# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A black mother worries that her light skinned daughter will have only an IMITATION OF LIFE if she continually tries to pass for white.

Let it be stated unequivocally that this is one of the most remarkable films of the 1930's - unique in that it deals squarely with aspects of the racial question decades before it became common to do so. After becoming accustomed to the casual racism of most Hollywood movies of the era, this honesty is quite astonishing.

As the black mother, Louise Beavers is heartbreaking in the simple power of her performance. Joyously serving up love & pancakes, or devastated by her daughter's rejection of their race, Miss Beavers makes her audience feel her every emotion. This was the finest role of her film career, and she makes the most of it. However, the movie over, the studio system returned her to mammy parts. This is a tremendous blot on Hollywood's record.

Beautiful Claudette Colbert is scintillating, as always. Playing a tenderhearted maple syrup saleslady who first employs Miss Beavers, and later befriends her, Miss Colbert adds a distinct touch of class to the film. But she is also sympathetic to the concerns of the story and helps to quietly push along the plea for racial equality.

Elegant actor Warren William, he of the sophisticated profile, brings his considerable talents to the role of Miss Colbert's ichthyologist boyfriend. Refreshingly, he plays a solid, decent fellow - instead of the rake or cad which he portrayed so often & so well. His involvement is a definite asset to the film.

The rest of the cast adds to the overall excellence of the production: acerbic Ned Sparks as Miss Colbert's business manager; lovely Rochelle Hudson as her ready-for-love daughter; Henry Armentta & Alan Hale as businessmen cajoled by Miss Colbert's charms; and especially Fredi Washington, memorable as Miss Beavers' daughter, a stranger inside her own skin.

Movie mavens will spot Clarence Wilson as the pancake shop's landlord, Franklin Pangborn as a party guest & Paul Porcasi as a restaurant manager, all uncredited.

IMITATION OF LIFE preached a powerful sermon on racial justice & equality, but the Hollywood congregation was not paying attention. It would be a very long time before black performers & black roles would be treated with the dignity they so desperately deserved.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Imitation of Life: Directed by John M. Stahl. With Claudette Colbert, Warren William, Rochelle Hudson, Ned Sparks. A struggling widow and her daughter take in a Black housekeeper and her fair-skinned daughter; the two women start a successful business but face familial, identity, and racial issues along the way.

# data[].attributes.body
Watch here - https://youtu.be/P6X-uCP_1c0

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Although it was controversial at the time, 'Pinky' is very highly regarded by most now. And rightly so. The cast is a great one, the most familiar cast member to me being Ethel Barrymore. Have said elsewhere about my high admiration for Elia Kazan and most of his films. 'Pinky' was most intriguing to me though for its subject of racism and bigotry, it was a very relevant theme at the time and very prominent and was very brave to address on film and sadly it is still.

'Pinky' turned out to be a great film, with so many brilliantly done things. Not quite one of Kazan's very finest, but close to being up there and close to being a near-classic. Really appreciated that it did tackle a subject like this, a topical one and important to address despite it hitting so close to home for many at the time and now, and appreciated even more so how it tackled it. Even if 'Pinky' isn't one of Kazan's best, it is one of his most sincere films and a contender for the bravest in a filmography where all the themes in all his films were quite courageously heavy and complex.

The production values are very high, lots of atmosphere in the art direction enhanced by the quite beautiful cinematography. Kazan's direction never feels self-indulgent or heavy-handed, and he seemed like he was at ease with the material and like he knew what he wanted to do with it. Alfred Newman always was a great film composer, one of the best at the time and his style was a distinctive one, one that was always sumptuous and stirring without ever over-bearing the atmosphere. That's the case here in 'Pinky'.

Moreover, 'Pinky' is sensitively scripted, making its points without hammering home. The dialogue was intelligently written and concise enough to not feeling too rambling. The story is a very emotionally powerful one, one that really hits hard and makes for unflinching viewing. Yet doing so without being prejudicial or one-sided, or with a complete lack of subtlety, actually being done with a lot of poignant sincerity that helps make it a real tear-jerker of a film. It is not "outdated" at all in my view, the subject was very relevant back then and sadly it still is, it is also one that has always been bold to portray on film and worthy of admiration whenever it is regardless of its execution.

Characters are well realised and don't seem like one-dimensional stereotypes sugar-coated or ham-fisted. Coming over like real human beings. The uniformly fine performances help, while Jeanne Crain is very moving and gives one of her best performances it's a magnificent Ethel Waters that comes off strongest.

Weak link, the only one really, is the very easily foreseeable and too tidily tied up ending.

Overall, exceptionally well done and very brave. 9/10

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Although it was controversial at the time, 'Pinky' is very highly regarded by most now. And rightly so. The cast is a great one, the most familiar cast member to me being Ethel Barrymore.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The rediscovered classic: an unforgettable memoir by a trailblazing black woman in post-war London, introduced by Bernardine Evaristo ('I dare anyone to read it and not come away shocked, moved and entertained')
Benjamin Zephaniah: 'A must-read. Her life makes you laugh. Her life makes you cry. Get to know her.'
Jacqueline Wilson: 'A superb but shocking memoir ... Imaginative, resilient and inspiring.'
Christie Watson: 'A beautiful memoir of one woman's strength and dignity against the odds.'
Steve McQueen: 'Gilroy blazed a path that empowered generations of Black British educators.'
David Lammy: 'This empowering tale of courage, resistance, and triumph is a breath of fresh air.'
Diana Evans: 'Important, enlightening and very entertaining, full of real-life drama ... Inspirational.'
Paul Mendez: 'Written with a novelist's ear and sense of atmosphere ... A vital and unique testament.'
Jeffrey Boakye: 'A landmark. Warm and wise ... Life lessons we can all learn from.'
Alex Wheatle: 'A pioneer in many fields and wonderful example for all of us ... Essential reading.'
Denied teaching jobs due to the colour bar. Working in an office amidst the East End's bombsites. **WATERSTONES PICK: JULY'S BEST BOOKS**
'Wonderful and insightful. I really, thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.'
'Really lovely, and a surprisingly quick read ... I wish I could have met her.' 'A great piece of history [with] so much relevance even today as it touches upon issues of race, education and female empowerment.'

