Foreign & Familiar: Being Bi-Racial
What's the experience of being bi-racial like in a world that often sees things as binary?
By Mary Schnorrenberg
"Ahhh where's your accent from?"
"Well my accent is from Australia obviously."
Long pause.
"But I personally am not. My father's German and my Mother's Egyptian."
Longer pause. Awkwardness arises, feet shuffling as I can literally hear the questioners brain ticking over with confusion as to what neat and tidy identity box they may fit me into.
I hold my breath hoping they don't ask that classically ignorant but familiar question of "So, what are you...?"
This conversation occurs at least twice a day, every day; with my distinct voice and accent that inevitably leads into conversations about identity and race that frankly bores me to death in its predictability.
See I have German surname, I look Mediterranean and most definitely have an Aussie twang and sense of humour, which is the only give away alluding to my place of birth.
“As if our complex identities can somehow be neatly defined and packaged into a bite-sized nugget .”
I’m Foreign and Familiar. To a standard Daily Mail reader, I represent in microcosmic form: an Expat (a white immigrant they do accept) an Arab (a brown skinned immigrant they don't accept) and a German ( a descendant of the folks they beat in the second world war)…The bewilderment and discomfort is tangible. So I now choose not to answer identity questions, especially when the questioner takes my accent -a tiny part of my identity- to represent the whole of me.
Being bi-racial is hard for a lot of people - especially white patriotic people- to get their head around. I’m still getting my head around it! As if our complex identities can somehow be neatly defined and packaged into a bite-sized nugget to suit the questioners unconscious need for ethnic hierarchies that make them feel safe. All you need to do is look around you to see rigid binaries and labels starting to shift, melt and flow into one another creating a new third culture.
Being a woman of mixed heritage, I'm still intrigued by the process that unfolds in this liminal space. It feels like one of fluidity, freedom and possibility; a borderland where all versions of myself are free and all potentialities possible. Absolutely foreign and familiar.
As a daughter of a German father and Egyptian mother - both of whom were migrants to Australia in the 70's, for very different reasons - my mother invited by a wealthy Egyptian to work in his pharmaceutical factory, building his empire, my father, a solo traveller and free spirit escaping post-war Germany for a better life - I do know what it feels like to have a sense of living in two, even three, different worlds and cultures simultaneously. By default, from my parents choices, myself and my brother instantly became Third culture kids, children who belong to neither of the countries on their parents’ passports.
Being bi-racial is something I now enjoy and play around with. Being a bit of this and that allows me to fit in anywhere and everywhere. Foreign and familiar. I get to play with different languages, cultures and groups that my white friends just aren't able to do so seamlessly. The joys of liminality.
Though the deep insecurity while growing up was that I was never enough; not white/Aussie enough, not important, authentic or even whole enough. It struck me that part of my experience as a mixed-race is exactly that: not ever being enough of any one thing. The experience of being somewhere in the middle, neither here nor there, ambiguous, reinforces the question of “being enough” and does feel like a part of my mixed identity, permanently on the peripherals.
Being bi-racial can feel like you’re permanently on the edge. Not quite this, not quite that.
Though to be fair, in Australia and in the UK as I've now learnt , you can't be half white (the racial construct just doesn't actually allow it)It's either you're white or you're not. I now know that this was the feeling I had as a child; but clearly didn't have the vocabulary to express; I'd been excluded for being indefinable, unable to be compartmentalised, therefore too foreign to be understood. Growing up in 80’s Australia, I was one of only three mixed race kids at my Catholic school, which was tough. Plus my mother was separated from my father. This added another layer to the pain; shame. All the popular girls were white, pretty, played netball or had ballet lessons after school, ate Vegemite and cheese while I ate okra and peas, alone mostly while reading my books. Tough gig for a 'foreign' kid.
I never tried to integrate as I was painfully shy and well aware of my inherent differences. Even my 'tribe': the three kids with Arabic speaking parents treated me different in some ways. My grade 4 teacher referred to me as a mongrel, which I naively took as a compliment. It wasn't until years later when my father; a huge animal lover, referred to the neighbours new cross-breed dog by the same term that I got it. I was absolutely devastated.
“Though as the years passed I saw how with each label I gave myself for 'definition', was only serving to restrict and confine me more and more.”
The confusion with my identity went on unaddressed for years; not having anyone to even start a dialogue with was so deeply repressive. Constantly felt like I had to choose once and for all what/who I was most; Egyptian, German or Australian. As if choosing Egyptian would or ever could erase the German heritage or vice versa. Was it blood, nation, or neither that properly made up the complexities of a person's ID?
