Not all Issues are Black or White: Some Voices from the Offspring of Cross-Cultural Marriages-by Audrey Maxwell
Source:Thuppahis
Audrey Maxwell [nee Roberts] … a chapter in Rosemary Breger and Rosana Hill (eds). Cross-Cultural Marriage. Identity and Choice, Oxford, Berg, 1998, …. ISBN 1 85973 968 7 paper … with this reproduction being rendered possible by our nephew-in-law Tissa Abeywardena
Although this volume focuses on intermarriage, it seems appropriate to include some voices of children of such marriages – which are becoming more numerous because of the expansion of worldwide contacts within the ‘global village’. This chapter is not an in-depth study of a representative sample, but rather intends to recognize that cross-cultural marriages produce consequences for their progeny. Such children face ambiguous loyalties and difficult choices in their life encounters. Nevertheless, though media coverage tends to highlight their problems rather than their advantages, the offspring who spoke to me indicated clearly that they felt there are many rewarding features deriving from their cultural inheritances. It is encouraging that, though having no claim to representativeness, these accounts at least all end on a positive note.
In 1995 I interviewed eight such ‘children’ (aged between eighteen and thirty four), reached through networking among people connected, in one way or another, with the University of Oxford. The respondents are middle class, well educated and articulate. I encouraged them to talk of their life histories using open-ended, unstructured, tape-recorded interviews. The accent was on their own thoughts and how they see their world.
Most of those to whom I talked had thought implicitly or explicitly about their experiences and how to cope with associated problems. As a child of very mixed descent myself, I found their discussion of self-identity and social placement of particular interest. One of them seemed to glide effortlessly between her varied cultural contexts, while others seem to have sometimes experienced difficulty when asking themselves ‘where do I belong?’. Some, but not all, reported experiencing problems in being accepted, or wanting to be accepted, by one or other of the cultural groups to which they were affiliated by kinship, due to cultural attitudes and practices within the family group. In contexts where Black or Third World consciousness was high, they had had to face the possibility of accusations of ”betrayal” by Blacks when articulating their whiteness. But some also had to combat being stigmatized and made to feel inferior in White contexts, due to deeply embedded stereotypical expectations and categorizations (see also Shibata and Breger, this volume). For my respondents, physical characteristics (such as skin colour) denoting obvious difference from the majority seem to be important in identity questions (cf. Spickard 1989 on the politicization of colour). As a result friendships with non-kin peer groups have often assumed great importance and marriage partners were sometimes found outside their birth communities.
Attitudes to gender relations were also mentioned as important, especially for the women interviewed. They also affected family relations and identifications.
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Moreover, as the case-studies show, changes occurred for some as they matured, as perceptions and experiences varied significantly, or their place of residence or other circumstances changed, while, as explained below, political events sometimes had dramatic impact.
Class and socio-economic status were also significant factors. The more affluent respondents who were in prestigious, fee-paying schools generally had positive experiences whilst those in state schools did not.
A sense of exclusion from either side can occur for in-between individuals, depending on geographical, social and political context, age phase, peer pressure and family relationships. Choosing an identity and group affiliation therefore depends on a variety of experiences and on her or his phase in the life cycle, as the following autobiographical studies, loosely grouped under headings, exemplify.
Race and Belonging
Avi (34)
Avi ‘s father is from Trinidad and black, whilst her mother is English and white. Her father met her mother, a nurse, whilst he was studying to be a doctor at Cambridge. Avi, the eldest of three children, was born in England.
Avi was taken to Trinidad as a toddler. Returning to England at seven years old, she attended primary school for six months. The only Afro-Caribbean mixed race child in the class, she was placed next to a retarded girl who latched on to her since Avi was kind to her. This was her only friend because she was ostracized and teased constantly by others. She was called names, was unhappy and longed to be white.
”I was incredibly unhappy and I was more unhappy because nobody believed what went on. My mother didn’t believe it. I was called ‘toffee apple’, that was their favourite nickname. I was called ‘fat mouth’ and teased constantly. I think I only became conscious of race when I was six or seven years old and went to that school and was teased. I wanted to be white. I remember I used to wet my hair to make it straight. I used to purse my lips so that they didn’t look so fat.
Avi returned to Trinidad where she had most of her schooling. She re-crossed the Atlantic to England when seventeen to attend university. She gained a good degree from Cambridge, a D.Phil. from Oxford, and an MA in Library and Inform ation Studies. She states strongly that at university her performance as a student was judged solely on academic ability. However, racism invaded her social life and very few white persons had any interest in being friends. After two boyfriends expressed reluctance to be seen with her in public, she dated only black men. However, after leaving university she dated a white Englishman who had lived in Africa and, later still, she married another Englishman. They now have a baby daughter who, like her father, is white.