'Excellent [on] what it was really like for the Windrush Generation... Highly recommended.'
'Eye-opening ... A powerful reminder of how far we have come ... Beautifully written ... I wish everyone could have a teacher like Beryl!'
Reader Reviews:
'Incredibly important ... Such an interesting read, and I am so glad that it is being republished.' Serving as a lady's maid to an Empire-loving aristocrat. R aising two children in suburbia. Becoming one of the first black headteachers in Britain.
In 1952, Beryl Gilroy moved from British Guiana to London. Her new life wasn't what she expected - but her belief in education resulted in a revolutionary career. Black Teacher, her memoir, is a rediscovered classic: not only a rare insight into the Windrush generation, but a testament to how her dignity, ambition and spirit transcended her era.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The rediscovered classic: an unforgettable memoir by a trailblazing black woman in post-war London, introduced by Bernardine Evaristo (' I dare anyone to read it and not come away shocked, moved and entertained') Benjamin Zephaniah: 'A must-read. Her life makes you laugh. Her life makes you cry. Get to know her.'

# data[].attributes.headline
Imitation of Life || BFI Player + Amazon Rent (1959)

# data[].attributes.subject
Imitation of Life || BFI Player + Amazon Rent (1959)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations. See more awards "

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:

Storyline

Aspiring actress Lora Meredith meets Annie Johnson, a homeless black woman at Coney Island and soon they share a tiny apartment. Each woman has an intolerable daughter, though, Annie's little girl Sarah Jane, is by far the worse. Neurotic and obnoxious, Sarah Jane doesn't like being black; since she's light-skinned (her father was practically white), she spends the rest of the film passing as white, much to her mother's heartache and shame. Lora, meanwhile, virtually ignores her own daughter in a single-minded quest for stardom. Written by alfiehitchie

Taglines:

Fannie Hurst's Best Selling Novel of Today's Tormented Generation!

Did You Know?

Trivia

The graduation scene was shot at Town & Country School, one of the schools which Lana Turner's real-life daughter, Cheryl Crane, had attended. See more "

Goofs

The type of desk telephone in Robert Alda's 1947 office was not developed until the mid-1950s. See more "

Quotes

: Your bones...
Lora Meredith : What about my bones?
: They're perfect. My camera could easily have a love affair with you.
See more "

Crazy Credits

Juanita Moore, who plays Annie, is billed with the credit "And Presenting Juanita Moore as Annie Johnson", even though she had already appeared in many films. See more "

Soundtracks

Empty Arms
(uncredited)
Written by Arnold Schwarzwald & Frederick Herbert
Performed by Susan Kohner dubbed by Jo Ann Greer
See more "

User Reviews

Details

Release Date:

18 March 1959 (USA)

Also Known As:

Imitation of Life

Box Office

Budget:

$2,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

See full technical specs "

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 4 wins & 5 nominations. See more awards " Cast overview, first billed only: Aspiring actress Lora Meredith meets Annie Johnson, a homeless black woman at Coney Island and soon they share a tiny apartment. Each woman has an intolerable daughter, though, Annie's little girl Sarah Jane, is by far the worse.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Color of Water || James McBride (1995)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Color of Water || James McBride (1995)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This fascinating, superbly written memoir was a New York Times bestseller for two years. To date it has sold sold more than 2.1 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 16 languages. It tells the story of James McBride and his white, Jewish mother Ruth. Ruth was born in Poland and raised in Suffolk, Va, the daughter of an itinerant rabbi and a loving, disabled mother who spoke no English. At 17, Ruth fled the South, landed in Harlem, married a black man in 1941, founded a church, was twice widowed and raised 12 children in New York City. Despite hardship, poverty, and suffering, Ruth sent all 12 of her children to college.

Lavishly praised by critics, embraced by millions of readers, this tribute to a remarkable woman helped set the standard for modern day memoir writing. It is considered an American classic and is required reading in high schools and colleges across America. It is a perennial favorite of book clubs and community-wide reading events, including New York City and Philadelphia. IBut most importantly, it is an eloquent, touching exploration of what family really means.

James was working as a tenor sax sideman with jazz legend Jimmy Scott when he penned this book, which was written in hotel rooms, vans, airports, libraries and on buses. Previously he served for eight years as a journalist. He was a feature writer in the Style Section at The Washington Post when, at age 30, he quit the Post, moved to New to play jazz, and subsequently starved. He slept on mattresses played in blues bands, taught ESL to Polish refugees, and played "every kind of gig you can name - weddings, bars, dances, clubs," he says. While struggling through self-described "unsettled angst," James realized that the key to finding peace within himself was not in his horn, but in the story of the most interesting person he'd ever known - and the person he loved the most - his own mother.

