don’t really know how you could talk about it, well I don’t know how I’d talk about it without it being political. When every thing I say is surrounded by politics (laughs)

have to happen before we can just be respectful of other people ? S o

when we all look the same racism wo n ’t e x i s t a ny m o re ? B u t w hy c a n ’t we j u s t s t o p b e i n g r a c i s t n o w ? I d o n ’ t u n d e rstand why looking the same as people is so compelling in terms of being able to ident i f y w i t h t h e m ? ! I also think it is

problematic when people say mixed raced babies are so beautiful, like stop erotising us into a mixed raced person but also what it means essentially, is that “people of colour are a bit too much for me”. White people with a little bit extra added in, that’s interesting, that’s attractive. So I mean mix race people in the media who aren’t replacing white people, they’re classified generally as Black or Obama for example, it isn’t said “Oh he’s half White”, or Beyoncé, “Oh she’s quite a pale Black woman”. If its taking up the space of someone who looks more classically looking African(Afro-Caribbean) then that’s not so positive.

COULD YOU ISOLATE THE MIXED RACED EXPERIENCE INTO 3 GENERALISED CHARACTERISTICS? I think one is kinda of that you get to define your identity yourself where mono-racial don’t. You don’t get to tell people whether you… say if you pass for black you get to decide whether you say you’re Black or mixed race. And then people have more questions about where physically your family came from. So self-identification is one.

But then maybe on the sub-side, kinda always having to identify is irritating as well. Always having to give an explanation.

In depth personal knowledge of more than one racial identity, I think it gives you more potential to be understanding generally, and accepting of people.

40

A N DY A M AYA Read more on Andy’s documentary @ http://remezcla.com/culture/a-student-travelingthrough-costa-chica-picked-up-a-camera-to-let-afro-mexicans-tell-their-story/

41 DOES HAVING A MIXED IDENTITY ENCOMPASSES A VIEW/POSITION WITHIN SITUATIONS THAT A MONO-RACIAL PERSON COULDN’T THEMSELVES FLEX? I wouldn’t say better, I feel that anyone could see any kind of concept despite your background, but when it comes to participating in certain events like a closed space for black people, like I have a insider… yeah I guess, like

I CAN GO THERE.

That I can technically go to another space, so I think I have good persepctives, but not necessarily know something better. It just widens my range of persepectives, but I don’t want to say that I CAN understand things better as being mixed.

Have

you

ever your

rejected

a

part

of

heritage?

No, I don’t wanna restr ic t myself. I wanna be mad, I ’m g o n n a b e m e a n .

Ever been rejected when identifying yourself solely with one racial identity?

If so, were you encouraged to disband mixed identity?

Yh.. sometimes people say, “you don’t look indigenous so you shouldn’t say that you are indigenous”, or if I say

that I’m Black, people would say, “ONLY

YOUR HAIR IS BLACK AND EVERYTHING ELSE ISN’T”. I

mean I don’t know what to say to things, so I’d defintley say I have been rejected from being a aratype of a certain race. That “oh you don’t look like a typical Black person so you’re not black, you can’t identify as black,

BECAUSE YOU ARE MIXED”, I’ve gotten that a lot. You’re not indigenous, youre not black, you are mixed. Like, that is what you have to identify as.

HAVE THESE EXPERIENCES, CAST BY HERITAGES YOU SHARE, EVER LIMITED YOU? (ACADEMICALLY, SOCIALLY OR MENTALLY?)

I don’t think I’ve been limited academically,maybe

socially

When I was growing up I didn’t feel just indigeneous, you know? So I didn’t want to go into the indiegenous groups or student organizations like that. The same with my ‘Blackness’, I never felt black. So I felt it was like appropriation joining the black student association. Because I didn’t feel right.

Depending on your environment, do you automaticaly identifiy with those around you?

So I grew up in central Los Angeles, where the population is either Black or non-black latinos so I guess when I hung around my Black friends I feel more Black or I guess I’m more accepted as ‘Black’.

But know I’m in the American-Indian Association and by just being around them makes me feel more indigenous in a way and that’s crazy how that works.

42 What expectations have you experienced because of your racial make-up in: Relationships, Friendships and pursued Likes/Dislikes? And do you follow suite?

Just, that I always know I look different and to other peoples eyes I will always be different or for somebody to think that they have no idea of who I really am, or what I am, what race I am. I mean in terms of expectations, I feel like when I’m in an indigenous organisation or geno-group, I feel people will listen who know a lot about my background and and kinda hard to know your background as an indigenous person. But if im in a situation where there is a lot of black people, I feel like I have to sometimes prove my Blackness to people. Like I wear headscarfs sometimes and people would say “Why are YOU wearing that?!”, and I’m like “errr sometimes I’m protecting my hair, sometimes its just cultures, my people do that..” SO I FEEL LIKE I AM EXPECTED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF FOR HOW I LOOK.

What is m i x e d Anyone who is/has come from different backgrounds and heritages.

As I said I don’t have any specific mould in my head of what a mixed raced person looks like, studying genetics and seeing how random offspring is, I always have that fact in my head, like you have a white mom and a black dad they might not always look the same. So I never have had that fact in your head, like there is no specific mould of an indigenous person.

D o you feel wholly accepted ? H ave mo no - racials accommodated you as a mixed individual ?

I guess I still don’t feel wholly accepted. When

I did my research ‘……mexico’, the Black people there accepted me super fast. I have never felt that kind of acceptance from anybody in the US, because I would get introducted to people as “Andy is doing research on blackness and identity” and people would be like, “Oh but he is Black too, no?”. And they didn’t second guess that. And that made me aware that I don’t feel wholly accepeted by people in the US but sometimes when I am my indigenous organisation, everyone understands that you can be part of the organisation and still not have to LOOK indigenous, as they know not everyone looks a certain way, everyone is different looking. So many people are white passing, but this doesn’t make them less indigenous, So I feel within the indigenous community I am really accepted very easily.

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

I’ve never felt the need to choose. I’ve never identified as American, I guess I’ve always identified with El Salvadorian, so I guess within my race it is a ‘mixed race’, I’ve never thought one day, okay today I am El Salavdorian but never will I consider myself American yet still: I am a

US citizen, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, but still I would never consider myself ‘American’.

43

WHERE DO YOU CONSIDER HOME? L o s A ngel e s . T hou g h my anst re ch a l home i s E l S a lv a d or.

Do you mind the mixed raced definition? If not, what is your to changing it in your everyday conversations?

Just people being unapologetic and not rejecting themselves in spaces. Like, you know and they feel you may not feel comfortable identifying with a certain heritage maybe because you don’t look a certain way, and that you’re kinda scared of people discriminating against you but I feel like if people want to change the image of the mixed raced person, people have to be unapologetic of who they are and where they come from, you know?

What do you think is the difference in being mixed raced and mono-racial?

I guess because I have different histories, my people have different histories I am more aware that people live and identify differently. So I guess it does help me know that my different ‘racial sides’ are completely different.

So knowing that I am Indigenous and Black, those are completely different histories and makes aware that someone can not look like a stereotypical Black person and still identify as Indigenous AND Black. Because I am mixed I know that I different heritages and that other people can have them as well, so not to judge their race or I try not to determine their race because I know that they may identify differently.

Do

you accept the moulded idea of

mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

Usually when people think of ‘mixed’, they think of a black and white person, Black and White. And when people usually called me mixed, they thought I was Black and Mexican. So I guess I don’t quite understand this moulded view of a mixed person yet because you can be from China and India, you can still be mixed but you’re from the (technically) same race, so I guess I don’t have that moulded image of a mixed person in my head.

In

your documentary, there was a moment

where a woman was talking about how her

Black but that Indigenous. But once

Grandfather

family was

her

was

you have kids with

Indigenous Black” – Why an

you are known as:

“Black

do you think that difference

was created when the difference isn’t in skin colour but in culture?

I guess that ‘constrative reduplication’ has come from the moulds of races that people have in their head. Like if someone has dark skin and really kinky curly hair, they’re BlACK, they’re “BLACK BLACK”. B ut if someone is lighter skinned with the same hair , they ’ re just black . In El Salvadaor that’s the kind of thinking that people have which I guess is why she identified as black ‘black’ instead of black, as she had darker skin, though her children were ‘mixteco’, So despite having lighter skin, having parents from the Black race, they don’t acknowledge them as Black Black’.