Colour again is an issue when it comes to making friends and being accepted in the neighbourhood. In North London, where she still lives, Avi was made to feel definitely unwelcome in a number of groups she tried to join. She felt she was looked upon as being different, an outsider. No one attempted to get to know her well enough to find out whether she fitted in. She felt they had looked on the surface and had classified her in their minds. For instance, they were surprised when they discovered she had a doctorate, for the stereotypical West Indian is not well educated. One of the groups disbanded shortly after she joined and the organizer clearly told her it was because of her. Whenever they met in the street this woman made strange remarks about Avi’s daughter. Avi’s baby is white with fair hair but the remarks indicated that the woman thought she was dark. ‘I think this woman was looking at something that wasn’t there; because she saw me as different, she had to see my baby as different as well. And that was a clue as to why I was seen as different and alienated from this group.’
Avi once worked in the British Council and now works in the Civil Service in the Ministry of Defence. As a result of efforts to recruit people from every sector of society, there are many ethnic minorities in the public service. She believes, however, that she would have more difficulty getting work in the private sector. She has tried to enter that sector and has never got past the interview stage. At work now, she has no problems with her colleagues but thinks it an obstacle to be female and black when it comes to promotion. Despite being vastly over-qualified for her job and having excellent reports, after seven years she has had no promotion. That gender and colour seem to be a handicap to promotion seems a justifiable observation, although she has no tangible proof to back this.
Avi notes that in the Caribbean there seem to be fewer rigid stereotypes deter mining who can be included in cultural definitions of the ‘collective self’, and this is possibly because of a long tradition of cultural mixing. 1 She says her English mother adapted easily to Trinidad, to her father’s family and to the lifestyle. Her mother and father both come from Methodist backgrounds. Her mother, a com mitted Christian, found it easy to fit in with the church congregation (see also Shibata and Yamani, this volume, on how religion can be the basis of unity in mixed marriages). As for herself, Avi comments that she found two different types of attitude to colour. Her older relatives in Trinidad congratulated her on having a fair skin and less kinky hair. For them, marrying a white man was considered a way of ‘whitening’ and bettering oneself. On the other hand, according to the ‘Black consciousness’ of her adolescent contemporaries, stress on her identification with her White half would have been condemned as political betrayal. At this stage then, she identified with her black father and her West Indian roots. So here we see how the colour factor, and the current political attitudes of her peers, influenced her definition of herself from her childhood experience in England to her adolescent experience in Trinidad. Later, time, experience, and education led to further changes.
Many of Avi ‘s negative experiences as a mixed-race person are certainly to do with colour. Even now she reports that she experiences difficulties at work rid in her neighbourhood because she is perceived as different. Nevertheless, she has now come to accept her mixed ethnicity as an enriching part of her strong sense of self.
I think I’ve got the best of both worlds. Particularly because I have been brought up in the Caribbean where people are not so hung up about race as they are here and I’ve been able to see both sides. I value both sides of my heritage. I’m not ashamed of the White and I’m not ashamed of the Black. I’m equally Black to White, I’m half and half … Any doubts I’ve had in the past I’ve overcome them now … I think it is an advantage to look what you are. I look like I’m mixed race … it is quite obvious … they accept you or they don’t accept you. I’m a bit more concerned for my daughter. She is quarter black and she looks white. She may have slightly more problems with people who at a later date find out she is mixed … I’m glad I look like what I am and I think that the way forward in combating racism is that there ought to be more mixed marriages.
Far from seeing her mixed race and culture as something negative, something marginalizing, Avi now feels very balanced and optimistic.
Jack (32)
Jack was born in Leicester, England. His biological mother is English, his biological father an African-American in the US Air Force. He was adopted as a baby by another African-American air-man and his American (Creole) wife, and brought up in California. As a young child, moving from one Air Force base to another, being part of an incorporated family in a closed community, he had positive experiences. There were a number of other mixed-race offspring and there was acceptance and a sense of belonging. This could partly be due to the cosmopolitan character of the group and the lack of regional identity, or it may have been due to pride, elitism and the community spirit in the Air Force.
When he was nine his family moved and settled in southern California and there he began to experience racism (see Alex-Assensoh and Assensoh, this volume). He was bullied by both Black and White children, because he was in between, not a member of either polarized category. Jack notes that his difficulties had partly to do ‘with the reality of America itself, in that it does not know how to deal with people who are mulatto, because it brings up the whole baggage of relationships between Blacks and Whites for over two hundred years, an uncom fortable subject to this day. People react out of that, out of guilt and fear.’
When his family moved to northern California there was far less open expression of racial hostility. However, when attending State schools at secondary level, he was subject to a certain degree of harassment from both sides: being seen as not belonging to either Blacks or Whites because he was brown skinned and spoke differently from either group. However, he also experienced positive attitudes. He was popular and sought after by White American females who were attracted by the exotic, handsome, Other (see Rattansi 1992: 27; also Kohn, this volume).
Jack tended to identify with Black American culture because his family clearly did so, although his speech and skin colour made him atypical. Total acceptance by his adoptive family and their network proved very helpful. His mother, though Creole, considers herself Black, yet she totally accepts Jack’s Black and Whiteness. She does not consider him a traitor in affirming his White half. His mother’s positive affirmation of him has helped, as has his own ability to find acceptance and respect amongst both Black and White communities. Another important factor in increasing his self-confidence was that his biological mother sought him out when he was on a short-term mission in Washington and reassured him that he had not been unwanted. Rather, she had given him away as a baby because she put his interests first: she had reckoned that he would encounter problems growing up as a mixed-race child in Leicester and that he would have more opportunities living with his adoptive parents. His adoptive father, coming from the ghetto area where the Los Angeles riots took place, had extricated himself from his situation by joining the Air Force and rising to the highest rank of NCO, and this job, along with his, and his wife’s, personalities had enabled them to rise to middle-class status. This has contributed quite a lot towards Jack’s own confident attitude.