He set about interviewing Ruth McBride Jordan and searching out her mysterious past, a process that took 14 years and resulted in a book that is regarded as a landmark work. Says McBride of The Color of Water: "If I had known so many people were going to read that book, I would've written a better book."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This fascinating, superbly written memoir was a New York Times bestseller for two years. To date it has sold sold more than 2.1 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 16 languages. It tells the story of James McBride and his white, Jewish mother Ruth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Log in or sign up for an account on TikTok. Start watching to discover real people and real videos that will make your day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anti Racist Cumbria : Anti Racist Cumbria

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Formed in 2020, Anti Racist Cumbria's mission is to make Cumbria the first actively anti-racist county in the UK.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Black Presence in English Literature || Edited by David Dabydeen (1985)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Black Presence in English Literature || Edited by David Dabydeen (1985)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Black Presence in English Literature

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This collection of essays surveys the depiction of black people in English Literature from Shakespeare to contemporary popular fiction.

# data[].attributes.headline
Chinese Liverpudlians: History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool || Maria Lin Wong (1989)

# data[].attributes.subject
Chinese Liverpudlians: History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool || Maria Lin Wong (1989)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Select Your Cookie Preferences

We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

If you agree, we'll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Click 'Customise Cookies' to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chinese Liverpudlians: History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Buy Chinese Liverpudlians: History of the Chinese Community in Liverpool 1st Edition by Wong, Maria Lin (ISBN: 9781871201031) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mix-d: is our term for mixed-race and the name of our organisation. Mix-d: is our concept. It seeks to tell it exactly as it is, without awkwardness, apologies, excessive explanations or overblown celebrations.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature || edited by Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Webb (1996)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Routledge Reader in Caribbean Literature || edited by Alison Donnell and Sarah Lawson Webb (1996)

# data[].attributes.body
Sylvia Wynter, “Beyond Miranda’s Meaning: Un/Silencing the ‘Demonic Ground’ of Caliban’s ‘Woman,’ p381-386.

# data[].attributes.headline
Indians in Shakespeare's England as "the First-Fruits of India": Colonial Effacement and Postcolonial Reinscription || Imtiaz Habib (2006)

# data[].attributes.subject
Indians in Shakespeare's England as "the First-Fruits of India": Colonial Effacement and Postcolonial Reinscription || Imtiaz Habib (2006)

# data[].attributes.headline
A South-Asian History of Britain: Four Centuries of Peoples from the Indian Sub-Continent ||  Michael H. Fisher, Shompa Lahiri, Shinder Thandi (2007)

# data[].attributes.subject
A South-Asian History of Britain: Four Centuries of Peoples from the Indian Sub-Continent ||  Michael H. Fisher, Shompa Lahiri, Shinder Thandi (2007)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Select Your Cookie Preferences

We use cookies and similar tools that are necessary to enable you to make purchases, to enhance your shopping experiences and to provide our services, as detailed in our Cookie Notice. We also use these cookies to understand how customers use our services (for example, by measuring site visits) so we can make improvements.

If you agree, we'll also use cookies to complement your shopping experience across the Amazon stores as described in our Cookie Notice. This includes using first- and third-party cookies, which store or access standard device information such as a unique identifier. Third parties use cookies for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalised ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Click 'Customise Cookies' to decline these cookies, make more detailed choices, or learn more. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie Preferences, as described in the Cookie Notice. To learn more about how and for what purposes Amazon uses personal information (such as Amazon Store order history), please visit our Privacy Notice.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A South-Asian History of Britain: Four Centuries of Peoples from the Indian Sub-Continent

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Buy A South-Asian History of Britain: Four Centuries of Peoples from the Indian Sub-Continent by Michael H. Fisher, Shompa Lahiri, Shinder Thandi (ISBN: 9781846450082) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

# data[].attributes.headline
Decolonising Desire: The Politics of Love || Dalia Gebrial (2017)

# data[].attributes.subject
Decolonising Desire: The Politics of Love || Dalia Gebrial (2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"The oriental woman is no more than a machine: she makes no distinction between one man and another. Smoking, going to the baths, painting her eyelids and drinking coffee - such is the circle of occupations within which her existence is confined....What makes this woman, in a sense, so poetic, is that she relapses into the state of nature"
Gustave Flaubert on Egyptian women

"I'm so obsessed I want to skin you and wear you like Versace"
Katy Perry, referring to Japanese people in an interview with Jimmy Fallon

"Today, I believe in the possibility of love; that is why I endeavour to trace its imperfections, its perversions"
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks

What does it mean to be lovable? Who is and is not deserving of particular kinds of love? How is love coded and reproduced? What, and who, is absent when love is represented?

There is a slowly growing body of work exploring what Averil Clarke calls the 'inequalities of love.' In her book, Clarke uses national survey data and ethnographic interviews to explore the unique difficulties faced by university-educated black women when seeking romance and marriage, as compared to their white and Hispanic counterparts. In 2014, OkCupid released data demonstrating how 'response rate' to dating profiles is profoundly affected by how you are racialised. There is a plethora of blogs and think pieces - particularly by women of colour - documenting traumatic and degrading experiences during dating and sex that specifically happens through and alongside their racialisation. Writer Junot Diaz - credited with coining the loosely defined term 'decolonial love' - explores in his novel Monstro the dynamics of a half-Dominican half-Haitian girl's "search for - yes - love in a world that has made it a solemn duty to guarantee that poor raced girls like her are never loved." Of course, getting attention on a dating website - or being married - is not an indicator of being loved. However, what this body of data and personal narrative tells us is that race profoundly structures your experience of desire, commitment and respect.

- OkCupid dating research, 2014

The primary social practice of love has been through heteronormative, monogamous dating and marriage; there is a compelling and important radical argument that these relationship structures are oppressive and predicated on the uneven and gendered distribution of emotional labour. What I'm interested in is further investigating is what it means to not be legible within even these problematic discourses of love. Exclusion from such frameworks is not always tantamount to liberation - in fact, exclusion denotes an entirely different set of racialised oppressions.

