On Belonging

 As I look up at my bookshelf, I notice some of the new additions from the past six-or-so months. ‘Mixed/Other’ by Natalie Morris, 'Maybe I Don't Belong Here' by David Harewood and ‘Living While Black’ by Guilaine Kinouani – overlapping themes of identity and belonging, difference and acceptance. Since the pandemic, I have found a new passion for reading; books have been my serenity, a mode of self-care, allowing me to completely clear my head except for the words on the page and the image they create in my mind. But more than that, in books I have found a sense of belonging; page by page they have allowed me to explore different parts of my identity, understand my heritage and the experiences of those before me, widen my perspectives to empathise with the behaviours of others and subsequently, process my own experiences and emotions - I think of the James Baldwin quote, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” Books have allowed me to understand myself better and understand others better. They have been a key part of my quest to sit more comfortably in my identity and feel a greater sense of belonging.

In the past few years, I feel that I have developed a new confidence, a sense of pride in knowing myself and accepting myself. Maybe that’s just something to do with age, but the experiences of recent years have also undoubtedly shaped me. Belonging has been a recurrent theme in some of the most challenging periods of my life - it’s been the extra layer of hurt that has made certain situations hit harder than I expected they would, the thing I’ve found most difficult to explain to others and overcome myself. 

Belonging is defined as a ‘human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group’, i.e. a family, a community, a culture.  It’s a concept which is quite difficult to explain to those who have likely never had to think about it – those who have never questioned parts of themselves or felt that they just didn’t fit somewhere (or anywhere). It is a particularly interesting concept for immigrants, children of immigrants, grandchildren of immigrants and so on. Families which are characterised by movement away from home and having to then search for home in a new, unknown place. People for whom “Where are you from?” is a somewhat confusing and often loaded question. 

After years of sitting in the shadows of the strong and outspoken character that was my Nan and communicating no more than a hello nod to us from the living room doorway whenever we came to visit, my Grandad has finally found his voice. As if now that my Nan is gone, he has a reason to speak. A chance to finally get his words out. I have exchanged more words with him in the last two years than I have during all my life before that; I have seen his jokey personality and appreciated his wisdom for the first time. Nowadays, I eagerly listen to new stories of growing up in rural Jamaica, piecing together a picture of his early life that makes me feel strangely close to him and the country he was raised in. Flitting between memories as he typically does, on my last visit he casually dropped into conversation a son he found out about shortly before he left for England - "Wait - you had a son before Dad?" I suddenly blurted out "Yeah..." he replied, in his very dismissive, 'didn't you know that?!' type of voice. He told me that he had a son around age 20 but only found out about him months before leaving for England; he regretted not knowing him better and not being able to send for him alongside my auntie and uncle, so he could've grown up with the rest of the siblings. 

I sat and thought about this uncle who I had only just found out about aged 28. How this family was so split between two places that we didn’t even know that eachother existed. I also thought about how much he and his children would differ to me and my Dad, having both been born and brought up in England. I wondered whether my uncle and his family also struggled with their belonging in some sense, us knowing the people and not the place and them knowing the place but not the people. How strange it is that we would share a patriotism for a country that they had spent their whole lives and I have only visited a handful of times as a tourist. I thought about how to them, I would probably appear nothing but British - some kind of fraud-Jamaican in comparison. I thought back to how it is in those early moments after landing that I have felt most Jamaican – when the customs officer asks if I’ve been before and then replies “welcome home”, when I see the excitement on people’s faces when I tell them I’m part Jamaican and when they joke that other Johnsons they know could be my relatives. But it’s always a fleeting and incomplete feeling; in the moments that follow that I am always reminded that I am not one of them, when I have to remind them that they don’t have to talk in that fake American accent to me – I can understand them, or when I suddenly feel self-conscious of the way I dress so differently, act so differently, think so differently...

This also reminded me of constantly hearing shouts of ‘obroni’ directed towards us in Ghana and how one of the locals actually laughed when someone in the group furiously tried to argue the fact that they were actually Ghanaian. In St Vincent, I remember sitting at the bar wondering who the ‘white girl’ in the story was until I realised they were referring to me. These interactions just sum up the confusion of the whole situation as it exists to us. In this country, the absence of whiteness flags you as someone who cannot be British, yet when we return to the country of our heritage this flag quickly switches to one that establishes us as too westernised, too British to be fully accepted there. In 'Maybe I Don't Belong Here', Harewood writes "the two halves of me split, there was now a Black half and an English half...at times in my life I've been able to fuse these two halves together but occasionally the gap between them is just too big".  He explains the confusion at being Black, but not Black enough in some spaces – not fully fitting in to either space. 

