Growing up mixed race in the UK-microaggressions and identity

Introduction

I would like to put in a quick disclaimer before you continue on. This article is not intended to come across as self-victimisation and that in a broader context I am extremely privileged both socially and economically. I also do not intend to distract from the current Black Lives Matter movement. However, I feel as though the movement has allowed a broadening of the conversation to the experiences of all races, and therefore I am eager to put out my voice into this conversation. This is simply intended to be a discussion of the microaggressions that I, and perhaps others, have faced growing up mixed race and how they can affect us.

Who I am

I was brought up in the UK to an Iranian mother and a Welsh father, as my mother came to the UK as a student. Having an Iranian mother has meant Iranian culture has been a big part of my life growing up, celebrating Nowruz (Iranian new year) as a family almost every year and regularly cooking traditional Iranian dishes. I grew up with Farsi as my first language for much of my childhood however, growing up in the UK, my grasp of Farsi began to become weaker and weaker. Despite this, aspects of both British and Iranian culture have great influence over who I am today.

What is a microaggression?

In order to understand the challenges that mixed race people face, it is imperative to become familiar with the term, ‘microaggression’. According to Thought.Co.com, a microaggression is “a subtle behavior – verbal or non-verbal, conscious or unconscious – directed at a member of a marginalized group that has a derogatory, harmful effect”. The nature of a microaggression is that the perpetrator is not always conscious of how their words may come across as harmful. This is what makes microaggressions definitively different from racism, specifically overt racism. Any minority group can be the victims of microaggressions, such as women, or the LGBTQI+ community, however they are more often studied in the context of race and ethnicity. This is something that has been deeply ingrained in society due to racial biases. It is important to familiarise yourself with the different forms they can come in.

Not being white in a white environment and struggles with my appearance

Nowadays, I adore Middle Eastern beauty, however this wasn't always the case especially growing up with such features. Like most mixed race people I had an inner struggle with which side I identified more with. The sort of dilemmas I was experiencing could be characterised in a form of questioning. ‘Should I hang out with the other mixed race kids? But I don't feel mixed race enough, or do I hang out with the white girls? But will I come across as trying too hard to separate myself from who I am?’.

The dichotomy of my identity confused me for much of my secondary school years, I often felt a need to reject my white identity and actively accept my Iranian ‘side’, forgetting that I am mixed race.

From a young age, I always knew I did not look like the other girls in my class, and I felt a general shame about being different. My primary school was predominantly white at the time, and I remember being jealous of the pretty white girls with long brown/blonde hair and blue eyes in my class (due to a general lack of Middle Eastern looking children on TV and in picture books), to the point where when a teacher had asked us who we would want to be if we could be someone else, I pointed to the white blue eyed girl who couldn't have looked more different to me in terms of general appearance. Funnily enough, I did not even identify much with the only Middle Eastern disney princess Jasmine, but loved to float around in a Cinderella dress. This could be linked back to the old age notion that ‘white is the default’, that primarily if you are not white in appearance or identify yourself with white culture then you are an ‘other’.

At 7 years old, whenever given a task by the teacher to draw ourselves, I frequently depicted myself as having long, straight brown hair and sometimes even hazel green eyes. This couldn't be further from what I actually looked like. I looked different at an age where all I wanted to do was fit in.

Having taken me 18 years to finally love and except my nose, for much of growing up it remained my biggest insecurity. From an early age, I knew it was not the cute ‘button nose’ that I wanted, and at the age of 13 I started becoming more adamant that one day, I would get a nose surgery to finally look like the other white models that were becoming ever more prominent in my newly acquired access to social media. I was very aware from a young age that nose jobs were a common procedure for girls in Iran, which amplified the feeling that the shape of my nose is not pretty, and certainly not beautiful from neither a western standpoint nor a middle eastern one. No one told me that it was okay to look the way I do (other than my wonderful mum, but who listens to their mum at that age?), and so I would spend some evenings looking up costs of nose surgeries and googling before and after pics on the internet. One day a boy in the year below approached me and asked ‘why is your nose so long?’, sneering as he compared me to a teacher in the school with a very unique long and prominent nose. I tried to give the outward appearance that it was just a stupid kid making a stupid comment, that I was confident enough to ignore, when in reality this comment absolutely shattered me, as I had never had anyone actually directly comment on the appearance of my nose.