Looking back at my own experience, a nascent adolescent sexual curiosity was rapidly crushed by a combination of bodily mockery and - most often - total invisibility. A series of small lessons learned through film, television and personal experience, accumulated to the eventual understanding that people who look like me cannot be the subject of love. If lucky, we can be objects of fetishisation - but that is very different to being perceived as lovable.

What is often missing from accounts of the racial dynamics of 'love' and being 'loved' is an understanding of where these codes - of who can be loved, who cannot be loved and whose love matters - come from. Why do we have such a robust and universally understood racial grammar of desire, to the point where porn is literally categorised according to racist tropes?

In her essay on colonial sexual politics, Sandra Ponzenesi explores how the twin, sexualised images of the harem and the Hottentot framed almost all representations of women of Africa and 'the Orient' (the modern-day Middle East) in 19th century European art and literature. Within these colonial scripts we can find many of the origin stories of contemporary racial grammars and start to unpack the power relations they reproduce. Most importantly, we can build an understanding of how 'love', represented as an apolitical, transcendent realm of affect into which you unwittingly fall, is actually deeply politicized, and linked to broader structural violences faced particularly by women of colour globally.

-In the Harem by Frederick Arthur Bridgman (1904)

Embedded within the constituent discourses of love - of desirability, emotional labour, support and commitment - are codes of social value assigned to certain bodies; of who is worthy of love's work. The Hottentot and the harem in Ponzanesi's essay are quite different paradigms of the desiring gaze. The harem is marked by often multiple brown women's bodies viewed through a voyeuristic eye; tension is created through the intimation that their potent sexuality is "under lock and key" - their bodies are often loosely clothed, and it is implied they are unaware they are being watched. Erotic thrill is generated through the tantalising possibility of possession. In contrast, representations of the Hottentot woman provide a paragon of objectification: the focus is on the minute, invasive and dehumanising details of an individual woman's body. The archetypal narrative of the Hottentot is of course the case of Saartjie Baartman, a South African Khoikhoi woman, whose body was toured around 19th Century European circuses; her particular body shape put forward as representing the 'essence' of all African women, and as an object of sick European fascination. Even in her death she was not spared the racialised misogyny of the European gaze; her brain, skeleton and sexual organs remained on display in a Paris museum until 1974, more than 150 years after her death in 1815.

- Les Curieux en Extase by Louis Francois Charon (1815)

What connects these two paradigms is the total reduction of personhood to corporeality. The Hottentot is a silent, static image, presented from the pages of eugenics diagrams or from the pedestal of an exhibition. As for the harem's brown women - their bodies become sites of exploration and self-discovery; props signifying adventure and domination within colonial narratives. Edward Said's brilliant, gut-wrenching reflection on Flaubert's encounters with Egyptian courtesan Kuchuk Hanem - "a widely influential model of the Oriental woman" - cannot be improved upon:

She never spoke of herself, she never represented her emotions, presence or history. He spoke for her and represented her.... The Oriental woman is an occasion and an opportunity for Flaubert's musings; he is entranced by her self-sufficiency, by her emotional carelessness, and also by what, lying next to him, she allows him to think.

The European attraction to the colonised bodies of the harem woman and the Hottentot was paradoxically underscored by revulsion. The Hottentot - a hallmark image of 19th Century eugenics - was continually associated in both art and medical literature with unbridled, pathologised sexuality. Diagrams of African women's vulvas were preoccupied with what was perceived to be an 'overdevelopment' of the clitoris and labia. This was portrayed as a signifier of a biologically determined sexual excess 'proving' their pathological and animalistic nature. Such scientific racism toward African women was constituted almost entirely through and alongside portrayals of their sexuality and sexual organs in a way that was not the case for African men. Similarly in Flaubert's portrayals of the harem, the Oriental woman's 'machine-like' sexuality aligns her with primitivism; he speaks of the "nauseating odour" of the bed bugs that surround her and how her sexuality "relapses [her] into a state of nature."

The Hottentot archetype of late 17th Century European colonial discourse was easily adaptable to the racist ideology and specific material needs of chattel slavery in the Americas, which required an abundant, constantly growing labour force. Black women and black men were both perceived and treated as sub-human commodities, and in women, this was specifically constituted through ideas around their reproductive capacity to provide offspring that could be sold for the slaveowner's profit. Enslaved African women were routinely raped by crew members on the transatlantic voyage to the Americas. Once on the auction block, the reproductive and sexual features of women slaves were inspected for signs of being good 'breeders,' and forced 'breeding' with male slaves was not uncommon.

This mode of dehumanization within an institutional pattern of rape was mirrored in the broader, systematic treatment of their bodies. During slavery, the rape of black women - like native women - was not legally recognised: while white women struggled to bring proof violation of extra-marital consent, women of colour were unable to get a foot into the courtroom. After abolition, these legacies continued - particularly in the South. Whilst black men were being brutalised and criminalised in the name of defending white womanhood, black women continued to struggle to have sexual violence committed against them - particularly by white men - recognised as violence. The construction of black womanhood as animalistic, hypersexualised commodities made them situated them outside any discourse of consent or sexual agency, and excused the lack of legal and social support provided for African American assault survivors.

- Three Young White Men and a Black Woman by Christiaen van Couwenbergh (1632)

The construction of the racialised woman's body during colonisation and slavery as dirty, hypersexual and close to nature was specifically through their opposition to the chaste cleanliness of the Victorian woman, who, for her part, was bound to domesticity. As bell hooks writes in Ain't I a Woman:

The shift away from the image of white woman as sinful and sexual to that of white woman as virtuous lady occurred at the same time as mass sexual exploitation of enslaved black women - just as the rigid morality of Victorian England created a society in which the extolling of woman as mother and helpmeet occurred at the same time as the formation of a mass underworld of prostitution.