I would argue that, in some ways, this confusing state is enhanced for mixed race people, who straddle two cultures and identities within themselves, (sometimes only with partial or complete absence of knowledge of one), and then have to also deal with these external influences. Our family ties to Jamaica are now so weak that many of my family members have never even been. Our connection to the island we state when people ask “where are you from?” (after Luton/Bedford/London not getting a satisfactory reaction) in reality is so distant. For my cousins and I, with our third-generation status, our mixed-ness and now the absence of that little piece of Jamaica we felt we belonged to in the form of our Nan, issues of identity and belonging are quite complex for us.

Unlike my friends who identify as Black British and African, for a portion of my life I have struggled to fully know my racial identity. I don’t mean know what it is, I mean really know it. There was the possibility that I could have completely turned away from it had I been less interested, perhaps moved in different circles or arguably the most prominent factor, had my Mum been different. Unlike my friends, I did not receive that direct cultural input from my parents - my Mum is White British and I would say that my Dad has largely assimilated into British culture. I didn’t grow up with yearly visits ‘back home’ like they did, I wasn’t told stories of ‘home’ or immersed in cultural tradition. I only really ate Jamaican food when I went to my Nan’s and only learnt how to cook it at the age of 28, prompted by her passing, and encouraged by my friends and my Mum. I have had to actively seek out opportunities to know that side of me more. 

My Dad is the link to my Jamaican heritage, but our fractured relationship has meant I had to often look outside of family to know that side of me - to friends and their families, or to taking a whole career break in the Caribbean. It’s strange because I don’t think my Dad even understands how important these things are and the impact of the absence of them – it’s the little things that make you feel like you belong – but I guess you don’t realise the significance of something when it has just been there your whole life without question.

At the recent celebration of a close friend’s Traditional Nigerian wedding, my friends and I discussed the clear differences between those of African and Caribbean heritage within the group. My Trini friend and I envied the strength and upholding of tradition, even as generations go on, and confessed that we wouldn’t be able to pass on even the same amount of culture that was given to us (even though this wasn’t even a huge amount). Our Grandparents (well, our Grandmothers) were the main ones who had given it to us, and now without them, who would give it to our kids if and when we had them? Our second-generation parents wouldn’t exactly act as our Grandparents had done when it was their turn. In contrast, my Nigerian friend had no doubt that her children would maintain the same cultural traditions, that they would be proudly Nigerian, with knowledge and strength drawn from their heritage. It didn’t seem like she wondered about her identity and belonging in the same way that I did. 

In Living While Black, Kinouani presents the theme of 'cultural homelessness' as a persistent anxiety in not having a cultural home or belonging, often experienced by multi-cultural individuals or individuals who are of mixed race heritage. Here, my Britishness is questioned because of the colour of my skin but I would most certainly not be accepted as one of the locals on the island my grandparents left over 60 years ago. Moreover, consider the added layer that this is actually a completely different land to the one their ancestors knew – this land which remains a mystery to us. 

Earlier this year, I spent some time in Ghana; my first time on African soil and an opportunity to uncover another layer in the story of culture and identity. Crouching in the dungeons and later standing at the 'door of no return' at Elmina Castle on Cape Coast, it was difficult not be become completely overwhelmed remembering the enslaved Africans that were previously there before me - quite possibly my own ancestors. People whose culture, language and beliefs were stripped from them as they entered a life of torture. Most Afro-Caribbean people originate from West Africa, but we generally don’t know much more than that. As Ngozi Fulani recently said during the interrogation of her racial identity and questioning of ‘where she was really from’ by the royal family, “I don’t know, they didn’t leave any records”.

