Patrick Taylor

[2006. Sat on my dad’s lap with my mum and sister, Zoe at our home.]

1994 | Stoke-on-Trent, UK | British & Filipino

The realisation hit me very early on in my childhood. Children are notorious in that they can be very unforgiving and don’t necessarily have a filter. My classmates would talk about what colour I was “Yellow, pink, brown?” which left me feeling confused and made me want to roll up into a ball and disappear. Children form an idea of the world from observing interactions in their own environment and so learn to apply racial slurs to anyone deemed ‘different’. I’ve been called “paki” and “nigger”, both of which are racially inaccurate, but regardless are still hugely offensive. “Half-caste” was another term that was used quite a lot, and for me, seemed a very normal label. I didn’t know any better. I’d identify as “half-caste” to all of my friends, but it was always still such an awkward conversation to be having. I used this up until the age of 18, before learning otherwise. 

I struggled a lot during my childhood, as it was a time in which I wanted to fit in. For instance, my first day of year 7, and moving to a new school, was marred by my own anxieties and hang ups. I was so desperate to distance myself from people of colour, due to the way in which they are sadly treated, that I’d do anything to fit in. My teacher in my form class sat me next to a Pakistani peer, which I took to heart and got upset by. I took the seating plan quite personally, as if the teacher felt that they were doing good by pairing me up with someone of my own culture or colour, despite us having completely different backgrounds. In hindsight, it never mattered who he was or where he was from, and it certainly didn’t back then, but due to my own hang ups and early experiences, I felt targeted. After all, I just wanted to be white at this point. I wasn’t comfortable in myself to just be, and even make friends with this person. That evening I went home, put on my football kit and kicked a ball around the garden crying. Those early years in primary school had conditioned me in such an awful way, that it was still affecting me in high school. My friends were white, everyone around me was white, and so that’s what I wanted to be. It became clear that to be racially different was a “bad thing”. I was a sensitive child, and I just wanted to be like everybody else. Sadly, this meant shunning my Mother and preferring my Dad in public - in which I’d take him along to PTA meetings, school disco drop offs, or visits with friends. I didn’t want people to know otherwise, or to have any sort of ammunition that could be used against me.

Home was different, and probably the only place I could embrace both cultures. No one was watching there. At home I’d happily eat rice or Filipino dishes all day long. There was always a balance of those two in regards to the food, my Dad would want chips or something, and my Mum would eat rice and vegetables. I have very early memories of my Mother trying to feed me fish as a child which I instantly hated, and I think most kids probably do, but that was just another sort of delicacy that I assimilated to being Filipino that I shunned. For the most part however, the comfort of home offered me a welcome respite - to take the mask of, so to speak. I also have a memory of there being an EDL or BNP march going on in the city centre against immigrants or something and my Dad telling Mother not to go out that day. How strange to think of that in the context of today, in which times seemed to have progressed a little. I was quite young at the time, perhaps primary school age, but old enough to recognise it was not a safe time for Mother. I was already aware that to have a different skin colour was a 'problem', in which my anxiety would then transfer to my Mother.

I think my Dad’s plan was to move the whole family to the Philippines when I was a kid. He preferred it there, and I’m sure my Mum would have loved to have been back at that early stage, perhaps. Still, I’d become quite sentient when it came to acknowledging my surroundings. I didn’t want to leave my friends or the area I’d grown up in. Even back then I’d exclaim to my Dad that I was “an Englishman”, meaning white, and that this was my home. I think I was scared of being uprooted. I’d already been struggling to fit in with the people and surroundings around me that perhaps I knew, deep down, that I’d struggle just as much over there. Which again, is one of the very unique anxieties - where is “home”, where is your “country” if you belong to two? 

I think it’s important to acknowledge the unique identity anxiety that surrounds belonging to one or more cultures. It’s unique in the sense that you are left to ponder which side of the fence to sit on - not that you should have to choose, but often you do. It can also be very difficult to embrace all of those cultures and assimilate them into one. I find that biracial people often find themselves identifying more to the country in which they grew up, which is of course very natural, and in some ways, default. I think you could argue further that it is partly up to the parents to help their child marry the two or more cultures, to learn and immerse them in each. This however, is just as tricky. My parents never really forced any culture onto me, I made my own mind up about the whole thing. I don’t think anything or anyone can prepare you for it, you just have to figure it out for yourself, and be strong in the understanding that you are ‘who you are’, because of XYZ. Whatever that might be. You learn to define yourself through your actions and sensibilities, not by your skin tone. 

We've progressed somewhat since the early 2000’s, but I still think that a lot of the smaller cities and towns are still quite narrow minded. It seems to be a natural instinct for people to ‘fear’ people that are different based on the colour of their skin. It wasn’t until I moved to London through university that I began to really come into my own and feel myself. There’s something about the bigger cities that are so heaving with different people and cultures that you can slide by without any trouble. People walk the streets dressed as Spider-Man, and nobody bats an eyelid. It’s this sense of anonymity that has always attracted me. Through this, I was finally allowed the time to breathe and to think, to really come to terms with my background and how that made me, me. To accept myself without the hindrance of schoolkids, or wanting to be ‘white’ which I eventually learned was nonsense. I began to accept my Mother more, freely mingle with people of all cultures, and tell people where my parents were from. I never identified as mixed race, and I still don’t, I tell people that I’m half this and half that, and that works for me. Moving away from such a small minded city really helped in regards to my cultural and identity development. Now, I’m happier in my understanding of my heritage. I cherish it as another important factor to an already multi-faceted person.

[2016. Mum, myself and sister at my graduation at Royal Festival Hall, London]