Indeed, representations of other marginalised women - such as sex workers and queer women - were constituted across similar lines. A gynaecology handbook by 19th Century surgeon Theodor Bilroth connected the stereotypical hypersexuality of African women to "those excesses" which are "called lesbian love." Similarly, as Sander Gilman notes in her excellent Black Bodies, White Bodies, becoming a sex worker was seen as biologically determined: a particular set of physiological traits confirmed inherent hypersexuality, which drew women towards sex work. The existence of sex workers in turn was seen as a public health issue, likened to pollution in the streets of the city. What connects these highly embodied categories of undesirable women is that they are specifically constructed in opposition to the discourses of love, romance, marriage and family. Their bodies are fascinations, adventures, scandals and pathologies - these subjects are not worth even the premise of the emotional labour of commitment.

The sexual deviancy and moral downfall of white women was often indicated by proximity to black and brown bodies in representations of European women from as far back as the eighteenth century; this was a central function of bodies of colour in art. Gilman refers to the famous Edouard Manet painting Olympia (1865) - depicting a nude white woman reclining on a bed, attended by a black servant - as an archetype of this trope. The painting caused moral outrage upon its exhibition, because a series of signifiers, including the presence of a black body, indicated that it was depicting an illicit context in a way that nude paintings of the era otherwise did not.

- Olympia by Edouard Manet (1865)

Today, the legacies of these colonial scripts have adapted magnificently to contemporary culture - and television, film and music videos allow for their wider dissemination, particularly in the West. Even when cloaked in the premise of affection, the language with which we speak about desire is entrenched in racialised instrumentalisation. Indeed, how different is David Bowie's ode to his 'China Girl' - " I could escape this feeling with my China Girl/ I feel a wreck without my little China Girl" - to Flaubert's musings on the "occasion and opportunity" of Kuchuk Hanem's body and what, lying next to him, it "allows him to think"? Similarly, 'feminist' justifications for the Iraq War were cloaked in the language of love and solidarity for a voiceless brown woman who - like Kuchuk Hanem - "never represented her emotions, presence or history."

In one of the more well-known instances, pop star Miley Cyrus' attempts to repackage herself from cute, infantile Disney do-gooder to edgy, grown-up provocateur involved highly strategic image changes: sexier clothes, sexier lyrics and - in a tale as old as Empire - the use of black women dancers. When pointed out to her that this could be viewed as instrumentalisation, I don't doubt she was authentically shocked: "those aren't my accessories. They're my homies!" Within her conceptual framework, this is what it means to express 'love' for black women.

- Miley Cyrus performing at the 2013 VMAs

So where to go from here? When it comes to envisioning a 'decolonial love,' a checklist behavioural guide for relationship etiquette is not sufficient. The problems of dehumanisation and fetishisation did not begin in individual relationships - they just come particularly to light within romantic or sexualised contexts - and will not end there. They began in a system of representation borne out of a power relation; a relation that existed for the purpose of material exploitation and resource extraction. Later, immigration policies, labour practices and distribution of resources would also feed into this racialised hierarchy of desire. The labour of decolonising these representative paradigms is structural, and involves addressing their material histories. To believe - as Fanon says - in the possibility of love, we must comprehend the fact that we do not obliviously fall into it, but are coded in and out of it, and that this has implications beyond our individualised experiences.

Dalia Gebrial is campaigns co-ordinator for the Undoing Borders campaign and a freelance writer. She is currently editing a special issue of Historical Materialism on 'Identity Politics,' and working on an edited volume on decolonisation in higher education.
See our essential books on feminism, love, and desire-40% off as part of our Red Sale.
Filed under:&puncsp; love,&puncsp; valentines-day,&puncsp; versolongread

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Decolonising Desire: The Politics of Love

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"The oriental woman is no more than a machine: she makes no distinction between one man and another.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed Race Britons || Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (2001)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed Feelings: The Complex Lives of Mixed Race Britons || Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (2001)

# data[].attributes.headline
Immigrants and Minorities in British Society || edited by Colin Holmes (1978)

# data[].attributes.subject
Immigrants and Minorities in British Society || edited by Colin Holmes (1978)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This book, first published in 1978, examines the debate over immigration into Britain and raises the important point that the existence in the country of immigrant and minority groups is nothing new. Britain has, in fact, attracted newcomers throughout most of its history and it is to remedy the deficiency of research and knowledge about these early immigration processes that the present volume has been put together. Composed of a number of essays written from different perspectives by specialists in different areas, it attempts overall to provide a tightly integrated review of the major research areas, themes and problems involved in immigration studies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Immigrants and Minorities in British Society | Colin Holmes | Taylor &

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This book, first published in 1978, examines the debate over immigration into Britain and raises the important point that the existence in the country of immigrant and minority groups is nothing new. Britain has, in fact, attracted newcomers throughout most of its history and it is to remedy the deficiency of research and knowledge about these early immigration processes that the present volume has been put together.

# data[].attributes.headline
Traveling with Her Mother's Tastes: The Negotiation of Gender, Race, and Location in "Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" || Sandra Gunning (2001)

# data[].attributes.subject
Traveling with Her Mother's Tastes: The Negotiation of Gender, Race, and Location in "Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands" || Sandra Gunning (2001)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed blessings || Zenab Eve Ahmed (2006)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed blessings || Zenab Eve Ahmed (2006)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ll my life, I've wanted to find depictions of people who look like me; I've searched for stories of those with similar life experiences to mine. My search has been fruitless. As a mixed-race woman, my story remains untold and I hit walls of indifference each time I try to raise the issue. I'm a half south-Asian, half white-English woman, and I know no one who can reflect my story back to me. So what, some of you might say. Stop navel-gazing; get over yourself, you may mutter. It's hard to explain to white people, who take their identity for granted, just how lonely it can feel when you've never met anyone else with your particular experience of ethnicity, let alone read about them or seen them on TV or in the movies.