Jack attended Stanford University, where he began to see his mixed-race back ground as positive. His strong sense of self and social consciousness was further developed when he got involved in Christian mission work in an urban priority area of Washington DC. Religion and middle-class affluence probably helped develop his self-esteem. He saw the advantage of being able to identify with both camps. He also saw that it was important to have a sense of a whole, complete, self- without trying to please both sides. This was difficult but he has achieved it through growth and experience.
At university, he was helped by not feeling alienated but accepted by the more privileged strata of society. His studies in International Relations, looking specially at relations between rich and poor, increased his understanding. So, although there was a part of him that hated the rejection he would get from some Whites, as well as from some Blacks, he was able to transcend this and to come to grips with it and have a complete sense of self-worth – well, just being glad in the way God has made me, being happy with both parts of my life, being Black and White. That I didn’t have to wear a different hat on different occasions according to the different types of people I was with in order to please them. At that point I began to have a sort of peace about who I was, that I·could be a whole, integrated, self in any context.
After Stanford, Jack attended Fuller Theological Seminary and whilst there came to England for a summer school where he met his Dutch wife-to-be in Oxford. Later Jack took a further degree in divinity at Princeton, and worked in Phila delphia. He spent three years working in Holland, where he encountered few negative experiences. At Oxford University too, the experience has been on the whole positive. At least there were no overt or obvious negative experiences – except for one, when a shopkeeper wrongfully accused him of stealing, and made remarks stereotyping Americans. In fact, he does have a sense of his Englishness, whilst affirming his Black American background also.
Jack has thought deeply about the increasingly multi-cultural nature of society. He considers that the experiences of offspring of cross-cultural marriages, with their deeper understanding and flexibility, could make a positive contribution to toleration.
From the above two case-studies, it seems that respondents sometimes felt marginalized in both cultural communities to which they had kin ties. Avi in her English primary school suffered racism because of her darker complexion and wanted to be white; in Trinidad, in adolescence, ashamed of her White half she affirmed her Blackness. Being coloured continued to be disadvantageous in certain contexts in England as an adult. Jack suffered racism in California from both Black and White schoolfellows who perceived his difference. Maturity, education and other experiences have helped both Avi and Jack to handle both sides of their families, and to achieve a balanced sense of identity.
Politics and Gender
Shan (23) and Raj (21)
The perceptions and attitudes of the next two people considered have been affected by their complicated situation. Shan and her brother Raj have an Indian father and a Sri Lankan mother. Shan was born in England and Raj in India. The father comes from an upper-class,-elitist Parsee family, but was educated in England. The mother is Christian and mixed race, having a Tamil father and Burgher (Anglo Asian) mother. These cultural backgrounds went unremarked in India, because of the presence of many Asians from different regions. The early upbringing of both children was in Bombay, but when Shan was fifteen and Raj thirteen the family moved to England and their later education was continued in Oxford. The differ ences in the two cultures where they lived- first as children in India, and then as adolescents and young adults in England – was the significant cross-cultural dimension. Their parents, though stemming from two different Asian communities, shared the same academic, English-speaking milieu, whereas the children had absorbed the culture of Bombay, and spoke Hindi and Marathi as well as English. The culture of middle-class Oxford was acceptable and familiar to both parents, who had been to University there. But for the children the set-up was unfamiliar and difficult and they felt unaccepted. Both suffered from racism. They were called names, received derogotary remarks and were shunned or ignored. This happened both at school and outside school. These negative encounters were due to their being brown with obvious Asian looks. Shan states
“After coming to england my experiences of racism were very clear, very clear-cut…As soon as I was in school they called me names ,everything from a ‘Bloody Paki’, ‘Black bitch, Black bastard’ to ‘dirty’ and other nasty things. That has coontinued, not only but in the streets, in shops, … and in buses people don’t sit next to you. And now I canasayasa teacher, that in school I have had Whie girls say I was just a Black bitch and i’ve heard Afro-Caribbean girls saying i was either her nor there, neither this or that, and I have no right totalk… In Coventry in an Asia area, Punjabi people, old woment look at me with complete disgust when I walk down the street holding hands wih with, as they perceive, my White boyfriend. I’ve had people spitting at me, throwing things at me, but Ithink that must be theexpereicne of lots of people who are not from mixed rac, but are black or brown (Cf. Rattansi 1992: 22, 33, 34).”