Then came the death of my mother as a child; so essentially I was raised by my many Lebanese school friends and their amazing archetypal Arabic mothers; which I realise now caused me to actually abandon the whole mixed race narrative to become an adopted 'Lebo' for some safety, security and a sense of belonging within a tribe and ultimately within myself. To myself; foreign and familiar.
Though as the years passed I saw how with each label I gave myself for 'definition', was only serving to restrict and confine me more and more. So I left Australia to travel around Europe, seeking something greater and far more expansive than what I knew. Over a decade ago I chose to live and settle in London, a place that relates to neither of my parents’ heritage, purely because London felt like I had finally come home, the second skin I was seeking. Where I could simultaneously be anonymous and uniquely identified within a tribe.
London is the place that became home to me, where I found my tribe.
Yes, the cliché of London being a melting pot of cultures is certainly very true, but for people like myself who are a melting pot of cultures within their own bodies and minds, this is not just a want, it’s an absolute necessity. While I can't speak for all bi-racial folk, huge sprawling multicultural cities are the best place to lose and find oneself. My soul found peace in London; as I was familiar and foreign and it was okay.
Looking back at Australia from so far away, indeed gave me some much needed perspective and understanding of the seemingly black-white world I had just left behind. Perceiving it through the eyes of several mixed-race, European and BAME friends allowed me to see it afresh and finally take a long deep breath into the realisation that I wasn't alone in my perception that Australia had had a long history of racism. A racism so apparent and deep-rooted that it exists in all people's psychological landscape.
In 2020 somehow, Mixed race faces have become trendy, being used to advertise everything from food to fashion and finally allowed to be visible and have a voice. Perhaps there are a lot more of us existing thankfully, so this allows us to honestly, openly share what it means to be mixed, on the borderlands of self and other. We are in the unique role now of being able to be educators on the world stage with regard to conversations on race, identity and the hotly debated topics of immigration, asylum and the elephant in every room that is systemic racism.
Though there are a few progressives claiming that we have now properly moved into a Post-Racial society with liminals’ existence as proof; though in my opinion - in the era of Brexit -Trump-far right Nationalism- we are a million miles away from that reality. If anything that would just be another brutal form of blindness that would delude us for another generation. What we need more if in every work place and home is education, allyship, advocacy and activism.
Let’s prioritise education around race, allyship, advocacy and activism.
Race and the hierarchy of race, which has lead to the epidemic of Racist societies was constructed over 400 years ago. Theses structures will not be dismantled overnight but will also not be dismantled if we don't start to have conversations on topics that feel uncomfortable and foreign to us.
Here are 3 ways to be an ally to bi-racial people:
1. Accept how an individual self identifies
As simple as it sounds, please do take our own word for it, after all we have been living in these confused mixed bodies for all of our lives. Stop telling us how we should feel or be or do! Just because you know another mixed race person, there is no Universal mixed race definition. Listen and accept how one person views themselves. Like with my own brother, siblings can completely relate to themselves, their family and the outside world very differently. Do your best to shut up and listen.
2. Embrace uniqueness
We are all Unique; No two mixed people are the same; I know several Jamaican-Irish people here in London as well as my mix of Egyptian-Germans now, and I can safely say we're all dramatically different and unique. Which is something to be embraced and celebrated not ashamed of. Focus on what unites rather than what divides.
3. Get Educated
Read, research and of course learn on your own. Be inquisitive on the dialogue as well as generalisations, micro-aggressions and labels that come about around mixed-race Don't assume you know, feel free to ask and admit you don't know what to say or how to view a liminal. The best thing about the rise of multi racial people and populations is that we are raising awareness and may help the rest of the world develop the flexibility to see people as more than just a demographic—and to move away from race as a key component of one's identity. Identity is a deep, complex and highly personable topic, always ask questions!
Finally, I really can’t say I know what the long-term solution is to the problem of foreigners not being allowed to become familiar. But I can say from my own bi-racial perspective that what was once familiar is fast feeling foreign and what's foreign may soon have to become familiar across all aspects of our societies and all realities.
And above all, what I truly wish everyone would do more of; is to try to understand the other, put yourself in their shoes to truly try to see your selves through the eyes of the other.
If that's unattainable, then perhaps try asking yourself this; How can I make others who are unfamiliar, foreign and different become familiar and comfortable?
In my mind, the answer is simple; the same way you do with any of your current friends, you simply start a conversation and find some common ground. Who knows you may just find that those ‘foreigners’ are way more relatable and familiar than anyone currently in your world.
M
ary Schnorrenberg
Mary writes about Mindfulness, Impermanence and Grief - her oldest friend -since the passing of both her parents, she knows very well that the other side of the tunnel of Grief is the light of Love . When not writing she can be found jogging, hoola hooping very badly or making her lush lavender eye pillows.
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