Dutch | Zanzibari
It’s hard when people constantly remind you that you don’t look like your own family. Somehow my brother doesn’t really have these issues, I think partly because you can really see it if you look at him. He always told me he feels very African, and there has never been a doubt about that. I am still trying to embrace the fact that I am both and that it doesn’t matter what people think. As long as I know who I am, that's all that matters, my Dad told me. Give me a little more time and I will get there soon. Because Zanzibari I will always be.
Recently I kind of had a hard time understanding why people ask me certain questions and why I am most of the time seen as a White person and even in Zanzibar called a Muzungu (White person). I think this is one of the reasons questions about my background started. In the Netherlands talking about Zanzibari culture, people never totally understand me (they find things 'weird' or tend to act like they understand) except if they are mixed race as well. I am always somewhere in between and actually didn't realise many people feel the same as me. Last year I graduated with an art project about this subject. We had to graduate with a project by choice. It's funny how this matched right up with how I was feeling at that time.
I decided to turn those struggles into a project; (Non)Dualiteit. I interviewed more than 20 mixed-race people to learn that they also have been feeling a type of way (everyone is in a very different process though). I met a lot of new people and it was so nice to hear and identify with everyone (the good and the bad). I do tend to focus on the difficulties especially because it is not a subject spoken a lot about and in times when struggling it is nice to know you are not the only one having questions. My art project became a small film where I try to explain how it feels; to start the conversation.
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