Jamaican/Guyanese | Algerian
I was fortunate enough to go to a boarding school from the age of 11 but because there was no one around that looked, sounded or thought like me, I spent so long explaining myself to people and telling them that I wasn't Black but mixed-race. I was confused and misguided about my heritage and there wasn't anyone that I could speak to, only those who would call me not Black enough or label me with a heritage that wasn't actually mine. I struggled a lot at boarding school to find the crux of my identity or to answer the question 'who am I’? Not only was I mixed in heritage, but I became mixed in all experience - having gone from extreme poverty and homelessness to a fancy boarding school or from obese to athletic or more right wing to left wing; it seemed as if my life only operated on extremes so when I didn't identify with an extreme I felt lost.
When I was a child I didn't even think about my background. As I got older I rejected it because it confused me. I hope it evolves as I get older because if I have the same stance on life and my identity at 30 as I do now at 20 then I would've wasted 10 years. Reading my history and learning about where I've come from has given me a sense of pride and empowerment and it is a growing part of my drive to succeed. I've been on the receiving end of overt racism on multiple occasions but outside of that the challenges I've faced around my identity is not feeling a sense of belonging because it has felt like there is no one else quite like me. I think another common experience of mixed people including myself is looking like different ethnicities as you grow up and people constantly guessing where you're from and getting wrong every time. It was conversations like these which made me feel not 'Jamaican' enough or not 'Algerian' enough and left me in a grey area where it seemed like no one really understood me.
In my adulthood I've learnt that identity can be created even if it is tied to things bigger than oneself; I've learnt to find peace in the middle ground and enjoy feeling different to most people in many ways.
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