So in Spanish you can say ‘moreno’ which means brown person and I think that is really interesting as you can call a Black person a Moreno because they have brown skin but it doesn’t work the other way round.

If you’re Moreno you’re Moreno and I think that’s a really interesting thing with the terms… They refer to me as ‘negro moreno’ or ‘native indo’ or just indigenous.. that’s how they’d refer to me because I have curly hair that at the time, was an afro. My one defining black feature, so that made me black but I could be blacker. I could be ‘negro negro’ if I was dark and had bigger lips (to their standards).

44 “The Coast of the Mexican states of Oaxaca and Guerrero have the highest population of afro-descendants in the entire country.

This documentary was created because the people from the coast of Oaxaca requested that I film our talks on identity and blackness. The recordings take place in the towns of Charco Redondo and Chacahua, both in Oaxaca.

This is something I put together last minute because I had no intention of making a documentary. I wish only to give the people from the Coast representation as invisibilization

of the Black race in Mexico is common. Rarely does someone think about Mexico when they think of the African diaspora but more enslaved Africans went to Mexico and Perú combined than the United States.

This documentary is intended to bring awareness of the African diaspora in Mexico and to help begin conversations on identity and blackness.

— Andy Amaya

45

What platform is more significant to identify as mixed raced: social or political?

Like I said, to get people to understand that mixed people d o n ’ t h a v e t o l o o k a c e r t a i n w a y, b e i n g u n a p o l o g e t i c a b o u t w h o you are, and being significant.. in the political aspect I feel like its all how you frame your language. Like, I could say “as a m i x e d p e r s o n I t h i n k . .” b u t a l s o I c o u l d s a y t h e s a m e a s a n I n digenous person, because I am that, I don’t have to say mixed.

Yo u c o u l d . . I d o n ’ t t h i n k i t w i l l m a k e a r e a l d i f f e r e n c e . . m a y b e i f y o u w e r e t a l k i n g f o r B l a c k- I n d i g e n o u s r e l a t i o n s s o m e w h e r e , or asking someone from both backgrounds, I understand under the circumstances they come from those backgrounds. When it comes to legislature and suppor ting some bill as a ‘mixed p e r s o n ’, I d o n ’ t k n o w i f… m a y b e I c o u l d s e e m y s e l f s a y i n g t h a t , if I am suppor ting some kind of bill that deals with indigenous people I would refer to myself as indigenous, you know what I mean? So I guess mixed people have that option to say mixed or their respective heritages.

DO YOU FEEL YOUR VOICE IS HEARD AND ACCEPTED ABOUT YOUR IDEA OF YOUR RACIAL IDENTITY? Yeah I feel like I am getting more heard, especially after my Mexico trip I am getting more in tuned with my identity where the people around me have been influenced by it and by me just talking about mixed identity and identity in general. If people are talking about identity I am always gonna be there, as I want people to think differently about my identity. But do I think my voice is heard? Accepted? Well I have had people who have said they liked the documentary. But I think I haven’t received hate mail, disagreement because of it, more so people who agree.

Could you isolate the mixed raced experience into 3 generalised characteristics?

I S O L A T I O N is defiantly a thing but as both my parents are of the same racial mixes, I’ve never had to accommodate my identity to fit ‘better’ with either of them. But talking about black issues, with my dad’s side especially who identify as more Indigenous, it’s more taboo, even though that side of the family has people with the darker skin. But still, talking about black issues is taboo for them. But I understand the feeling of isolation..

EXOTIFICATION, mixed. I’ve heard that a lot. I’ve heard that people ‘prefer’ people mixed with black than people who are just black person because they look better which is totally Exotification!

Proving and explain to others why you look the way you look. Like I have to give you my people’s history why I have curly hair?! That’s not necessary!

When they ask why I have curly hair and I reply that I was born this way, that’s not what they want to hear, they wanna hear that my father was Cherokee, my mother was came from Senegal you know? Again I guess it goes into Exotification because you look a certain way, people saying mixed people look ‘better’ than mono-racials and that’s, in terms of blackness, its just anti-black.

46

In August 2015 Shuan King was propelled into a global scandal orchestrated by con-servative news website ‘BREITBART’ . The site claimed King, a prominent Black Lives Matter advocate and Journalist on police brutality, was illegally claiming to be Black. After publishing King’s birth records, detailing his ethnicity as ‘White’, conservative media began their backslash on King, demanding a response to the many accusations of fraud including the Oprah scholarship he received to attend the famously Black Morehouse college. After numerous ‘no comment’ replies, King eventually confessed’ online in a DailyKos article to his Mother’s affair. That his conception was a product of an affair and to not knowing who his biological Father is. In being denied access to fighting for African-American social justice, King instead became encased in his own fight to his identity claim. So we ask the question: DID

BREITBART GO AFTER SHAUN BECAUSE HE DOESN’T LOOK STEROTYPICALLY BLACK?

Do White people feel uncom-fortable when white-passing, Black-mixed race people identify with the Black cause?

And do we, (as Black people) have a problem, with people who do not fit the archetype of the Black person we see on t.v., joining the fight for Black liberation?

So before you answer please let us remind you that: BLACK/BROWN ESSENTIALISM IS A PROD-

UCT OF LOOKING AT OURSELVES THROUGH A WHITE-LENS. RACIAL ESSENTIALISM TAKES AWAY BLACK/BROWN COMPLEXITY. BLACK AND BROWN IS ALREADY IS A PROBLEMATIC TERM- IT MAKES PEOPLE THINK WE LOOK, AND HAVE TO BE, ALL THE SAME. BUT DO CALL OUT ANYONE WHO DISREGARDS SOMEONE’S CAUSE BECAUSE THEIR PHONETIC FEATURES DON’T FIT WHEN THEY SAY...

BUT

47

HE’S WHITE

48 HAVE YOU EVER

JENE ETHERIDGE

49 rejected a part of your heritage?

No, I feel like it’s been the opposite, especially with my Mexican side because language is such an intimate part of self-identification and cultural inclusivity. I grew up hearing Spanish and knowing a few words but had to take years of classes in school to get to the point where I’m decent at conversational Spanish. Which is great, because now I can have a conversation with my grandma, which I wasn’t able to do before. So it’s been more of trying to embrace that heritage as much as I can. When I was younger I was pretty naiive when it came to respectability politics and the Black community, which in part might have been b e c a u s e w e grew up in a very white suburb so my experiences with the black community was pretty limited to visits with my dad’s side of the family.

Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

I’ve definitely accepted that I’m mixed, but also know that society sees me as a mixed Black girl specifically. When I get harassed on the street, its usually a comment related to having Black features. When I see mixed black girls, or black girls with natural hair on the street, there’s usually a mutual nod or acknowledgment of their presence. There’s social cues that point to my Blackness, but I definitely identify as mixed.

Do you feel your voice is heard and accepted about your idea of your racial identity?

Yes, especially since starting our zine [miXd].

That was an outlet I didn’t have before, and it’s great because I get to hear others’ experiences with their racial identity and how there’s parallels but also so many differences which shows how complex being either mixed or monoracial/non-white can be.

What platform is more significant to identify as mixed raced: social or political?

I guess it depends on the person..? I would say a political platform is more significant. Like

claiming mixed race can mean as a Latino you claim a mestizo’ identity for example, which means you acknowledge the history of the colonizer and the terrible rape and invasion that happened hundreds of years ago, which is pretty political. Or as a Black person you claim a mixed identity for the same reasons.

What do you think is the difference in being mixed raced and mono-racial?

Being mixed race, especially when it’s two non-white races, is experiencing two (or more) different cultures and coming to terms and/or coexisting with those differences. The mixed experience means you are a constant threat to society’s need to categorize, which means you experience invasive questions and inappropriate comments disguised as compliments, but also have the opportunity to engage in an open discussion with so many others whose cultural experience is different than yours.

50

Buy miXd: https://www.etsy.com/people/MIXDZINE http://mixdzine.tumblr.com/

51 What expectations have you experienced because of your racial make-up in: Relationships, Friendships and persued likes/dislikes? And h do you foolow suite?