Both Kinouani and Harewood highlight the complex themes of race, identity and belonging, alongside the contribution of racial trauma, to explain the prevalence of mental health problems in the Black community. Kinouani also uses the term "ontological insecurity" to describe the sense of being unsafe or detached as a result of facing racial injustice either through direct experience or indirect exposure, further affecting our sense of belonging, security and also worth. I experienced this as a result of the racial discrimination I suffered in my first NHS job – a blow to my self-worth, a feeling of rejection, a general discomfort and distrust for people. I think this was also a turning point in realising how I saw myself vs how the world saw me, a stark reminder that my mixed-ness had likely made me more acceptable to them but still not accepted - the fact that I had a white Mum didn’t mean I was immune from experiencing such vile racism and prejudice. 

We don’t often speak about the layered experiences of mixed race people, who may also have to contend with hostility or experiences of rejection from within the family, as well as from outside. For some mixed race people, home is not always a safe haven away from ignorance and prejudice. Beyond not feeling truly 'at home' in your country, imagine not feeling 'at home' in your actual home, being rejected by one side of your family and battling with one side of you. My mum has tried to protect me from this but it has been there nonetheless; I have most definitely attended family dinners where I have felt like I had to down-play parts of myself, visited distant family members houses and spotted a golliwog on the mantelpiece, sat stunned in silence on holiday when my cousin 'joked' "obviously the white waitress was better at her job than the Black one, duh” and sat in my room while my Mum immediately kicked family members out for boldly justifying their use of racist and offensive comments just because I was upstairs and wouldn’t hear. 

As well as the missing family members and the ones who leave part way through your life as you transition from a cute little mixed girl to a woman who speaks up for herself and challenges your ignorance, a source of loneliness can come from the fact you look and have experiences that are distinctly different from both of your parents. In 'Mixed/Other', Morris recalls a family party in which a guest laughed in complete disbelief that her white Grandad could actually be her relative. People often say I am an exact mix of my parents, with the figure and mannerisms of my Mum and facial features and laid back attitude of my Dad - but really, I am fundamentally different to both. I have the societal privilege that comes with being light-skinned and having that proximity to whiteness, meaning that I haven’t had to navigate some of the situations my Dad must have experienced, and I also know that my Mum will never have to directly experience some of the things my Dad and I have. 

It’s been a journey. I have always been proud of my Jamaican heritage and my Blackness; I was the child who chose to do a speech on Rosa Parks for a school competition and I smugly held my Black doll when everyone else had white ones. But I think it has taken until quite recently for me to become completely secure in my identity and totally comfortable being me. It’s things like wearing my natural hair with pride and not feeling the need to spend 3 hours straightening it every Sunday night just so I don’t look so different. It’s also not feeling awkward when friends make jokes about how they were brought up and I can’t relate. It’s no longer feeling insecure in both Black spaces and white spaces or awkwardly trying to answer the question – so do you feel more Black or more white? I know now that I don't have to meet anyone’s expectations of me or fit into the box anyone puts me in. I can define myself on my own terms. Knowing myself also means knowing that my lived experience is not for anyone else’s judgement. 

Maybe more importantly, I have learned to stop looking outside of myself to find that sense of belonging. Now I find belonging in the belly-laughs my friend and I have when we share jokes from our time together at school (funnily enough, about how much we didn’t fit in there), in the never-ending Whatsapp conversation with another friend where we relay the most mundane aspects of our life so we always know where eachother is and what eachother is doing, in the subtle ways my Mum shows me that she knows me better than anyone else does, like knowing exactly what I need to hear at exactly the right time, it’s in sitting together with my cousins at our annual family barbeque and remembering how we used to ride our bike in the exact same spot, it’s in the songs that I used to hear when I was growing up, and it’s in the pages of the books I read, the descriptions of experiences I can relate to and the connections I form with characters who portray different parts of me. I find belonging in waving my Jamaica flag at sports events and at carnival, in sitting down to a Jamaican meal that I’ve taught myself to cook, in being told “there’s no such thing as a half Jamaican”. I have found belonging by embracing the people who feel like home and the places where I feel accepted and understood, rather than dwelling on the circumstances in which I feel the opposite. Sadly, it’s also come from distancing myself from people who made me question their acceptance of me or my place in their life, and ceasing to look for belonging in people, places and things where it most certainly is not. 

I recently attended a book launch for Michelle Obama’s ‘The Light We Carry’ and heard a panel discussion on resilience and self-care, where a panel member said “we have to accept that in many situations we will stand out, so we may aswell stand out!” And that’s what I’m trying to do, by being my authentic self, being bold and confident in my unique identity and cherishing those moments of home and belonging wherever I find them.