You - the white majority - take your role models for granted. British Asians have their Rich List and people of African Caribbean origin have their 100 Great Black Britons list. I don't begrudge them their pride in their achievements but what do biracial Britons - who are predicted to become the single largest minority group in the country, overtaking those of Indian origin - have that is comparable? We have nothing - because people like me still remain largely unacknowledged, with debates around race, culture and identity excluding mixed-heritage people. It is almost impossible to find biracial people referred to in government departments or research. It seems, because we don't form a multiracial "movement" that our needs are being wilfully ignored by those in charge. Our numbers have still not reached enough of a "critical mass" to matter, as far as British society is concerned.

When I was growing up, the term "mixed race" hadn't been invented - I was regularly described as half-caste instead. There were certainly no mixed-heritage people in the public eye for me to relate to for inspiration, direction and a greater sense of community. Thankfully, as far as I am concerned, there are many more mixed-parentage people around now. In 2001, according to the census, we numbered 674,000. We are projected to be 950,000 by 2010 and 1.24m in 2020. We are the fastest-growing ethnic minority in the UK, and 50% of my minority is aged 16 and under.

But while I welcome the fact that there are more people who look like me populating these isles, it's disturbing to know that mixed-race children have lower levels of attainment at school, have higher rates of exclusion from school, and are said to be 8.5 times more likely to end up in care. Anecdotally, they're said to face peer pressure on the grounds of their mixed heritage from both white and black peers - just as I did in my childhood. As adults, mixed race Britons show the highest rates of lone parenthood and family breakdown and the highest rates of drug treatment. Trevor Phillips has spoken of these being outcomes of identity stripping - children who grow up marooned between communities.

One has to acknowledge that it can be difficult growing up without a fixed identity as black or white. It makes black and white people feel uncomfortable too, because they want to know whose "side" you belong to. Many mixed-race people, in the past, would assign to themselves a black identity. At least then they were part of a large community who had pride in their colour. In the past five years or so, partly due to the US experience, where the mixed-race community is large and politicised, and partly due to the 2001 census, which gave us the opportunity to state who we were, once and for all, there's been a growing sense of biracial Brits wanting to be seen for their authentic selves. We're not black or white but mixed - special and unique.

If biracial adults start to feel proud of being mixed, it follows that mixed kids will gain a greater sense of recognition and higher self-esteem. It's for this reason that I'm putting together a book for kids and young adults on British mixed-race icons. As well as lining up some wonderfully inspiring role models, I'm collating statistics on the mixed population of the UK. But, in turning to the three bodies here dealing with ethnicity, I've drawn a blank. Can they help me put together facts and figures on the history of mixing in the UK, the current position, and its future? I've had answers along the lines of - "oh yes, we do feel we should do something for the mixed race, but we haven't and we don't know where to start, so no, we can't help you."

Society continues to turn a blind eye to us, hoping we'll go away, with our exotic good looks, seeing us all as lost souls caught between two cultures. As long as bureaucrats see us as an anomaly, as at best an add-on to the black community, not only will the reasons for the social disadvantages of being mixed continue to be under-researched and under-resourced, but initiatives like mine, to celebrate the British mixed-race experience, by providing biracial kids with stories of famous role models, will struggle to get off the ground.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
ll my life, I've wanted to find depictions of people who look like me; I've searched for stories of those with similar life experiences to mine. My search has been fruitless. As a mixed-race woman, my story remains untold and I hit walls of indifference each time I try to raise the issue.

# data[].attributes.headline
Black White and Jewish || Rebecca Walker (2002)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black White and Jewish || Rebecca Walker (2002)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)

"Compelling."- The Washington Post

"Stunningly honest."- San Francisco Chronicle

"A complex, all-American story."- USA Today

"Walker masterfully illuminates differences between black and white America...A heartbreaking tale of self-creation."- People

"[Walker] offers painful childhood memories of straddling two vastly different cultures-black bohemia and Jewish suburbia-to fashion a cautionary tale about the power of race in shaping identity...[a] highly readable debut."- Entertainment Weekly

"Walker [writes with] elegant, discreet candor...will attract a wealth of well-deserved praise."- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A beautifully written meditation on the creation of a woman's sense of self."-Jane Lazarre, author of Beyond the Whiteness of Whiteness

"Powerful...deeply affecting."-Danzy Senna, author of Caucasia

Get the latest updates about Rebecca Walker

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

Become a Member

Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you'll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.

Success!

Your account has been created. Upload book purchases, access your personalized book recommendations, and more from here. GOT IT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker: 9781573229074 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Skip to Main Content (Press Enter) "Compelling."- The Washington Post "Stunningly honest."- San Francisco Chronicle "A complex, all-American story."- USA Today "Walker masterfully illuminates differences between black and white America...A heartbreaking tale of self-creation."- People "[Walker] offers painful childhood memories of straddling two vastly different cultures-black bohemia and Jewish suburbia-to

# data[].attributes.headline
Tricking the Border Guards: Performing Race || Minelle Mahtani (2002)

# data[].attributes.subject
Tricking the Border Guards: Performing Race || Minelle Mahtani (2002)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Bloomsbury Collections - Space Invaders - Race, Gender and Bodies Out of Place