Do you mind the mixed race defintion? If not, what is your solution to changing it in youe everday conversations?

Man, I could talk about this for a while. I’ve

done quite a bit of online dating and constantly fear that a dude is hitting me up because I look ‘interesting’ or ‘worldly’ or they wanna date the girl with the cool fro. So I think about race when dating someone constantly. I’m afraid of being fetishized. But because I live in the Northwest my

I don’t mind it. I feel like it could be less technical, especially for those who aren’t mixed race but are transnationally adopted or are transplants from

So it ’s more of a mixed cultural experience more than race . another country.

WHAT IS MIXED RACED TO YOU? Belonging to two or more

options to date POC men with similar interests is very ethnic backgrounds, and limited.

CLAIMING those identities.

Does having a mixed identity encompass a view/position within situations that a mono-racial person couldn’t themselves flex?

The experience is a little different, I’ve had experiences where people talk shit about Mexicans, immigrants, etc and don’t know that I very much identify as Mexican as well. S O I H A V E T H I S P O S I T I O N A S B E I N G A ‘ S T E A L T H ’ C H I C A N A / M E X I C A N A . I think also having a parent who is American-born (my dad) and an immigrant parent, (my mom) has affected my view of cultural boundaries between folks of the same cultural group (say, Mexican Americans vs Mexican immigrants) but have very different experiences depending on if they grow up in the US or another country.

Which

side

of

your

hertiage

do

you

identify

with

most?

It’s hard to say, because I feel like I’ve done a lot of research on my own to learn about my Mexican roots. I also spent a lot more time with my Mexi-

but I’d stay I identify more with being Black, because that’s how society sees me and treats me. can cousins growing up,

52

EVE

53

DO YOU MIND THE MIXED RACED DEFINITION? IF NOT, WHAT IS YOUR SOLUTION TO CHANGING IT IN YOUR EVERYDAY CONVERSATIONS?

It’s a weird one as I’ve always struggled with it. As it’s an easy thing to say, that people know what it means and I f e e l I s a y i t f o r o t h -

er people than I say it for myself. It puts other people at ease , because they can now pigeonhole you – and determine now that t h i s , t h i s i s w h a t y o u a r e . And now they’re like now, its

fine. But I think I’ve got used to saying it but because my dad was born in Scotland, although Nigerian, my mum was born in Scotland I prefer saying that I am mixed raced more than saying I’m Scottish. Saying mixed raced makes sense visually, people look at me and when I say that I am mixed raced, they’re like – okay that makes sense. But if I say I am Scottish they’re like, I feel that it is too open for them. So I shouldn’t say that to please people. But I feel I have a problem with the term but I say it because its easy.

Its for other people, to help them understand. If there was another term..

-FOR EXAMPLE WOULD YOU RELATE TO THE TERM ‘AFRO-PEAN’ AS YOU ARE EUROPEAN AND AFRO, ALTHOUGH THAT IS STILL A BROAD TERM?-

I’ve not heard it before.. its just annoying that there has to be so many labels for things. It will be great when we no longer need the labels: I can just say, I was born here my parents are from here. Cool? I live here now. Whereas there always has to be a label for something and the more people that people move around the world, have relationships and children with everyone, that don’t necessarily look like them, then that’s gonna hopefully change, AND THE LESS WE NEED A RACE-RELATED LABEL.

-WHY DO WE WANT A LABEL TO FIT INTO A WORLD THAT NEVER WANTED TO ACCOMMODATE US IN THE FIRST PLACE?YES, without the constant need to justify why you don’t look like the majority of people already here.

54 DO YOU EVER FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN A REGULAR SITUATION WHERE PEOPLE PUSH UPON THEIR IDEALISED IDENTIFICATION OF PEOPLE AND TELL YOU THAT YOU DO NOT FIT INTO IT BECAUSE YOU ARE MIXED RACED? OR JUS THAT YOU DO NOT FIT INTO THAT BECAUSE YOU DO NOT BELONG EITHER OF THEM.

YEAH DEFINTLEY! I think quite often subtle and not often not intended but its more when… I take it personally when people are overally interested in things to do with me that I feel they wouldn’t be that much interested in if it was someone who was White. So whether that’s like features, hair or the exact colour of my skin, its often in a complementary way but I find it, to me it says more that Y O U ’ R E R E A L LY D I F F E R E N T THAN EVERYONE ELSE.

Do you feel in that sense that mixed raced people are materialised or objectified and that they are considered that before being a person, racial identity?

I’ve noticed that more and more the older I get, or rather that I’ve become more aware of social situations.

People at gigs for example. So when I was working the other week on a Monday night I all of a sudden could feel someone’s hands in my hair, like right in my hair. I turn around to this random guy that I did not know, his hands still in my hair. I confronted him and then he said: “Oh, its just so different, you don’t see it (hair) like this all the time”. He was talking to me but he wasn’t real-lly talking to me, as you would to a person- he talked in a way… as if he needed to determine what he thought I represented or what I embodied. It was weird. It was just a really weird situation. So yeah, I feel that people mainly intend to touch me in a complimentary way, but it feels mainly negative in a way.

When they’re pointing out the things about you, all it feels like is that they are confirming- that people see difference before they see a person.

M O S T F R E Q U E N T M I C R O - A G G R E S S I O N * / I N S U LT E X P E R I E N C E D ?

I was at the hairdressers a few weeks ago and the hairdresser, she had sort of a weird attitude towards my hair. I felt a little uncomfortable, specifically with what she said when I said I was from Scotland, “well where are you really from? Where are your parents from?”, and I said “My Dad is Black-Scottish and my Mum is Mixed-Scottish” – I like saying that because of how they react to it. And she was like “Oh, Black-Scottish, I’ve never heard of that one before. And I was like, “Okay”. I continued by saying that: “My

“You don’t look Nigerian, Nigerians n o r m a l l y h a v e m o r e s q u a r e f a c e s ” . Though not a direct insult to me I was still like, who are you to tell me what Nigerian people look like?! It was just like, really weird and insulting conversaGran is Nigerian”,she then said

tion were I felt she was really prying into my life , having too much of an opinion when it hasn’t anything to do with her. I think if she had been Nigerian, maybe that would have been, she would have had more of a right, but she was just a White northern Irish woman; all I could think was, you don’t know about my life.

55 HAVE THESE EXPERIENCES, CAST BY HERITAGES YOU SHARE, EVER LIMITED YOU? (ACADEMICALLY, SOCIALLY OR MENTALLY?) Its more the, for me, the constant rise out of when I say that I am Scottish and that you feel that it limits you mentally because you think about why are people so surprised? When you shouldn’t have to think about that when I’ve always lived somewhere and it being your home, what you identify as. I think that affects how I feel, that I have to always be explaining myself, which I don’t feel like a lot of people have to do. Academically, where there was me being mixed raced in a majority 30 pupil class of (white)Scottish people, me and 3 other black boys in the whole school. Being different was always obvious. Because there wasn’t anyone else who was mixed race, I don’t feel I had any experiences where academically I felt limited.

I think it was more that I never learnt any history that felt relevant to me. So, mentally that made me feel even more different because people were learning history that they feel they could relate to and me not learning any history relevant to me.

No. I think I want to know more about my Nigerian heritage but Have I’ll never reject it but neither would I with my Scottish heritage… you Actually, no. I have rejected the Scottish side, when I had to talk ever about it too much, like in history. So at school when I had learn reject-only about the Jacobits and all other old white Scottish history, I ed a just didn’t listen and I rejected it as it annoyed me that, that was part ofthe only history that was being focused on. But its not a personal your rejection against my family or heritage its more that my other side herit- wasn’t talked about enough. Like way long ago, there would have been African people who have travelled to Scotland, but that is age? never talked about. Its very specific- white Scottish history only.

DO YOU FEEL WHOLLY ACCEPTED? HAVE MONO-RACIALS ACCOMMODATED YOU AS A MIXED INDIVIDUAL? In my experience, people will say ‘Black’ when referringabout me, not mixed raced. Unless.. the majority of people, obviously its relevant when it comes up, but people would say that I am Black. More so among acquaintances than friends, or if someone was describing me to someone else, I think people feel uncomfortable about saying ‘mixed raced’.

