South Asian and Black African/Caribbean - an unusual coupling?

[chikali]

I'm of Nigerian and Jamaican heritage, born here, dp is of Indian origin, part Bengali, part Sindhi, also born here and we have ds, 5 months - who defies "ethnic origin" categories especially as my own 'mix' is not acknowledged but that's a whole different thread.

Am curious about people's perspectives, experiences and opinions as we are seen as a 'rare' combination...

Part of why I'm asking relates to the fact that at present, ds has a more 'Asian aesthetic' than African and this factors into why I've been thinking it is particularly important that he has sufficient cultural knowledge. Interestingly enough, ds has a cousin of Indian (dp's brother) and Irish heritage who is very fair-skinned and strawberry blonde.

It wasn't discussed, or even acknowledged, that we were white. Very white. We were supposed to be 'mixed'...and boy oh boy would I like to look 'mixed' but sadly I don't. It wasn't until a few years ago that I could actually tell my mother about the peculiar experience I've always had.

I am VERY interested, I have to say, about the cousin. It is very easy to assume that one is a one-off freak (particularly after over 40 years of being treated, quite frankly, like something in a zoo).

Identifying as Asian...well, we were brought up to think of ourselves as half - or in many ways more than half - Indian; to be proud of that; to know about Hindu myths and about Nehru and Gandhi; not speaking Tamil (don't start me on that) but generally to be Indian. Which is a bit complicated when three quarters of the people you meet, including some of your Indian relatives, take it upon themselves to gasp in amazement and point out for 10 minutes or so that you don't look it.

And that's not counting the ones who quite obviously think you're deranged and lying.

Can I join in???

Read with interets all your comments. I am white UK, dh is Turkish. As regards religion we have no problem (we are both atheist) but culturally we find it very hard to give our children a balance of experiences, languages etc to the point where both boys think of themselves as English because they know so little about their Turkish heritage. This is partly because dh finds it impossible to keep up the whole language/culture/ behaviour of his own background when living in an environment where he is in a minority of 1. The upshot is that our sons cannot relate or speak to their Turkish relatives. I'd just like to urge you to do everything you can to provide a fair picture of both sides of your ds's story. One day he might thank you for it.

Ah, motherinferior, you know you can't put a phrase "don't start me on that" and leave such an intriguing gap Was not speaking Tamil specifically to do with Tamil as the language or issues around Tamil status?
Linking to Shimmy21's comments:-
I know that as I grew older (and maybe wiser) I wished my father had been more insistent about teaching me Igbo when I was younger especially as it is predominantly an oral language and not so straightforward to learn through a 'teach yourself' book/cassette route. Now as a mother, I totally understand why he must have been so wounded that I essentially chose to limit his and his Nigerian-based family's capacity to communicate with me. Similarly dp, not being as fluent in Bengali as he would like, feels frustrated at his limited capacity to share this side of himself directly with his son and his wider Indian-based family & UK-based Bengali family friends. To some extent, our respective fathers' liberal attitudes to passing on language skills laid the foundation down for our present experiences as parents in this regard. It's ironic that we now feel strongly about the importance of having multiple tongues...

My parents didn't teach us Tamil because, I think, they just didn't put the effort in. It may be partly because my dad is not as fluent in Tamil as he thinks. But my mother is a translator from Tamil, these days, and a rather sought-after one. She studied classical Tamil at one point. They also quite liked having a language they could occasionally say things to each other in that we couldn't understand (the sort of 'we'll get them an ice cream later' things). I honestly think they just didn't think about it enough.

Changed my name from Emily1980 to one a bit more imaginative.

looks like my white-looking mixed race ds will have his work cut out for him in the future. Thank you for your advice. V.interested to here from people who have been through some of the situations which he his likely to encounter. am resolved to load ds with as much info of his background to arm him against the 'sceptics' and indeed to educate him and enable him to forge links with his cultural history. Thankfully, dp has a HUGE family and many, many, many of them are over here, so at least some of the influence will be 'at source' STSpeak. LOL about discussions of appearence. DS is but 7 weeks and already i am bored of 'Gosh! Isnt he light?!' comments. Hopefully the amazement from both sides of the family and friends will wear off before long. But many are waiting to see if he will 'darken up' as he gets older...so maybe just wishful thinking on my part!

LM, my mum is still waiting to see which of her four grandchildren will be the Asian-looking one - but even DP's half-Bengali genes don't seem to have done the trick, as we've got two blondes!

Do CAT me if you want to talk about this any more, seriously.