Nowadays, looking ‘different’ has become much more celebrated, and I am proud of everything that makes me the way I am. Growing up, I never really had anyone to look up to who looked like me, but nowadays there is much more representation of Middle Eastern beauty, with the rise of models such as 19 year old Deba (@d3ba on instagram). Furthermore, influential magazine companies are becoming more inclusive. For example, Bazaar put Saudi Arabia’s first couture model as their cover page. I want young girls of all races to feel as though they are beautiful, and that their differences make them so despite what society may tell them.

My experience with microaggressions

When it comes to microaggressions, people’s experiences differ wildly. I would like to make it clear that the microaggressions I have faced are fairly subtle, and have never altered my life in any drastic way. Instead, they are more day to day experiences and examples of people not thinking carefully before choosing their words, so please keep this in mind when reading on.

• “Where are you from?” I consider this to be one of the most universally known microaggressions towards people of dual ethnicity, and one of the most subtle. To many, this comment may seem fairly innocent. I probably get this question almost every day, and is often the first question people ask when they meet me. So what exactly is the problem with this question? It makes people feel different. What people mean to say is “What is your ethnic background?”, which is much more acceptable to ask. However, asking someone where they are from assumes that that person surely cannot be from here because of the way they look, again making that person feel like a foreigner when they are not. Secondly, it is completely down to the person to tell you where they come from, and they will if they want. Many people use this as one of the first questions they ask when meeting someone who is bi-racial or ‘looks foreign’, which consequently makes that person feel that their race is their most defining feature. Of course, this does not mean I want you to stop asking about peoples ethnic backgrounds all together. When someone asks me about my ethnic background, I love telling them about where my mum is from and Iranian culture. It is okay to be curious about it, but read the room! Or wait for the person to tell you first instead of you seeking it out.

• “Which race do you prefer? (x) or (y)?” (or something similar). Similar to the last one, this is very common in conversations with people who are simply curious. But again, this is not for you to ask, and also highly insensitive. It’s already difficult enough growing up and feeling you are in the gray area between two races, and not sure about which one you should identify with more. So to ask for that person to choose between the two can make for a very uncomfortable conversation. To me this echoes the question “Who do you like more, your mum or your dad?” or any other relative in your direct family. Both are equally difficult to answer and can be uncomfortable to do so.

• Getting your name called out wrong on the register. This can be considered another fairly subtle situation. However, anxiously waiting for the new teacher to call out your name in the register, knowing full well that they will mispronounce it and suddenly the attention of the class will turn on you, causes a lot of anxiety to say the least. Being a child who dutifully respected my teachers, I rarely corrected them out of shame/embarrassment. I would even get the odd teacher who would never question if they were pronouncing it right and kept going down the list. This ignorance I found to be highly frustrating.

• The ethnicity box on any document. I think this example is something that mixed race people struggle with time and time again. It seems that every time I get this question on any document it becomes an ordeal, and takes me far longer than it should have to answer such a question (compared to the kids who are White British etc). Some forms have the ‘mixed other’ box, which can be an unsatisfying option, and I understand why. Not only is it completely vague, but can have the ‘outcasting’ and ‘othering’ effect mentioned earlier. Personally, I believe a better solution would just be to have multiple boxes to check, which is, I believe, much more clear than for me having to put ‘mixed other’ or ‘mixed Asian’.

• “You’re trying to be white” This statement has probably been heard by many black and non-white people on a regular basis. On this particular day at school, I had straightened my hair, something I had been doing more frequently due to a need to ‘fit in’. Funnily enough, my curly hair does not come from my iranian side, but from my dad’s side, adding to the hilarity of this comment to me. This comment had been made in a sort of ‘jokey’ way and at the time I laughed it off, however it perpetuated the idea that whiteness, white hair and style, is unattainable to someone who looks like me, and that I was trying ‘too hard’ to be someone I’m not. I’m sure this comment hits close to home for a lot of black and non-white people who deal with this sort of thing on the daily, this is ironic, as whilte culture has completely stolen and profited off of black culture, and continues to, but that’s another issue entirely. Saying to anyone who is non-white/mixed that they are ‘trying too hard’ is absolutely unacceptable, especially, as I have previously mentioned, that many mixed race people struggle to solidify and understand their identity, particularly in one’s adolescent years, and this can have a major impact on one’s self-esteem.

There are certainly challenges that mixed race people face growing up in the uk, a society which exclusively praises its white faces, creators and communities, and my experience can be used as an example of how this affects children and adolescents of multi-ethnic backgrounds growing up. I believe it is crucial that children no matter their ethnic background are taught they are beautiful and capable as equally as their white counterparts, and this must be present in all institutions. Only then will we truly begin to see a significant difference of attitudes towards those children, as well as improvements in their mental health and well-being.

Soraya Evans