The gender factor is also important in Shan ‘s experience. There is no doubt that her negative experiences in England were worse than her brother’s. Yet she feels she has got something positive out of coming to England by becoming aware of how much gender rules life in India and how much one had to compromise as a woman there:
“I never was so aware of how little freedom I had – whether it was to make a movement in the street, wear certain types of clothing, speak loudly or softly, hold someone’s hand- as I was after I had been in England … I mean, I almost feel like my whole body becomes cramped when I get to India. I walk in a certain way, I talk softly, I do my hair in a certain way. Certainly, I found as a woman it has been much more empowering being for a while in England. Not because England is an empowering place for women but because India is such a disempowering place for them.”
The change from India to England was helpful for her because ”I was not subject to the same scrutinies that English women have; my body is not looked at with the same gaze by White men. I’m just Black to them. In a sense my race freed me from my gender.” Her perception is that most Englishmen do not have the·same expectations of her that they do of White women. Whether it means marginalization or not, it gives her freedom to behave naturally. In India she finds the scrutiny of men horrible and asserts that sexual harassment in India is an ongoing outrage on a grand scale, although women are ashamed to speak about it.
At university, although she felt respected for her academic ability, Shan considered that being a mixed-race Asian woman could be a burden. She found herself becoming more assertive in order to contradict stereotypical expectations: ‘I found myself being forced by people’s views of me as a Black woman to change my behaviour. I talked more than I would otherwise. I was more aggressive in certain situations’, she says, ‘to demonstrate that Asian women were individuals’.2 In India, when women differed from the expected norm of the quiet submissive woman it had to do with class, power and education, not race.
Shan ‘s mixed-race inheritance and mixed cultural background has led her to experience two different forms of exclusion: because of race in one society and gender in another. Therefore, she says ‘I’m critical of identity politics which are exclusive, which are built on foundations which cannot be made common; for example: identity politics which excludes people of one colour or one religion or one gender or anything which excludes people completely.’
Shan has parents, grandparents and maternal relatives who are politically aware and articulate. She and Raj are likewise politically active. The Gulf War, which started soon after she got into university, was a critical event in her consciousness. ‘It really had an immense effect on me because it showed me first hand what the Western countries could do to the Third World whensoever they chose, without any opposition, without being stopped. I felt terrifically strongly about the injustice of it.’ She was incensed by the apathy of people around her who could go on leading their everyday lives unaffected, even condoning the action of the country killing people in their name. ‘It made me aware’ she asserts, ‘of the creating of consensus in the war against the “dirty Iraqis”. If anything it consolidated my sense of being an outsider, being always on the other side; being always critical of Western society and what it does to the Third World.’ She also became aware of how unstable friendships were. To her, friendships were to a large extent dependent on political perception and she felt angered that many were unwilling to take responsibility for what their government was doing. This perception is important because, for a person of mixed race and culture, the community of friends is especially significant.
Shan considers that one of the positive outcomes of being a mixed-race child and living in two different cultures is that she has been forced ‘to go out and build a community of my own’. Unlike those brought up in one society who usually tend to adhere to friends in the community of upbringing, Shan has been willing to lose people, to challenge tradition and to act independently. She could not depend on a birth community nor crave support from older persons here. When she needed to affirm her Indian identity in England she couldn’t find anyone to identify with, because Indians saw her as different. On the other hand, acceptance in some Asian communities in England was conditional upon willingness to compromise her behaviour and identity. This difficulty in being accepted, with all her differences, • was experienced in India too. The community of friends which she built up, therefore, was very important for maintaining who she was, the person whom she was seeking to be.
Shan’s brother, Raj, has just completed his B.Sc. honours, as did Shan. He received a first-class degree and is now studying to be a teacher. In India, Raj states, he never consciously considered his mother as Sri Lankan. Contact with his father’s relatives, a small elitist Parsee community, was frequent but not intimate:
“I never felt that that side of my family was a major part of my identity. I should say my identity then was shaped more by the individuals my parents were. Partly also by my mother’s side of the family, I would say, and partly by school, and partly by the things that I did as a child which had no relation to the family.”
Although Raj seldom saw his mother’s relatives he felt an affinity toward them. However, Sri Lanka was not known intimately, nor did they speak Sinhalese or Tamil. Thus Raj’s most significant others were the ones he grew up with. ”I felt genuinely at home with the particular little subculture of my school and the people around. We spoke to each other in a kind of degraded Hindi which was effectively my main language apart from English – not in Tamil, Gujarati or Marathi as it should have been.” He was a little different to his schoolmates, he perceived, because English was his first language and books were important in his home. No rejection or negativity was experienced in Bombay.
In England, Raj completed his secondary education at the same state school as his sister:
“It was, of course, an extreme shock. Everything about being in England, in Oxford, was a complete shock … I felt it was a very violent school, not just in a physical sense, but there was a lot of mental bullying, some of which I was subject to more than others and which led me to hate it.”
The other pupils and Raj had nothing in common, such as an interest in pop groups, music stars or football. ”I had nothing to relate to as a starting point for relation ships.” The culture gap was a big reason for his unhappiness.
