The Cafe Latte Generation

Alex White, Matt Downey, me and Huw Edwards.
(Matt and Alex are talented liberal youth who are my good friends)

I have discovered something new about myself and it isn't often that this happens to people. Thanks to George Alagiah and his series on Mixed Race Britain I am part of the new growing colour mix of people. The surprising thing is that I don't feel any different or special compared to single race people.

However, I do think that the history of how mixed race people were treated is important because if we do not understand this then, as a society, we cannot progress. What amazes is how much racism and shame was associated with being mixed-race. Brown babies were put into orphanages because their white mothers were shunned by society. The Nazis conducted experiments on children like me to find out the DNA make up of these children.

I don't know what challenges lie ahead of me as a mixed-race child. Will there be genetic inheritance problems or will society start to view people like me differently as a result of the publicity for mixed-race people? Surprisingly, when my Asian mother was pregnant with me she was told that I would have a hard life because of my cultural mix. This was only 12 years ago. This shows, till how recently, racism was still in existence. I am pleased to say that I have not faced racism at all and being mixed has not held me back.

The BBC is featuring footage and history of how hard life was for mixed race children and their parents. By contrast I am grateful that I was interviewed recently on the BBC News 24 during conference by Huw Edwards. My colour did not even come into it. Integration has come a long way. However, people may not care about my heritage but I have been asked many curious questions by the press about my 'pushy' mother. It is assumed that because my mother is Asian she is forcing me to do things that children my age would not be doing. This partly comes from the memoirs of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua, who pushed her daughters to excel. I don't have a pushy mother but she does encourage and help me to achieve my best potential. She is a Huffington Post blogger and you can read about her parenting style at:   

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jane-chelliah/the-malaise-of-middle-cla_b_954366.html