# data[].attributes.headline
Things Not To Say To Someone Of Mixed Race || BBC Three (2017)

# data[].attributes.subject
Things Not To Say To Someone Of Mixed Race || BBC Three (2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Things Not To Say To Someone Of Mixed Race

# data[].attributes.headline
Roman Slavery and the Question of Race || Sandra Joshiel (2009)

# data[].attributes.subject
Roman Slavery and the Question of Race || Sandra Joshiel (2009)

# data[].attributes.headline
Transnational Chinese: Fujianese Migrants in Europe || Frank N. Pieke, Pál Nyíri, and Colleagues (2004)

# data[].attributes.subject
Transnational Chinese: Fujianese Migrants in Europe || Frank N. Pieke, Pál Nyíri, and Colleagues (2004)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the 1990s, societies across the world were confronted with a sudden mass inflow of Chinese migrants. Transnational Chinese investigates the global nature of this migration by focusing on one of the fastest growing groups of new Chinese international migrants: those from Fujian province in southern China. It specifically focuses on Fujianese migration to Europe, where a broad range of immigration regimes has provided various incentives and disincentives that have influenced their migratory patterns across the continent. Applying intensive, multisited fieldwork research in the United Kingdom, Hungary, and Italy, as well as sending areas in Fujian, Transnational Chinese investigates the origins and mechanics of Fujianese migration, the work and life of Fujianese migrants in Europe, and the many transnational spaces that connect Fujianese across Europe, the United States, and China.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the 1990s, societies across the world were confronted with a sudden mass inflow of Chinese migrants. Transnational Chinese investigates the global nature of this migration by focusing on one of the fastest growing groups of new Chinese international migrants: those from Fujian province in southern China.

# data[].attributes.headline
Where does the rise of identity politics leave people of mixed race? || BBC Newsnight (2018) 

# data[].attributes.subject
Where does the rise of identity politics leave people of mixed race? || BBC Newsnight (2018) 

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Where does the rise of identity politics leave people of mixed race? - BBC Newsnight

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixing Matters: "Callaloo Nation" Revisited || Aisha Khan (2007)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixing Matters: "Callaloo Nation" Revisited || Aisha Khan (2007)

# data[].attributes.headline
Does 'Race' Matter? A Study of 'Mixed-Race' Siblings' Identifications || Miri Song (2010)

# data[].attributes.subject
Does 'Race' Matter? A Study of 'Mixed-Race' Siblings' Identifications || Miri Song (2010)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Skip to Main Content (Press Enter)

A painful, richly detailed account . . . [that reveals] astonishing truths. ( Newsweek)

Searing, revelatory à mind-boggling in its rich and complex interplay of personalities [and] social and racial pressures. ( Elle)

Get the latest updates about June Cross

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

Become a Member

Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you'll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.

Success!

Your account has been created. Upload book purchases, access your personalized book recommendations, and more from here. GOT IT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Secret Daughter by June Cross: 9780143112112 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Skip to Main Content (Press Enter) A painful, richly detailed account . . . [that reveals] astonishing truths. ( Newsweek) Searing, revelatory à mind-boggling in its rich and complex interplay of personalities [and] social and racial pressures.

# data[].attributes.headline
Growing Up Mixed-Race in the UK || Channel 4 (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Growing Up Mixed-Race in the UK || Channel 4 (2019)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed-Race Women and Epistemologies of Belonging || Silvia Cristina Bettez (2010)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed-Race Women and Epistemologies of Belonging || Silvia Cristina Bettez (2010)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality || Minelle Mahtani (2014)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed Race Amnesia: Resisting the Romanticization of Multiraciality || Minelle Mahtani (2014)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Racially mixed people in the global north are often portrayed as the embodiment of an optimistic, post-racial future. In Mixed Race Amnesia, Minelle Mahtani makes the case that this romanticized view of multiraciality governs both public perceptions and personal accounts of the mixed race experience…

# data[].attributes.headline
"People get mixed race wrong, they think mixed up or confused" || BBC Stories (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
"People get mixed race wrong, they think mixed up or confused" || BBC Stories (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"People get mixed race wrong, they think mixed up or confused" BBC Stories

# data[].attributes.headline
'I Can't Quite Put My Finger On It': Racism's Touch || Shirley Anne Tate (2014)

# data[].attributes.subject
'I Can't Quite Put My Finger On It': Racism's Touch || Shirley Anne Tate (2014)

# data[].attributes.headline
The Trinidad Dougla: Identity, Ethnicity and Lexical Choice || Ferne Louanne Regis (2016)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Trinidad Dougla: Identity, Ethnicity and Lexical Choice || Ferne Louanne Regis (2016)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In their search for personal identity, Trinidad's Douglas, the offspring of Indo-African unions, find themselves in a complex social, cultural and linguistic situation. This is reflected as much in their unclear and uncertain social positioning in a society of competing ethnic groups as in the linguistic possibilities open to them in their quotidian social interactions as they negotiate between their parent communities.

Trinidadian English Creole (TEC), the mother tongue or lingua franca of the majority of the population, exhibits a lexical amalgam of donor varieties brought to the island during the period of its colonization. The extent to which Trinidadians employ these lexical items is linked to their affinity to a particular donor group. As a consequence of this, Dougla ethnicity and identity are hypothesized as being expressed chiefly through the use of lexical items available to them via their upbringing in specific communities.

This book describes and analyses specific lexical items in use by Douglas, who reside in mixed-race communities, as well as communities stereotypically marked Indic and Afric by Trinidadians, to determine the extent to which Douglas project a distinct identity, a subsumed identity linked to an ancestral ethnic group or a shifting identity based on accommodative strategies employed during interaction within their social networks.