Raj goes on to say that ”Racist abuse was very prevalent, but I would say that that affected me less than a general form of ostracism.” He was shunned because of his different accent, his colour and because he was seen as Asian. Behaviour learnt in India, such as standing when talking to a teacher, made them laugh at him. In the fifth form he started adapting and made some friends. ”The change took place entirely by my adapting. No one was ever challenged to understand me.” Dominant cultures expect minorities to change and become acculturated. But though he was never close to them, Raj began to relate to some fellow pupils. He felt he could now fit into British as well as Indian society. However, this led to contradictions; he couldn’t communicate the British side of himself to people in India or even to his family. ”I could never communicate the change which had taken place or which had to take place for me to be able to survive.”
Raj, Shan and their family lived in university accommodation. The postgraduate community, although more ‘civilized and academic’ than school, was not parti cularly friendly. Raj’s father, unlike the rest of the family, had his set of friends and his own world of academic discourse. Raj found that he could communicate better with his sister and mother, both of whom were also experiencing their own traumas. He then began to perceive his mother as more Sri Lankan and recognize his Sri Lankan heritage, but he says the affinities he had were ”far more to do with the particular kind of individuals involved, than the communities involved”.
Raj had only white friends at school in Oxford. He never consciously attempted to make friends with Asians or Afro-Caribbeans, probably because he did not think of himself as Indian. Towards the end of his fifth-form year he began to see himself more broadly as Asian, as defined by British society. This realization of difference made it easier for him to relate to others. ”My identification was with any Third World people or any exploited people … I would say it was a positive thing, this change.”
At London University overt right-wing politics and a strong masculine culture (which he rejected) were more obvious than racism. Gender issues did affect his attitudes. He was critical of his father’s male chauvinistic attitudes and the assumptions his father made within the home of being waited on and being the centre of attention. As for himself, Raj admits that females found him attractive even at school. One embarrassed him by going down on her knees in the playground and asking him out. At university he had begun to adjust and with conscious efforts made friends with persons from different communities, White, Afro-Caribbean, Asian and mixed. His present partner is English and White. ”I think ultimately a growing political awareness was much more important than what I saw as my ethnic background.”
In India he had been aware of injustice at a micro-level, of men against women, rich against poor. In Britain at this stage he became starkly aware of the unequal relationships between First and Third Worlds. The Gulf War highlighted this for him as it did for his sister. He says it was ‘a major, very important experience in terms of my politicization’. He felt a deep anger at what he saw was another kind of racism, different from direct personal affront; one that was dangerous, costing people’s lives. He saw how propaganda was used to shape people’s attitudes and was appalled at assumptions made by nice people about Iraq and the Third World — how cheaply they held the lives of people over there! His views of British society were significantly affected by these events and his identification with the exploited strengthened. Those he kept as friends were coloured by his politics rather than his ethnic background.
Raj considers mixed-race or cross-cultural unions to be positive events. The movements in some Afro-Caribbean groups and Asian communities towards ‘a kind of ethnic nationalism which particularly targeted people in mixed-race relationships’, he sees as ‘a uniformly negative thing, a sign of Black male control over Black women’. Sometimes, he thinks, people extend one unfortunate indi vidual experience so as to generalize about total communities. Also, where people are unaware of sexism as a dynamic, they respond by viewing every problem from a racist angle. He considers marginalization to be a problem of the com munities involved rather than of the individuals affected, and therefore thinks that the answer lies in the education of these communities.
Sheriff (21)
Sheriff’s father is an Iraqi businessman from a wealthy, middle-class family, while his mother is Irish, from a strict, Catholic, working-class family living in England. The parents first met in Liverpool. Sheriff has spent most of his life in London except for three years in California. During his early childhood his parents ran a successful restaurant in London. In the USA they lived in an upper-class area in the San Fernando Valley, and were wealthy. Although they were not affluent after their return, he and his two younger siblings attended private schools. At university he obtained a good honours degree in philosophy. He is now studying to be a teacher.
Sheriff, his brother and sister were perceived as White by others because they had pale complexions, therefore they did not suffer from racism from white people. His first recollection is of living in London among a multi-racial population on a Council Estate in Chelsea. Similarly, the catchment area of the private, upper middle-class primary school he attended had children from several cultures. Many were diplomats’ children. ”We liked the fact that there were children from several other cultures. That made us feel at home.” In retrospect Sheriff sees that there may have been some racist encounters which he did not recognize as such when young or of which he has suppressed recall. ”Only recently I’ve started to discover ways in which I might have experienced racism as a child and not known it, and ways in which I wanted to suppress it as well.” At his less upper-class secondary school with a high Asian intake, he was more aware of racism, though not acutely affected himself. Sheriff says ”It wasn’t a kind of coincidence that all my friends were of mixed race or were completely black … My name was the giveaway really and wherever it came up we were perceived as Other and it came up right throughout my schooling.” However, compared with the previous respondents the negative aspect was minimal.