Why so?

I don’t know. I’ve noticed more, not people self-identifying but people generally feel uncomfortable when they have to identify your self to someone, as someone else when that person doesn’t look exactly like them. So whether they say “Oh yeah she’s black, she’s tall and she’s this” or they say “Oh she’s mixed raced and she’s tall and she works in music”. Yeah, people always have to put that bit of identification in, whereas often if I was White person and working in music , they wouldn’t say “Oh she’s white and works in music”, only that she works in music.

So people feel the need to identify that and..

- all before saying that her name is Eve..-

YEAH But, most people, white people, would identify me as Black.

56 Ever been rejected when identifying yourself solely with one racial identity? If so, were you encouraged to disband mixed identity?

I think so. I’ve never thought of it as that, as I never see, as I know Scottish people that aren’t white, then I don’t see Scottish identity as just being White.

But why would you, when the majority of people living

I reckon when I’ve said I’m Scottish to some people they’ve got it in they’re head: “Does that mean she’s identifying as being White?”. But there are white? So yeah that’s interesting,

I’ve never had a direct conversation with someone about that. So I just assume that’s what they’re thinking.

Do you mind the mixed raced definition? If not, what is your solution to changing it in your everyday conversations?

It’s a weird one as I’ve always struggled with it. As it’s an easy thing to say, that people know what it means and I feel I say it for other people than I say it for myself.

It puts other people at ease, because they can know pigeonhole you – and determine now that this, this is what you are. And now they’re like now, its fine. But I think I’ve got used to saying it but because my dad was born in Scotland, although Nigerian, my mum was born in Scotland I prefer saying that I am mixed raced more than saying I’m Scottish. Saying mixed raced makes sense visually, people look at me and when I say that I am mixed raced, they’re like – okay that makes sense. But if I say I am Scottish they’re like, I think feel that it is too open for them. So I shouldn’t say that to please people. But I feel I have a problem with the term but I say it because its easy. Its for other people, to help them understand. If there was another term..

-for example European and

would you relate to the term

‘afro-pean’

as you are

afro, although that is still a broad term.-

I’ve not heard it before.. its just annoying that there has to be so many labels for things. It will be great when we no longer need the labels: I can just say, I was born here my parents are from here. Cool? I live here now. Whereas there always has to be a label for something and the more people that people move around the world, have relationships and children with everyone, that don’t necessarily look like them, then that’s gonna hopefully change, and the less we need a race-related label.

-WHY DO WE WANT A LABEL TO FIT INTO A WORLD THAT NEVER WANTED TO ACCOMMODATE US IN THE FIRST PLACE-

YES, without the constant need to justify why you don’t look like the majority of people already here.

57 What do you think is the difference in being mixed raced and mono-racial?

I guess that you don’t automatically have one broad culture that you could instantly fit into- but I think that its quite superficial. If you’re mixed race you’re less likely to met another mixed race person exactly the same as you.

Mixed race is such a broad term, its not like I’m gonna met someone all the time who is half Scottish, half Nigerian.

If you identify as mono-racial then you can and will meet someone straight away and be like: “Oh, we’ve got all the same cultural references..”. Though I could be wrong, it’s a difficult question... I think its about how comfortable you feel as I’ve noticed that when I went to Cuba, the majority of people are mixed, I just instantly felt relaxed and comfortable because everyone looked like me! Whereas that is not the case in London or in Edinburgh. And maybe that would be the case if both my parents were Nigerian, if everyone did look like me, again, very superficial.

I T S VER Y V I SUALLYREL AXI N G WH E N EV ER YO NE L O O K S JU ST LI K E YO U, I would have never realised it would be that relaxing, mentally I mean.

Do you feel your voice is heard and accepted about your idea of your own racial identity?

Among friends and family, work then yeah, definitely. In the world, mixed raced is such a blanket term used to encompass everyone who isn’t mono-racial. Its not a voice that is heard as there’s too many people ‘s voices, from too many different places and it should be more about people’s individual voice rather than having to find a niche they fit inside of ,as that can’t possibly represent everyone who is mono-racial, mixed raced, because what is (that) actually doing at the moment?

Do you think that maybe relates to where you, being mixed raced- stand in this racial hierarchy?

Where mono-racials know instantly where they are, whereas mixed people can enter a room and maybe have some kind of anxiety as to how people will perceive me? Am I gonna have to defend myself? Will I be okay?

I think I used to feel like that when I was younger but I don’t feel like that any more as I like being different to

But I didn’t realise that I could feel so relaxed until I went somewhere, where everyone looks like me- it was really weird. the majority of people.

Although culturally it was different, language-wise, all those important factors like that were all so different. Just from walking around these people, it was relaxing. If you’re, for me, mono-racial and you go in an environment where there’s also people who are mono-racial there you’d be “Oh, I fit in”. Whereas when you’re mixed raced its less likely that the other mixed raced person will be exactly the same as you identify despite families originating from the same places.

58 What is it that you identify as?

I don’t identify myself by the colour of my skin. When you do that, its one of the main issues people have in general.. we decide who we are by the colour of our skin and I don’t do that, I identify myself as Grace, by the things I like, the things I don’t like, my personality.

Where do you consider home?

I guess I just consider home to just be my house but it is not my area, which I feel goes beyond mixed raced, wherever makes you feel comfortable and accepted for who you are. But also on the other hand, the first time I went to Africa, I felt really at home because I spoke about it with my Aunt also, and she, who’s moved from Barbados, and my dad who is half Egyptian/ English and my mum from Barbados, I don’t get that feeling of home that I got when I went to Africa.

At first I thought it was because the culture was really similar, so I went to Morocco and it was quiet similar to Egypt in some ways and then thought maybe it was just my connection to that- but I think it was just being on African soil that brings peace because that is where your people are from. Whereas in Barbados, that is not where your people ARE FROM they’ve been put there by other people who aren’t from there either.

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

Probably in secondary school… My brother is a lot darker than me; he can pass as black whereas I’m a lot paler so I don’t. The generalised and mainstream version of black culture when I was growing up was ‘ghettoised’, especially through the influence of American culture. My brother and me we were brought up as well spoken, middle class kids, but I saw him changing to fit into this black male ‘stereotype’, because he wanted to fit in. And I then thought, well maybe I have to do that too. And it just didn’t work... That’s when I realised I couldn’t identify myself by the colour of my skin, I needed to identify myself by my personality.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/ insult experienced?

Well, I don’t have hair anymore, but when I did there was a weird mind-set towards it, so with white people, they were just amazed by it but also, sometimes they’d take the piss. Or randomers in the street thinking they could touch my hair without even speaking to me.

Or saying my hair was like a poodle… Its quite offensive, having your hair compared to that of a dog… With black people I’ve had a more positive experience with my hair but actually one could argue that that positive experience has come from something negative. Especially in the West Indian/African American community where because of the slave trade, the idea that softer afro hair is ‘good hair’. It comes from the fact that lighter skinned slaves were more favourable and would have worked in the house whereas darker skinned slaves would work in the field. This lie has been perpetuated into black culture throughout history that our hair is unmanageable or needs to look more European for us to be beautiful… Thankfully things have changed and people are starting to embrace their natural hair.as a slave basically. And its been passed down, things have changed and people are starting to embrace their natural hair but, anyways.

H AV E T H E S E E X P E R I E N C E S , C A S T B Y R A CIAL IDENTITIES YOU SHARE, EVER LIMI T E D Y O U ? ( A C A D E M I C A L L Y, S O C I A L L Y O R M E N TA L LY ? )

GRACE

THEY’VE NEVER LIMITED MY ACADEMICALLY, WELL ACTUALLY I WONDER IF THEY HAVE... IN PRIMARY SCHOOL, NOT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL AS I SAID SECONDARY SCHOOL WAS A REALLY GOOD EXPERIENCE FOR ME. I THINK I HAD A TEACHER WHO WAS A BIT RACIST, SHE WOULD ALWAYS MARK ME DOWN. IN YEAR 4 MY TEACHER WOULD ALWAYS SAY YOU’RE BRILLIANT, YOU’RE REALLY BRIGHT. THEN I GOT TO YEAR 5 AND I WASN’T GETTING AS GREAT MARKS I HAD BEFORE DESPITE GIVING THE SAME EFFORT. SOCIALLY I THINK SOMETIMES PEOPLE HAVE PRECONCEPTIONS ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND BECAUSE OF THE WAY I SPEAK NOT MATCHING THEIR EXPECTATIONS FROM WHAT I LOOK LIKE, NOT SO MUCH AS I’VE GOTTEN OLDER BUT GROWING UP PEOPLE WOULD BE WEIRD WITH ME BECAUSE OF HOW I SPEAK. PEOPLE WOULD SAY HOW I WAS SO “POSH”… BUT I WAS LIKE “SO ARE YOU BUT YOU’RE WHITE”. SO ITS ALRIGHT FOR YOU...

