Insight asks: how does being mixed race shape people’s identity and experience of the world, and how can families maintain multiple cultures? Growing Up Mixed Race, Tuesday, 8:30pm on SBS and On Demand.
Growing up with a white mother in a regional town during the 1970s, Sally Gill had a lot more questions than answers regarding her race. Her father’s African-American ancestors migrated to Bendigo, Victoria, during the 1850s Gold Rush, however her parent’s separation meant that she had little connection to her father’s culture.
After her mother remarried to a white Australian man and they had a child together, Sally felt further isolated within her own family. She began to realise that not only did some people fixate on the colour of her skin, but that her being different was often a source of confusion and shame.
“When we went to athletic carnivals, mum would often say: ‘Oh, people were probably wondering where we got those black children from, you know? Because they can see that you don't belong with us.’ You'd kind of go, don't we belong?," Sally tells Insight.
It wasn’t until much later in life that Sally began to reflect on her loss of culture and how it had impacted her sense of identity. After having three children of her own – who all have different complexions and features – Sally realised her kids were experiencing their own challenges in a world where racial prejudice remains prevalent.
L-R Sally, maternal grandmother, mother, baby sister Jodi, sister Vincene Source: Supplied
Her daughter, Tess Spencer-Gill, who passes as white, recalls having a teacher question who it was that picked her up from school the previous night, assuming it was a family friend or nanny. Her teacher was shocked when Tess told her that was her mother.
“I kind of felt quite separated from mum in a lot of ways, from people outside of our family telling me that I was different to her,” Tess says.
Christine Koffi, who’s mother is Filipino and father is German, feels like the loss of her German culture impacted her identity. Her parents only spoke English at home, and her German grandfather was reluctant to talk about their family history. Her husband Rene was born and raised in Germany, yet was always seen to be West African first – despite having a frayed relationship with his father’s Ivorian heritage.
“You got reminded constantly that you are different to the other Germans … I knew that I'm Ivorian but I never learned the culture, never learned the language so I couldn't properly identify with that side of myself,” Rene says.
Having both experienced struggles with their identities, Christine and Rene are determined to raise their son, Kingston with a connection to all his cultures. Rene is already reading to him in German, and Christine looks forward to immersing him in Filipino culture and food.
“I think for us it will be take a lot of deliberateness and we'll have to be proactive … I don’t want him to have the same loss of identity that I did,” Christine says.
