Caribbean | Chinese
I identify as young British woman who is mixed-race. I am proud to say I am Caribbean and Chinese. My mom was born in Hong Kong and was adopted from an orphanage by my Caucasian grandparents at 2 months old. My Dad was born in Birmingham. His parents moved over to England during the early 60’s from Dominica, his dad was a native of the island – Carib Indian. As a family we are definitely more culturally Caribbean as we are very close to my Dad’s side of the family. I have always known that I am different. I was always fully aware that I didn’t look like the other girls in school or the people on TV, my parents were great at making me and my siblings know that we were different and that it was something to be proud and confident about, it’s who we are. For some reason mixed-race people have been put onto some sort of pedestal over recent years and are looked at to be the epitome of good looks, best of both worlds etc., like we are some hot trend or fad that will soon go out of style, but at the end of the day we are just ‘Human Beings’ like everyone else. Not better or worse. There has definitely been more positive than negative when it comes my race. I work within the performance industry as an actor and I am incredibly grateful it puts me in a position where I can represent people of multiple races. At the end of a course I facilitated last year, a girl of oriental heritage came up to me with tears in her eyes telling me how she was so thankful that I was her course assistant. That’s when it hit me, and it made me really emotional. I had never really realised before what I was representing but now that is definitely something that drives me in my career. To be a face, for those who are so under represented. To be a Brown face on TV for the youth of today that I never had. Majority of humankind will be mixed-race, it’s kind of inevitable. I think that would be a very beautiful thing. I hope it will be a future full of open minded, kind and compassionate people but I think that is incredible wishful thinking.
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