BUT IN SECONDARY SCHOOL ESPECIALLY I WAS TRYING TO FIT IN WITH A CERTAIN GROUP OF BLACK GIRLS, AND AS I WAS TRYING TO IDENTIFY WITH THAT IDEA OF WHAT BLACK CULTURE WAS MEANT TO BE...

59

60 -That racial essentialism, whereby you have to be a certain way to be black? With nobody questioning, ‘why do I have to be those things to be black’?Absolutely! And some people just follow it! I noticed at school that as we got older people started to define themselves more by their race and you saw it when people started to form their own friendship groups, and the only people that didn’t were the girls that were really into their studies. I think that’s why it’s really important to define yourself by what you’re interested in rather than what you look like, because… I don’t know, it’s not shallow is it? It’s not on the surface, and when things are on the surface they don’t last long.

For people to understand you they need to categorise you!

And that’s just not going to work or how it does really work.

- Ta k i n g a w a y p e o p l e ’s free will to choose who they are?Exactly!

Are you against the moulded ideas of mixed identity?

It seems to me that other people see the idea of being mixed race as exotic. From White people its mostly exoticism, being the ‘unusual. It reminds me of view English Victorians had of non-white people. Then from a Black perspective there are still colonial embeddings where the ideas of ‘light skin is better’ still persist- lot of people still think that.. erugh, I hate that. Again, you’re falling into this age old mindset which isn’t, and never was true… Why haven’t we moved on?

-We ’ v e m a d e s o m a n y technological advancements but we still have n ’t s o c i a l ly m ove d on..?I grew up hearing people saying that ‘mixed race girls are sluts’, that we sleep around loads. I used to wonder if guys expected that of me… and that girls did as well… but that was it really. Ever since secondary school I’ve made an effort to not be around people that define their entire-self by their culture and the colour of our skin. If we see ourselves for our physical appearances, it definitely changes your outlooks towards life.

Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

I’m not sure I even know what the moulded idea of mixed identity is.. Because for mixed raced people there is no example to follow, whereas when you are mono-racial and have your culture, you understand it but when you are mixed raced, where are your role models? And people that

you identify with? There’s not a mixed race culture to be a part of so I’ve never been completely aware of a mixed mould that I need to fit. I’ve always seen other people’s ideas on what the mixed race mould is as their own ideas and not something that I need to conform to.

61 Do you feel wholly accepted? Have mono-racials* accommodated you as a mixed individual?

Yes, and as you get into what you’re interested in, me being music, people look past the colour of your skin. It’s a hobby and interest rather than… it’s something that a lot of people don’t define themselves within... So now I do feel wholly accepted because of the people I surround myself with but before, no I didn’t. The arts are generally good at transcending racial identities. Art is about entertaining, and art is about distracting, distracting you from social norms as much as informing you of them...

-Do you feel that’s why a lot of people take on the arts as they transcend their exterior and become what they express, within their art?Yeah definitely. And I think on the other-hand, there are a lot of ethnic minorities that don’t value the arts. I have a friend who’s Iraqi and she’s a great artist yet her parents would never let her go to uni and study art, “you need to be a doctor”, and that’s the same in a lot of other cultures, there’s a lot of negativity towards it.

Which side of your heritage do identify most with?

Probably my black side, as I am mostly black, though being mixed raced is being a bit lost. As there are just so many different places I can identify with.

And then its hard to tell when I’ve lived in England all my life, so I could say: “I really identify with Egypt” but I’ve never lived in Egypt… but when I’ve met Egyptian people, people and family I feel this peace and acceptance, like I can suddenly understand myself better. But perhaps I feel this way because it’s a part of me that I don’t know much about, so either I’m mystifying it or it’s actually a part of myself that I need to make me feel whole and to balance out the influences of my other heritages.

Have you ever felt pressure to accommodate your identity with theirs?

Yes, I have in the way that, in secondary school, that I had to become more Black to fit in with the (Black)girls around me for them to be my friend.

That I’d wanna do my hair like them or start talking like them but then realised that, that just wasn’t who I am.

Well to be honest I haven’t really been I’m not sure what they expect nor do I brought up within my family to acknowlknow what they expect .. and then I reedge my mixed raced. Its just What expectations member in secondary school, been like a by-product of who have you experienced I started to begin to hang out you are and never been in the because of your racial with majority of white girls, fore-front of my mind really but make-up in: Relaand their friends would be, then I feel some times people tionships, Friendships the boys would be, “Do you have erotised you and I don’t and pursued Likes/ go to church? Do you go to like that, and you can tell when Dislikes? And do you one of those ‘happy-clappy’ people are just interested in you follow suite? kind of churches??” kind because of that, “oh, you’re so thing, so on one hand its kininteresting”, but its always just been that da like.. I find that more with white boys people always feel really weird about than white girls, that kinda of ‘not knowthe way I speak. And I don’t know why, ing what to expect of you’.

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D E C O L D E - C D E - B D E C I D E F O R Y O U r S E L F

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O N I Se

L O N E R I E F

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ANDREA BROCCA

65 Where do you consider home?

Whenever I think of home I just think of where I am standing at that current moment. Because I grew up in Dubai, so when you’re an expat in Dubai, you’re just a visitor there, you’re on a pay visa etc And my Father is Italian and my mother is Sri Lankan, English, Italian, so I consider home wherever I am. I don’t consider Italy my home because I feel like the whole culture is different; the understanding is different, I think from a international view because I grew up in a melting pot society. So I just consider home right now to be London.

Most frequent micro-aggression/insult experienced?

For me I’ve never really focused on the aggressions I’ve got because of my mixed raced-ness. I have another side to me – Sri Lankan – that gets attacked more where I grew up. But when it comes to race, I came from a melting pot society where it wasn’t really much of an issue. HOWEVER, WHEN I WAS ABOUT 13 I WENT TO JAPAN AND WHEN I ASKED PEOPLE QUESTIONS THEY WOULDN’T REPLY BACK TO ME BECAUSE I WAS DARK SKINNED. OR THEY WOULD REPLY SAYING “MOCHA”, THEY WOULDN’T REPLY BACK TO ME BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT I WAS ‘APPROPRIATE’ TO REPLY THAN ANSWERING TO MY WHITE FRIEND. I didn’t take it on harshly because I kinda understood their conditioned understanding to think like this. They’re not bad people its just have had that ‘direction’.

In that aspect.. When I was younger the aggression was more from my self out of confusion. But there is sexuality to it, when people would identify with my ‘look’, because, maybe I don’t know, its ‘unordinary’ sometimes. And you feel like you don’t have the same chance as someone else in terms of..a relationship aspect, its different because you are different. I THINK THOUGH MOSTLY

I HAVE BEEN GIVING MYSELF THE MICRO-AGGRESSIONS.

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

I never felt that I needed to conclude anything because I am a ‘on-going project’ myself. My concentrations are constantly changing, my understandings are changing – so for me concluding on who I am would be ending my life short.

I’ve never felt to conclude myself based on my racial identity. Identity is pretty much based upon my mind and my body together and my understanding of things; my identity is purely my knowledge. I take on my nationality very much as a second thought.

Does having a mixed identity encompass a view/position within situations that mono-racial people couldn’t themselves flex?

Being Biracial makes you completely objective, almost, self-consciously you realise you belong to many other things and can’t afford to have a narrow mind because there are too many connections that make you, you. You naturally open you understanding to different cultures and essentially you have a bigger more objective view to society, I think overall more accepting of everything. Adapting better.