Sheriff’s family relationships and his mixed cultural background played an important part in his life-experience and perceptions. He was aware of his mother’s feelings. She had five sisters and two brothers. The sisters all married foreigners. Sheriff says ‘they all married out which indicates a pattern … connected to their upbringing, I think. Their father was very bigoted and narrow minded and they’ve all had that tendency to break away and marry into a different culture … My mum was very rebellious … My dad represented a larger world and I think he represented some kind of social mobility, to move up a bit” (cf. Merton 1941: 361-74). The assumptions and expectations revolving round vague stereotypes could be functioning here (see Kohn, this volume); the father possibly seen as an ‘exotic other’, a prince from the ‘Arabian Nights’, for the poor working-class mother, who defied her father’s objections to her liaising with a Muslim. The relationship did not have difficulties on religious grounds because neither his father nor his family were strict Muslims. There was interaction with the families of each parent, especially the mother’s Irish siblings and their families. They also knew the father’s two brothers and sister, who eventually married Iraqis. The main cultural influence on the Arab side came through the restaurant; through the food, music, language spoken, and through the working personnel and their Arab clientele. In the three years that Sheriff spent in America (1982-5) he did not experience racism but felt a sense of isolation and culture shock, a lack of community.
The gender factor came out strongly in Sheriff’s experience, as well, he reports, as in that of his siblings. This applied to difficulties not only in the relationship between his parents, but also to his father’s sexist behaviour towards his sister. The gender dimension was tied also to the clash of cultural notions, perhaps of expectations about women and the woman’s place in the home. Sheriff says
“As a child I wanted to repress or suppress my Arab side because I only aw the bad side of Arabic culture … I didn’t want to identify with it … My mum brought us up single-handed. Even though we had lots of money he never gave any money to her. She did all the cooking and cleaning, later also the business side of things. There never was any question of him doing anything. He was an alcoholic so he was incredibly verbally abusive and also physically abusive as well, though not in front of me.”
Sheriff had a close relationship with his Irish mother and was protective towards her. He hated his father’s oppressive behaviour towards her and his sister.
Male dominance was evident in the Arab guests, customers and workers in the restaurant. His mother, excluded from this circle, associated with her sister whose Egyptian husband also worked in the restaurant; her brothers gave some support. At this period Sheriff, identifying with everything non-Arabic, suggested that his parents separate.
At London University, despite efforts to make white friends, Sheriff gravitated towards mixed-race people because they shared a common sense of unease and insecurity, even though middle class. ”I see them as being more open minded in many respects than the white children.”
Sheriff has now changed his politically conservative opinions. His interest in Iraq, Iran and Islam is because of his father. ”The most politicizing influence I had was the Gulf War … the dehumanizing way the Iraqis were spoken of … as rats. This I couldn’t take, and actually having to go to school which was one hundred per cent behind the Gulf War and beating the war drums every day.” He went to great lengths to watch the news, and read all he could about it. The way things were written angered him.
“The way the whole thing was described … the way the Iraqis were not people, made me speak out at school. I organized a debate at school in which we won, saying the war was unjust … That had one of the biggest effects on me, in terms of my identity as well, and then after I went to university. Before that I would never have identified as Black in the political sense of the word. I always viewed myself as White, and I understand why I did it, because my experiences weren’t as bad as, say, an Afro-Caribbean’s and also some Asians … but nonetheless I identify as Black now. I think there were connections and similar experiences. They don’t have to be to the same degree always in order to relate to other people, virtually all my best friends are other ethnics. One of my best friends is Pakistani and of course my partner now is Asian. So I very much identify with that and feel a real sense of having had the world opened to me.”
Sheriff’s words state clearly how his experience, his friends and world events shaped his thoughts, perceptions and identification. He considers his present identity positive because of his identification with the Third World and the possibility of doing something to help.
Sheriff reflects on the various ways he regarded himself and says ”I’ve never felt really British. I’ve felt Irish, which is distinctly not British, and I’ve felt Iraqi. So I identified with both these things at different parts of my life.” Also his closeness to his mother made him articulate his Irish eulture as a young person. He says ”I think, now, my identity tends more towards Iraqi and Black.” His mother, who always retained her Irish identity though living all her life in England, cannot accept the change in him:
“I think one thing my mum finds difficult to accept these days is me identifying as Asian or mixed race. She doesn’t understand that even though I’ve experienced some bad things in Arab culture, I wanted to keep links with Arab culture. My brother particularly, too … He’s closer to my dad … She does not want to accept this. When we were kids we accepted our mum’s culture. We never initiated bringing Arab culture home. But now me and my brother feel a connection with that and my mum can’t take that, and she kicked us out for that – which was completely unjust.”
Meanwhile, Sheriff’s sister has negative reactions to anything Arabic because of her father’s abuse, though she has many black and mixed-race friends. Sheriff’s father has expressed explicitly his racist attitudes toward Afro-Caribbeans and Asians. When the children were younger he did not mind his son dating girls from these cultures, but Sheriff is certain that his father would object to his marrying his present Asian partner. The father adamantly forbade Sheriff’s sister having black boyfriends. She eventually ran away from home. Sheriff comments on how much more difficult it is for a female than a male to be black or of mixed race. He says that he has seen this for himself with regard to people’s behaviour and attitudes towards his partner and other girls.
Despite the negative factors Sheriff has experienced lately, he still sees the positive side.
