Thai | Guyanese
My Mum is originally from Thailand and my Dad was from Guyana. I grew up in Guildford, raised by my Mum as my Dad passed away shortly after I was born. I didn’t come to think about being mixed-race until I was around six years old. I obviously knew about my Father being Guyanese, but until that point, I had basically been raised in a Thai household by my Mother. It wasn’t until I went to Guyana with my Mum and met my Guyanese family that I truly understood my parentage and came fully around to the idea of being mixed-race. Whilst my Mum raised me in a Thai household, she would often try to talk to me about my Dad, and about Guyana and its culture. My Auntie lived close to us in Guildford, and she would often tell us stories about their childhood in Guyana. Now that I’m an adult and am fully at peace with my identity, I feel like face few challenges as a mixed-race person. Despite the recent political climate, I still feel blessed to live in a country that is, on the whole, pretty accepting and tolerant. Being mixed-race come with its own unique series of challenges, but from personal experience its generally great. The early years can be challenging, as it’s easy to be confused about your identity and why you’re so different to every other kid can be extremely challenging. Once you learn to accept and be proud of who you are everything kind of falls into place. Of course when you look as racially ambiguous as I do, you do get into some funny situations. You learn to recognise the questioning look of someone trying to figure out your race, and I’ve been mistaken for a Hispanic or Middle Eastern person a fair few times. There are certainly inconveniences, such as being stopped at the airport nine times out of ten, but overall, I’d say being mixed-race in today’s society is pretty okay as long as you can deal with a few weird comments. I’d be pretty happy if I was reborn as my same old self. There’s the obvious stuff like being born into money, but the only real change I’d think about is being born into a world where my Dad was still alive. I’ve always wondered how my life would be if he’d stuck around.
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