- Do you find that more since moving to London? Totally, nothing blocks me, I don’t have to cut down to class, I’m naturally between the walls, I can be in the room, so I just feel I can relate to everybody.

It makes me more confident as everyone, especially now is interested in individuality. You become a niche, a particularity.

66 DO YOU ACCEPT THE MOULDED IDEA OF MIXED IDENTITY OR HAS THERE BEEN A DEPOSITION PLACED UPON YOU BY PAST EXPERIENCES? I think that I do very much accept the idea of mixed identity because I think that, in the past society has been a reflection of colonialism, royalty, monarchy and those things, a time when everyone stayed within their own ‘realm’.

–Homogeneous?Yeah, so we’ve all been created by a steady line of mono-racial blood, but in the past few years we’ve been a reflection of the breaking down of boundaries, breaking down of walls. We are somewhat the ‘race of the future’ and that will manifest into society I believe because we have just (politically) entered in. Brazil in 2050 for example, researchers say will include the mixes of nearly every nationality in the world. Think of all those ideas, ideologies, a new future is exciting, more intellectually, as well as maybe a visually also.. Beauty is associated with being mixed raced, it enforces our initially shared first impression that the mixed raced connation is dogmatised for. And I guess that’s good because I am within an industry that depends on superficial beauty. Unfortunately.

Not looking like any of my family I feel like I never gave myself the luxury of creating sentimental relationships with other people, romantic ones. Growing up I always wanted to be to a bit fairer. Because at 10, I was bit more ‘tanned’, so pretty aesthetically, I guess I felt invisible. The expectations came from myself, wanting to fit into an aesthetic, which I liked, which had nothing to do with race but could have been the underlying factor if wealth and the colour of skin, that could be my self-conscious idea. And when I say wealth I don’t mean money, I mean class. It was about the worth of the human being, you link that, for me at the time, to worth, and being surrounded by the kinda people I was around (in Dubai) who were part of your nationality and the ones working ‘beneath’, I hate to that but that was what it is. And I to this day are humble towards these(my) people because in Dubai there is a huge history because this – modern slavery is everywhere. So growing up seeing a similar nationality similar to you, your whole life – and in Dubai its hardcore, like Europe is 1% of it as in Dubai there is every kind of serving, (slavery) there, you’re conditioned to really really see everyone different. That’s why I could never judge someone on their nationality I feel like shit. The words that we use are not shown in the western culture because Arab culture is so different. In terms of relationships now, I am understanding more and more culture and ethnicities, when I was younger I didn’t understand, what it was meant to be besides within ‘class’. But I always felt I belonged to two classes, and that I could always jump between them so I would limit myself from romantically exposing myself. This was from when I was younger.

What expectations have you experienced because of your racial make-up in: Relationships, Friendships and pursued Likes/ Dislikes? And do you follow suite?

67 Do you feel wholly accepted?

Have mono-racials* accommodated you as a mixed individual?

Yes, by my family. But growing up in Dubai, when you’re mixed raced its more understood than it is in Europe. Because here, I see political racism, in Dubai I see classification, in Dubai it is just understood.

Have you ever rejected a part of your heritage?

Of course I did when I was younger, the whole of my mother’s family is estranged. I don’t know much about it and can’t relate to it either, all I know is that I have it, so its confusing as fuck. Its just so easy NOT to say because of its inconvenience, its like do I mention this at the airport for example? Do I want to go through three more luggage checks you know?

There was no point in saying it, now I will as I am more mature and understand myself but before it was just convenient to say Italian, it was fast it was quick, it was gone. I give it no thought as I think, as a younger person, its always shit to be on the outside because you are scared and a kind of hesitation.

H AV E T H E S E E X P E R I E N C E S , C A S T B Y R AC I A L I D E N T I T I E S YO U S H A R E , E V E R L I M I T E D YO U ? ( A C A D E M I C A L LY, S O C I A L LY O R M E N TA L LY ? ) Socially it has limited me, that is if you grow up in Dubai where its predominately a ‘international Asian’ community. Its majority perspective has centred around the Western framework, so there’s much more racism than you’d think to expect from a non-white country.

For example, if you’re not fairskinned you’re considered poor. And this is just in the ‘filtered version of Dubai’, the filtered Asian/ Middle-eastern society despite most of the people in Dubai coming from: China, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Thailand and even Africa, (the Arab part). They all believe that if you’re fairer you’re wealthier, if you’re dark you are servitude. So me being dark skinned with my Sri Lankan blood, there was a cast upon it, if you’re a Sri Lankan in Dubai you are a server. People will link that to you so you don’t say anything, you keep it all inside, never admitting to it just to avoid the ceaseless tormenting; people naturally see you as ‘beneath them’- the lower class, racially speaking and that’s very impetuous.

On my Italian side it wasn’t the same, when I visited my family it seemed everyone loved Italians.

From the looks to the culture and fashions, everyone adored them for some reason in Dubai and that fed into how I identified whilst growing up.

68 WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE DIFFERENCE IN BEING MIXED RACED AND MONO-RACIAL? When you’re mono-racial you see mixed raced as different, you have the luxury to define yourself as one ‘of the higher handS’, SO YOU THINK

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO JUDGE. The difference between the two is that mono-racials have this idea of authority that they can be the only ones to judge, telling people who they can and cannot be. So when you’re given the privelage you will always not realise how much it is worth. An invisible power that has run our societies for centuries.

Have you felt pressure to accommodate your identity to identify with your mono-racial parents/relatives?

All my relatives have mono-racial identities; my aunt sometimes has these ideas of rejection towards my mother, which increased my need to protect my bi-racial identity. I reject anyone who doesn’t believe in it.

Could you isolate the mixed raced experience into 3 generalised characteristics- A universal mental facet that peoples of mixed races could identify?

You feel like you’re always viewing- as if you’re always on the side-lines. It’s a development, changing how people think about everything, because we are judged by how we are seen so complicating that is exciting and necessary.

What platform is more significant to identify as mixed raced: social or political?

Its tricky because they both have their pros and cons, I personally, growing up with a active monarchy in Dubai - I do not think of politics as its useless stress. So when you say from a political perspective, you have to give proof of your experience of being ‘mixed race’, as I haven’t experienced my other racial identities as much as I would like to So I guess I lean to a social platform.

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Ever been rejected when identifying yourself solely with one racial identity? If so, were you encouraged to disband mixed identity?

A couple of times. With Italians its been “Oh you don’t look Italian!”, but its fine because I don’t. So when I say that I am Italian I always get the upper eyebrow lift and the “But you look like another race also”. So I always feel kinda fearful when I have to explain where I come from to people. Sometimes it can be comforting but sometimes if you refer to a racial mix that society sees as part of a lower class, the their reac-

A lot of my friends are Indian, so when I say that I am part Sri Lankan they just laugh. “HAHAHA you Sri Lankan shit”, stuff like that. tion is different.

Between the nic’ arabs,

two

to

for

the

need

identities:

which

is

them

more in

White

and

prevalent

determining

in

‘ethregards

race?

Arabs do it really well. Within their own culture, they stay within themselves and there’s something to respect to that.. there is a strong sense of community, they help each other out a lot, but they do judge everyone else like, “Look at those white girls getting drunk!”, when I think of the Arab culture where I grew up they really really make a point to set themselves apart. To make sure that you know that you’re not “us”. I guess to protect them selves, a defence mechanism. There’s an ego there, a pride of them selves, they want continuation, they want to invest in who they are so you know, they have to stay within themselves.

That links to everyone, the Chinese and the Japanese..

Whereas in Iceland they’re really outgoing towards mixing because they’re so within themselves, being such a small population, they’re all related to each other in some way.. so you kind of see this difference with Arabs being together because of ego, then other countries who are so ‘ONE RACE’ that they wanna get out it, America, BRASIL, ..

70 Where do you consider home?

First of all, what is home? How fixed and fluid is it? I was thinking for me it’s where I am comfortable enough; so there’s no one place where I feel fully comfortable, even where I live now. So can one think can I ever be comfortable in one place? So some of my homes include some of my close relative’s houses in Tehran, a farm in west Sussex where my close friend with her mum live, my facebook account, where I live now in the council house my parents will live in for probably the rest of their lives. I feel like that’s not a full list but they are some of the places I feel at home.