“Having mixed-race parents has given me an interest in those cultures which has a snowballing effect which creates an interest in other cultures as well. It has also helped me to relate to people from other cultures, especially if they are in similar situations … So I think it is very positive. It has given me an interest in struggles round the world, being politicized and identifying myself as Black, fighting things, anti-racist and Black struggles, and feeling differently about things in this country, feeling less apathetic than I would have, feeling kind of White.”
He also feels positive about his own partnership. He is glad that he has witnessed people discriminating against his partner and others. He says ”I think it is positive, me having had the background I’ve had and then gravitating towards people who feel similarly concerned about change.” Life experience clearly changes his perceptions of the world, the way he identifies himself and his priorities for action.
Classs Similarities
Gavin (18) and John (21)
Lack of any distinguishing physical features, including colour, seem important in the construction of identity for the next two respondents, the brothers Gavin and John. Their Iranian mother has lived in several European countries and speaks fluent French and English, but still consciously accesses her Iranian culture. The· father is English and also well educated. Both parents are from upper-class back grounds. The brothers both look English and act English. In everyone’s perception, including their own, they are English. They live now in rural Oxfordshire but both boys, besides travelling widely, have lived abroad in Malaysia, Hong-Kong and Romania following their father’s postings. Both were educated in prestigious English fee-paying boarding schools. The older one is now completing university whilst the younger one has taken a year out prior to university. Thus their con sciousness is upper-class English. Neither has received any racist remarks or negative attitudes, either at school, from their village community or from society at large.
Both boys have obviously benefited from the cultural and personal input from the Iranian side, their mother’s socialization, and through their maternal grand parents who have made lengthy visits every year. Their mother’s sister, her husband and children, plus friends, are often house guests and give them experience of Iranian extended family life. Listening to Persian history, stories, anecdotes and music extends this cultural dimension. On their father’s side, except for occasional contact with their father’s mother who died several years ago, his sister and some cousins, they have little interaction. The father comes from a conservative, but not close-knit, English family. Both boys feel accepted by both maternal and paternal relatives. Gavin says that
“Having been brought up in England and having visited Iran only once when I was very young, I think I feel very much English. This stems of course, very strongly, from my education. It has been solely English. I don’t speak Iranian. Therefore, that shuts out a great deal of the Iranian side. However, I do under stand certain bits of Iranian. Also, I think religion plays quite a large part in it. Being a Christian … never having visited a mosque, I don’t know much about the Islamic side.”
However, he is keen to know more about this part of his heritage. He is an enterprising young man and in his year out, after earning his way to New Zealand and working on a sheep farm, he intends to rectify this. ”I’m very keen to learn more about Iran and this is why I’m going to visit Iran on my year off. Having just scratched the surface, I’d like to go much deeper into it as well as go and see the physical things, the architecture, the mosques, etcetera.”
Both boys have been brought up Anglican Christians. The fact that their mother is a Muslim presents no difficulty. The younger lad of eighteen years seems more conscious of the positive aspects of his mixed heritage. ‘I think I have an advantage over many people because I have the English culture and background. I can learn from that and at the same time I can learn from the Iranian side. It gives me a broader perpective on life as a whole.’ Despite his not speaking Persian, his upbringing and contact with maternal relatives and friends has fired his interest in and wish for a deeper knowledge of Iran. John too, found the familiarity with extended family life a distinct advantage in helping to cope with living in Gambia during his year out. John says he has not thought much about questions of identity: ”I think I feel mainly English. I’m aware that there are other sides to my identity.” What he says about his peers at school and university also accords with his brother’s impressions that they have been broad minded and not racist. He believes that others who were black were not subject to racism at school either, or at least he didn’t perceive or recognize any problem. The school environment, relatively protected from the outside world, could have affected their perceptions, but the quality of education and high expectations of mores and behaviour could account for the absence of racism.
Switching Identities
As we have seen from Sheriff’s experience, identities can change. It is possible to move between two distinct identities according to context and place in the life cycle, and to one’s perceptions of one’s reference group and the felt need to fit in with it. Here we may listen to Sarah’s voice as she adopts an ultra-English way of speech or a Sri Lankan accent as she deems is required. She feels a strong sense of belonging in Sri Lanka amongst her relatives; but equally she is proud to be a ”maid of Kent”. She chooses to be what she calls ”chameleon-like”.
Sarah (19)
Sarah has a story similar to that of Gavin and John in some ways. It also has some interesting differences. Sarah’s mother is Sri Lankan; light-skinned, she also came from elite mixed parents. Sarah’s father, born and bred in Britain, has Swedish and Scottish antecedents. Sarah’s parents met at the University of Oxford and married despite objections from her father’s family. Her father, Sarah says, is the epitome of a distinguished, elegant, English gentleman, her mother is ladylike and equally clever. The family live in Sevenoaks in the stockbroker belt. She remembers that as a child she and her mother were conspicuous as the only foreign looking persons in their small town. People turned to stare at them, possibly not because of their colour but, understandably, because her mother wore a sari. There were no negative comments or behaviour of any sort towards them that she remembers. In fact, she has never experienced any racism in Sevenoaks, or understood it as such, if it occurred.
