I've been helping my dad researching our family tree, and trying to track down one particular branch of my maternal grandfather's side. He was a Mason and so the whole thing was a bit hush hush, but we've discovered that we're descended from a chap who came to Australia from Antigua, and was the son of a freed slave on a sugar plantation there. What's more, the daughter of the guy who immigrated here had a child to an Ethiopian man (may have been the product of rape but given the family's attitude I don't entirely trust that).
I suspect I've found the slave's owner (whose name he took) but not his family so we don't know what his ethnicity is. My mother and I both look a little Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern, but we can't tell for sure. We suspect he's at least part Spanish but family rumour says he was from Jamaica or the West Indies. When I can spare the cash I'll have a DNA test, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.
Now this is mostly old news, but since I found the guy who owned my great-great-great-great grandfather I've been identifying myself less and less as caucasian. When I'm filling out forms and such I find myself ticking the box marked 'Mixed' or 'Other'. I'm thinking about how I can squeeze themes of race into my current WIP. We even discovered my ex has an aboriginal ancestor, making my daughter well and truly mixed.
What led me to post was curiosity. How do those of you who are of mixed or uncertan heritage identify? At what point do you stop thinking of yourself as caucasian, if at all? I've always been proud to think of myself as a mongrel but the more I learn about my heritage the truer that becomes. But seeing as I appear mostly white and have never had to deal with any kind of discrimination (apart from the odd terrorist joke) it doesn't feel like I've earned the right to call myself a person of colour. I want to raise my daughter to be aware of all the aspects of her ancestry, and to identify with all of them, but to do so myself feels a little frivolous and cavalier. Having never suffered the tribulations my ancestors went through, do I have the right to assume their culture and race?
Okay, that last sentence was a bit florid but you get the idea.
I suspect I've found the slave's owner (whose name he took) but not his family so we don't know what his ethnicity is. My mother and I both look a little Mediterranean or Middle-Eastern, but we can't tell for sure. We suspect he's at least part Spanish but family rumour says he was from Jamaica or the West Indies. When I can spare the cash I'll have a DNA test, if only to satisfy my own curiosity.
Now this is mostly old news, but since I found the guy who owned my great-great-great-great grandfather I've been identifying myself less and less as caucasian. When I'm filling out forms and such I find myself ticking the box marked 'Mixed' or 'Other'. I'm thinking about how I can squeeze themes of race into my current WIP. We even discovered my ex has an aboriginal ancestor, making my daughter well and truly mixed.
What led me to post was curiosity. How do those of you who are of mixed or uncertan heritage identify? At what point do you stop thinking of yourself as caucasian, if at all? I've always been proud to think of myself as a mongrel but the more I learn about my heritage the truer that becomes. But seeing as I appear mostly white and have never had to deal with any kind of discrimination (apart from the odd terrorist joke) it doesn't feel like I've earned the right to call myself a person of colour. I want to raise my daughter to be aware of all the aspects of her ancestry, and to identify with all of them, but to do so myself feels a little frivolous and cavalier. Having never suffered the tribulations my ancestors went through, do I have the right to assume their culture and race?
Okay, that last sentence was a bit florid but you get the idea.