What is it that you identify as?

Well to be specific, of my racial identity, whatever that encompasses, ethnically Armenian, British/Armenian person. I just say Iranian / Armenian when its obvious to the wider culture of society that I have been raised in British culture.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/insult experienced?

So I haven’t experienced many that I’m thankful, as I’ve been able to get away with it because I am invisible in a way, in a way that whiteness is not central to most people’s thinking of , when they see white people or the way that it operates. So I have benefited from the way I look and the way I sound, not overtly sounding like something ‘racialised’. But most people have asked me where my parents are from, but something that I’ve had a few times when I was a kid that really stuck with me was when people say: “Did you say Albanian? Romanian?”. “Like, where is that?”, in response to Armenia, so when people hear what my parents are ethnically, and then they bring up Kim Kardashian and that really kills me. Although I have to say that I am thankful that she used her position of celebrity to highlight the Armenian genocide.

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Do you feel, that if you were to identify as mixed race, to explain yourself in language(s) or ways that the English cannot accommodate, Do you think it would become a real incentive in creating a new worldview? Is it now time to decolonise from the western viewpoint that’s had its 500-year reign?

For a moment I was thinking, do mixed raced people need the term for themselves? So can you just not be, when someone asks you, “what is your ethnic heritage?”, cannot it not be substituted with “I am of European, African, (in the most common example) or just Black and White heritage?”. But I don’t know, it makes me think, is that not sufficient? When it comes to asking that question is that not more is satisfying? In terms of when trying to identify as something ethnically or racially?

A N N I M O V S I S YA N

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Which side of your heritage do identify most with?

I think that I’ve asked myself this question a number of times, in the more recent part of my life and I think I must identify as Armenian because that is where my blood is, and isn’t that what is most important? But then I was like, what’s important to me though? Cannot it not just be about that? Its important to a degree, acknowledging where my cells come from, knowing the people and their culture, understanding that Armenia has a distinct culture – although not unique so maybe not distinct. You can see similarities with other cultures, because of the Ottoman Empire, and sometimes even in Eastern Europe. Because Armenia across its history, its been an independent kingdom, its been part of the Russian empire, the Soviet Union, Persian empire, its just been RULED! Over and over again by dictators and different cultures and influences.

So I was thinking that’s definably important, its all parts of my identity and what has made me who I am now is important to acknowledge. So I can’t just say Armenian and just skip the Iranian, because I am so different from the Armenians from Armenia or Armenians from Syria etc. But then I also feel in some ways, my cultural experience and knowledge, I’ve not had it, In Armenian terms, I’ve had it in Iranian terms. But then being British, in this land that is called Britain in this geographical space and the people within it, and the people who have formed it, the people before I was born.

And since being born here, this unique space, my experience is not like a French person’s as in a person born in neighbouring France or our cousin America. So then I also came to acknowledge and re-acknowledge, that I had a British passport when I was younger and then, more recently in my life, I can’t just say I am Armenian/Iranian because a large part of my thinking and behaving is because of socialised in everything has come from this country.

Only in that way am I British.

So when people ask “What’s British?” I’m like, for me its nothing more than the space that I grew up in. And the language I learnt, my first language, I would say in identifying myself, I don’t identify equally to them, as an British/Armenian/Iranian citizen.I am not sure I would agree with that. I would say that I am not sure I identify with identity one more encomthan the Does having a mixed other but that I identify with them all at the same pass a view/position within situations time that mono-racial people couldn’t

themselves flex?

I’m going to answer this per say ‘mono-culture’ rather than mono-racial Armenian, as I identify as Armenian ‘ethnically’. As I have been exposed/grew up in more than one culture, (Iran) it is a theme within Armenian and Iranian thinking that it is a white western culture. So I have these different ways of seeing and knowing that not everyone does, from religious grasping outside of certain perspectives- compared to those who only immersed themselves in one dominant culture. It has definitely allowed me to see things other people can’t because they are limited, culturally, as they’ve only lived in O N E certain way.

Do you mind the mixed raced definition? If not, what is your solution to changing it in your everyday conversations?

As I don’t call myself mixed raced because of the establishment of the word, I don’t think I can call myself that, but my solution? I mean, I feel that I can speak on it at a level as I’ve said before, what I have in common with typically defined mixed raced people is that we come from more than one background. So my solution in my everyday conversations, the only possible solution I can think of is: when the need to talk about someone’s ethnicity or race comes up, for a mixed raced person, being described or describing one’s self on the heritages that you come from, that should be able to work as a replacement.

Have you ever felt pressure to accommodate your identity with (monoracial’s) theirs?

Well, most of my relatives I have met have been Armenian so even though we are not entirely Armenian, most of the time Armenian/Iranians are sort of parents or family that have originated from Iran so, my family having been living their for the past 500 years, apparently. So my relatives… nah. With school, people at school, sometimes, I remember at primary school shouting “I’m Armenian!”, and sounding like, this is what I’ve learnt I am. And then getting older, not thinking about it as much, I wouldn’t really be so vocal about it and I guess my parents also contributed to that. Speaking Armenian at home but with Iranian inflections… I experienced Armenian/Iranian cultures at home with relatives but at school I didn’t because… not even thinking about it that much, but also that there wasn’t a space for it.

Also that my parents put me in a Sunday Armenian school, which was really interesting…boring…in some ways it was Christian centric, as it’s the official religion of Armenians. But at home I was raised secular but I guess I had that space on Sundays to have space with Armenians. I didn’t think arrr I’m Armenian, but sometimes I did feel too Armenian, -“Dad don’t speak Armenian at my English friends”, worrying when you bring friends home, will they like what my mum’s made for dinner?

At uni it was at a whole different level because that was the whitest space I have ever been in. At my high school, brown was the overall majority and then going to uni with all these white people from Brighton. And all these middle class white people, not a completely new thing for me but was something I was experiencing in a completely different way, in a completely different capacity. Thinking: they’re arty but I don’t know exactly how to engage with

73 them, I would be myself and I felt they didn’t know how to take that. So had to assume whom I’d have to pair up with for the next 3 years. But then sometimes for people, not being too myself and even later on when I shouldn’t be accommodating for them, sometimes I would still be doing that… especially within school within itself its another game to keep up with… but I wasn’t obviously white like them but not sure if some of them still thought I was European decent unless they saw my degree show piece. So only until I was in my final year, embracing and taking on and making people feel uncomfortable, purposely did I feel western, but non-white/European… not white but however… I identify as ‘white-passing’ but not white. Its kind of the identity that I would shove in their face in my work but from then on I started to be less accommodating

When was it decided for you that you needed to conclude upon your identity?

So I only starting thinking about this consciously and acting upon it in the summer before my final year of Uni, because that was when I visited my family in Tehran for the first time in 8 years. Going back to where my family is from, as an adult and artist who’s been making work about social issues I relate to I was bound to ask questions I hadn’t (previously) asked or cared about before. From that point on wards I started to inquire and explore more on race, not on just in relation to my own issue but on the hugely important subject that it is. That is severely kind of, not looked at enough in the mainstream and popular culture. And in, just public life.

74 Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

We can turn around mixed identity on to white people themselves and be like, you’re a third German a quarter French and 2/6’s Spanish. Its like mate, we can all argue that we’re all ‘mixed raced’, whether visibly or not, but then that is asking why we are even calling it race? What about mixed ethnicity? Because that is something a lot more of us are!

But then it makes this specific category where people are, the majority of which in Britain, looks that way.

Most people can identify what a mixed raced specifically the European and African heritage looks like, so right now I’m gonna talk about Britain specifically.

I guess that idea it feels like its there to put another box around people, but then at the same time we can’t just say: “All humans” and be colour blind, of course. But may be mixed isn’t enough. May be historically as- I can’t say myself because I’ve never identified as mixed raced but rather mixed with multiple cultures, so may be for people who identify and who are ‘identified’ as mixed race in this country may it needs another term that needs to come about for people today seen as mixed race. To use in a way that is useful but doesn’t come from a place trying to put you in a box or trying to put you on the ‘rung of the ladder’.

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H av e yo u e v e r been rejected w h e n yo u ’ v e i d e n t i f i e d yo u r s e l f a s s o l e ly w i t h i n one racial/ethnic i d e n t i t y ? I f s o, w e r e yo u e n c o u r a g e d t o d i s ba n d mixed identity?