Like Gavin and John, Sarah attended prestigious, elite private schools, at both primary and secondary level. Like them she has a light-coloured skin. She did not experience any racism at school. Only once has she felt uncomfortable – when changing for swimming, a child asked her whether the dirt was difficult to remove. With a child’s instinct to fit in and not appear different, she said she took pains to speak English with the same accent as her school friends. ‘But when I was a Brownie, it was a great issue because in my Brownie pack there were girls from working-class backgrounds, as also in the Brownie pack which would share the Brownie camp. They would gang up on me and call me a Paki. They were very spiteful, pulled the ears off my soft toys, and things like this, because I was Other.’ Interestingly, she associates racism with class. The only other time Sarah’s mixed background had caused aggravation was when trying to catch a bus in London where she was subjected to racist name-calling such as ”Paki bitch”. Although her skin could be described as creamy, she had acquired a considerable summer tan at the time of this incident. Although some children identified her as ‘Paki’, given all the other signals and symbols she carries with her, she can be seen as White and English. In fact, whilst in England, she claims her British identity. At Somerville College, Oxford, her British friends do not see her as different, since she speaks and acts as an English lady. As at school, her experience has been unproblematic (see Brah 1992).
When in Sri Lanka, however, Sarah articulates her Sri Lankan identity. ”I think I see myself belonging to both very strongly, but I am who I’m with. When in Sri Lanka I speak differently. I do have the same Sri Lankan accent as my aunts have.” She is clever at adapting to either environment and takes pains to do so. She says that it isn’t from her father she gets her feelings for England and
“It isn’t from him I’ve got the way I speak, which is much more extreme than my father’s. I think it’s a part of trying to be English. It is part of my chameleon instinct to fit in with wherever I am. In the same way as I said that in Sri Lanka I had this Sri Lankan accent, here, I have a very, very English accent. So much so, that a friend of mine, turned round and used me as an example of absolute Englishness, which I had to spend a great deal of time saying I wasn’t … I’m not. Yet as soon as I opened my mouth I betrayed myself as an English lady, I hope.”
Sarah feels accepted by both parents’ families so that she can choose to identify with whichever group she is with. She says that when she is in Sri Lanka she fits in, she is familiar with everything and knows her background through her mother’s stories. However, she probably fits in only with her particular class. She has met about sixty members of her mother’s family and was not only accepted but con gratulated by a respected Kandyan relative on looking Kandyan. ”I feel very, very strongly that I belong to them.” With regard to Britain, however, she states
“I don’t think I identify with England, Britain. I identify with my county, not my country. Being Kentish, being a maid of Kent, is very, very important to me. I’ve lived in Kent all my life. I love it in a way I love no other part of England or Europe. The only place for which I have a comparable affection in terms of landscape is Sri Lanka. I’m a girl of the Weald. I live at the foot of Pilgrim’s Way and the landscape there is the absolute picture of England.”
As Sarah speaks, her accent becomes very upper-class English, adding conviction to her self-perceptions. She goes on to say later, after expressing her great appreciation of her England, that ”In a sense, I do feel some identification but I don’t feel the intense patriotism I see in some people.” This statement modifies Sarah’s previous one, placing county in opposition to country. Most often sentiments for locality nourish sentiments for one’s country.
Sarah expresses the ambiguity of her mixed culture more than any other interviewee (see Benson 1981), but it is not a negative experience, it is more a switching of identity, her acknowledged chameleon quality. This could be due in part to personality or to the particular phase of life she is at and could change with time and growth. Sarah everybody else is. Yet at the same time I see myself as not fitting in anywhere exactly, sees both the advantage and the disadvantage in being of mixed race and culture. ”Being this mixture is much more interesting, more individual than being exactly like because I’m always ever so slightly outside.” In the last analysis she finds it positive because she is adaptable and says ‘I call myself “Eurasian” because it is the simplest way to explain. I don’t belong to one place, I belong to all of them.’
Conclusion
The few, relatively economically privileged, cases we have to consider here clearly show how many variables — such as colour, class, education, gender, place of residence, family attitudes and political events — all intertwine in different permutations and are of varying significance. Religion did not seem a problem — it was, in two cases, a help.
The anecdotes related here suggest that people change through time. It would be interesting to find out bow these respondents, ten or fifteen years on, change their perceptions. Will they accept established views of power structures, become more and more a part of the establishment, and challenge assumptions less, because of the need to advance their careers? Will they work to change the attitudes from which they themselves suffered? Or might they and/or their peers become racist if their own offspring were to consider marrying someone with different coloured skin? Will their children agree that their mixed heritage is a blessing?
Despite the problems encountered, these respondents evaluate as an asset their mixed inheritances – and an interesting factor is that several were not merely dual inheritances but they were multi-stranded. They felt that to be a mixed-culture person is more interesting, gives more flexibility and a broader outlook and interest in other cultures. A mixed heritage can foster an ability to cross cultures, to understand and relate to others, empathize with the exploited and sufferings of the Third World, and may contribute toward combating racism.
The respondents here almost give the impression that they see people of mixed blood as a growing constituency with the potential for acting as an important moral force. Offspring of mixed marriages whose experiences have already necessitated having to come to grips with questions of citizenship, belonging and identity, have much to contribute.