I could say that in a sort of passing comment, which I don’t think was meant seriously, I was always told, “You’re not Iranian” by a ethnically Iranian person at work.

I guess that didn’t affect me much as I know that I’m not racially, and I know that I am NOT JUST Iranian.

COULD YOU ISOLATE THE MIXED RACED EXPERIENCE INTO 3 GENERALISED CHARACTERISTICS?

I think I’ll just talk on the mixed cultural experience, which would include the diaspora experience.

I think, never being fully at home in one place or the other. Being able to have the potential to escape traps of hyper-visibility or invisibility or escaping the traps of white supremacy. Not being able to escape a certain rung of the hierarchy of western cultural hegemony. Western ways of being and knowing, westerners taking over the world because they think they’re ‘universal’.

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Have experiences, cast by heritages you share, ever limited you? (Academically, socially or mentally?)

It did limit me in a sense, that when I was in Japan, if my own family, my own Grandmother looked at me like a foreigner, how am I to be accepted by a entire country full of strangers? That was when I realised that I was never going to fit into this culture. I realised that there was no real point in trying hard to be Japanese. And that was when, not lost the battle but, because I didn’t hold anymore sad thoughts. It was just a matter of fact I realised that there’s no point in trying.

Do you accept the moulded idea of mixed identity or has there been a deposition placed upon you by past experiences?

Mostly when I read about mix raced people I feel like I identify with what they talk about and when I was at my high school where a lot of people were mix raced, again I became aware of the term third culture kid. And a lot of people identified as this. When I read about articles about TCK’s , I am like “Oh, that is me”, “They’re talking about me”, and felt I fit in. I didn’t actively try to fit in to that mould but as I read more into it, I understood myself better in a way.

Do you feel your voice is heard and accepted about your idea of your racial identity?

I would say that a lot of people are ignorant to what it is to what being biracial means. Nowadays, people have an idea for example of, gay rights are because they are publicised so openly, the media say so much about it, so people have an awareness. For instance, at my new job where I said I was half Indian half Japanese, they tried to go deeper into the questions that they asked me. “Where are you really from?, where were you born?” - I said Japan, but brought up in India, so they automatically assumed that because I was born in Japan that I should be m o r e Japanese. They say things like: “Oh, you must like sushi?!” - NO I DON’T, I think it’s because of the lack of awareness they don’t understand actually what it is to be, just mixed raced.

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Where

do

you

consider

home?

Unfortunately, I find it hard to pinpoint one place on this earth that I consider home.

I was born in Japan to a Japanese mother, but I do not feel I connect to Japan in most ways. I don’t consider myself Japanese even though I have a Japanese passport. I was brought up in India but I am still considered a foreigner in India by the locals. I think I feel most at home with friends who are as mixed raced as I am. People who are like-minded, that is when I feel at home. I wouldn’t say geographically one place, but spending time with someone that makes me feel like I am home.

What is it that you identify as?

It’s very difficult as I do not consider myself either Indian or Japanese. I do appreciate bits from both cultures, I can’t say pick or choose between being Indian and Japanese but I would say I am more a global citizen; I like to take the best parts of every culture and try to adsorb it from the cultures I was up in.

78 EVER BEEN REJECTED WHEN IDENTIFYING YOURSELF SOLELY WITH ONE RACIAL IDENTITY? IF SO, WERE YOU ENCOURAGED TO DISBAND MIXED IDENTITY? My family, either side, haven’t rejected me on the basis that I am mixed raced. Infact because I am mixed raced they think it brings out the best cultures, physically and charasterically..

-But have you ever been told that can’t just be Japanese or just Indian?Oh. That’s happened many times, in India I take taxi’s. And just out of curiousity they ask where I’m from because I look like a foreigner. And I say that I’m Indian, and theyr’re like: “Oh no, your hindi is too clean, your apperance is not indian, “YOU ARE NOT INDIAN”. I feel like, who are you to tell me, you know? Its my state of mind, if I feel like I am Indian, sitting in that taxi you shouldn’t question me. That’s one of the things.. In Japan, it hasn’t happened to me directly but when I walk into shops and I try to talk in Japanese they always try to talk to me in English because they think I am a foreigner. Its a bit.. I realised then, “ s o y o u ’ r e n o t a c c e p t i n g m e a s a J a p a n e s e p e r s o n . . ” .

-IN THOSE SITUATIONS, WERE YOU EVER ENCOURAGED TO OR SOCIALLY PERSSURED TO DISBAND YOUR IDENTITY TO JUST FIT IN? No, I haven’t disbanded the mixed raced identity to fit in because those people who I’ve encountered in these situations, they weren’t important.

What expectations have you experienced because of your racial make-up in: Relationships, Friendships and pursued Likes/ Dislikes? And do you follow suite?

Obviously because I’m mixed raced, if I ever meet another person who is mixed raced, there is a automatic connection. That lays down the foundation. Its hard to find a lot of mixed raced people among us (in India and Japan). In London its easier, but when you go to other places its harder. So when I do happen to meet others, its easier to communicate to them. That’s why one of my best friends is mixed raced, because she understands, not the exact same, but you’ve gone through similar struggles trying to explain to society and people, even (them) questioning your identity. So when it comes to friendships and meeting people, being mixed raced forms a unspoken chain to my strongest relationships.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS THE DIFFERENCE IN BEING MIXED RACED AND MONO-RACIAL? A huge difference! Firstly people go travelling around the world because they want to explore new cultures and being a tourist to understand the cultures.

b e i n g bi r a c i a l , y ou d on’t n e e d t o t r av e l , y ou a b s or b t h o s e c u ltu re s b e c au s e y ou r p a re nt s , a n c e s t or s a re f rom t h o s e d i f f e re nt c u ltu re s . It s mu c h d e e p e r t h a n a p e r s on f rom on e c ou nt r y g o e s t r av e l l i n g . And I feel that to be

able to think, and feel with two different perspectives, each country has their own viewpoint so having two kinds of viewpoints really broadens your thinking. I feel, compared to mono-racial people, they don’t understand the struggles,(or just the ‘being’).

79 Have you felt pressure to accommodate your identity to identify with theirs- your relative’s mono-racial identities?

I have felt like many times I have had to fit in with the culture(s). But at some point I have given up because I haven’t tried to change because I want to be thoughtful, outspoken, I don’t want to follow those social norms. So if they want to accept as I am, then great.

But if not, I feel like I can’t be bothered.

WHICH SIDE OF YOUR HERITAGE DO YOU IDENTIFY WITH MOST? I don’t really like picking a side as both of the cultures are very unaccepting. “Oh, she is Indian”, “Oh, she is Japanese”, none of the locals would claim me to be either of those nationalities. If I had to pick, I think a major part of my personality comes from India. Because I was brought up there, but also because some of my thoughts and expressions are more pronounced and less held back than in my Japanese culture.

Most frequent micro-aggression*/insult experienced?

Fortunately, either I’ve never experienced a negative experience or I’ve been ignorant to them. I’ve only had instances that were positive since I’ve come to England. Yeah, sure it’s a annoying and I reply that I am half Japanese/Indian and they always found it either exotic or charming. It got annoying to a point, but it was very rare I would experience anything bad from strangers.

The only instance I can figure as a bad one, was when I was small, my maternal Grandmother said, “Your skin is dark”.

I don’t think she meant it in a negative way, she was just stating it, but I could feel that it had negative connotations.

COULD YOU ISOLATE THE MIXED RACED EXPERIENCE INTO 3 GENERALISED CHARACTERISTICS? I feel like one word be: t o u r i s t . A tourist would visit one country and never be accepted as their own no matter how long they stayed. Even because of the lack of awareness I would say tourist because wherever I go I always feel like a tourist.

Alienated: because when people don’t understand and you don’t feel to explain yourself, you just give up and simplify things and yourself.. you alienate the truth.

Frustration: You’re always questioned. You always have to explain,(justify) and I just want to give up. As I also ‘look’ Filipino I just sometimes say “Yes, I am from the Phillipines” and that is the end of the conversation. But even then they don’t even want to accept that..

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CAN THE MIXED RACE SPEAK?