Ferne Louanne Regis is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Open Campus and the UWI School of Business and Applied Studies (ROYTEC). She holds a PhD in Linguistics from UWI, St Augustine. Her primary work focuses on the biracial minority group of Douglas in Trinidad and their expressions of ethnic identity via language, but her interests extend to other Caribbean areas and groups where language and ethnicity are at play. She has published a number of articles and book chapters on Trinidad's Douglas.

"The Trinidad Dougla opens up a whole new area of research on an increasingly important sector of the national community. At the present time that element seems to be unaware of their increasing importance. Most are not even aware of the dilemma of choosing among the Indic, the Afric or the neutral options. Because of the absence of proper information and analysis our Douglas live in a confused space not realizing their potential as agents of national unity. Many Canadians regard the Metis as the true Canadians, a genuinely hybrid race. By the same token, the local Dougla population may well be regarded as the true Trinbagonian, reflecting a society in which ethnic tensions can be reduced. In this regard The Trinidad Dougla provides a useful opening to what one hopes will be a wider debate about the national space which is being increasingly occupied by Douglas. This will be good for those who live in the shadow of their joint ancestry as well as for the health of the nation as a whole."

Professor Brinsely Samaroo University of the West Indies

"From an academic point of view, the work succeeds in outlining with a close attention to detail the research processes engaged in the study. It is faithful to these and presents a good model for academic research of this kind. From the theoretical perspective, the work addresses a dilemma of much of Caribbean research where the contexts of operation often challenge orthodoxy. This work shows an awareness of significant relevant research approaches. Ultimately, it makes use of three significant conceptual frames, Communities of Practice, Social Networking and Accommodation interaction to bring clarity to what might otherwise have been lacunae in the research findings."

Professor Ian E. Robertson University of the West Indies at St. Augustine UWI Today, 22.01.2017

"Dr. Regis has produced a very important work. It is a pioneering study both on a social group that has been neglected by linguistic scholarship and in the field of ethnolinguistics in the Anglophone Caribbean. It informs and expands our sociolinguistic knowledge and understanding of a growing social group in the multiethnic space that is Trinidad."

Dr Winford James University of the West Indies at Augustine

Buy This Book

Hardback

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Trinidad Dougla: Identity, Ethnicity and Lexical Choice - Cambridge Scholars Publishing

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In their search for personal identity, Trinidad's Douglas, the offspring of Indo-African unions, find themselves in a complex social, cultural and linguistic situation. This is reflected as much in their unclear and uncertain social positioning in a society of competing ethnic groups as in the linguistic possibilities open to them in their quotidian social interactions as they negotiate between their parent communities.

# data[].attributes.headline
Growing up Mixed Race in the UK || Eboni + Ivory (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
Growing up Mixed Race in the UK || Eboni + Ivory (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Growing up Mixed Race in the UK | STORYTIME | EBONI + IVORY

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Advocating for people of African Irish descent

A Better Future

FOR DIVERSITY

Recognition

Seeking recognition and representation within all sectors of Irish society

Justice

Seeking justice for past and present violations of human rights and racism

Families & community

Supporting people and families navigate mixed race life and enjoy multi cultural living

Support groups

Are you looking for like minded people to talk with or do you wish to offer help and support?

"I have a dream........" Ma rtin Luther King

© Copyright The Association of Mixed Race Irish

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Advocating for people of African Irish descent FOR DIVERSITY Recognition Seeking recognition and representation within all sectors of Irish society Justice Seeking justice for past and present violations of human rights and racism Families & community Supporting people and families navigate mixed race life and enjoy multi cultural living Are you looking for like minded people to talk with or do you wish to offer help and support?

# data[].attributes.headline
"Being A Mixed Race Person Here Is Not Easy": Hard Up Episode 3: Fighting for Your Dream || BBC Three (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
"Being A Mixed Race Person Here Is Not Easy": Hard Up Episode 3: Fighting for Your Dream || BBC Three (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
"Being A Mixed Race Person Here Is Not Easy": Hard Up Episode 3: Fighting for Your Dream

# data[].attributes.headline
Exploring ‘Mixed-Race’ Identities in Scotland Through a Familial Lens || Mengxi Pang (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
Exploring ‘Mixed-Race’ Identities in Scotland Through a Familial Lens || Mengxi Pang (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Exploring ‘mixed-race’ identities in Scotland through a familial lens - Enlighten: Theses

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This thesis takes ‘mixed-race’ individuals and parents of ‘mixed-race’ children in Scotland
as its subject, exploring the meanings and significance of ‘mixed-race’ and the process by
which ‘mixed-race’ identities are constructed. Contributing to the burgeoning ‘mixed-race’
scholarship in Britain, an…

# data[].attributes.body
While this book is not exclusively about mixing, it does talk about Black and Asian people moving through white spaces and also mixed unions as well.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Staying Power is a panoramic history of black Britons. Stretching back to the Roman conquest, encompassing the court of Henry VIII, and following a host of characters from Mary Seacole to the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Peter Fryer paints a picture of two thousand years of Black presence in Britain.

First published in the '80s, amidst race riots and police brutality, Fryer's history performed a deeply political act; revealing how Africans, Asians and their descendants had long been erased from British history. By rewriting black Britons into the British story, showing where they influenced political traditions, social institutions and cultural life, was - and is - a deeply effective counter to a racist and nationalist agenda.

This new edition includes the classic introduction by Paul Gilroy, author of There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack, in addition to a brand-new foreword by Guardian journalist Gary Younge, which examines the book's continued significance today as we face Brexit and a revival of right wing nationalism.

Peter Fryer (1927-2006) was a British writer and journalist, whose coverage of the arrival of citizens from the Caribbean onboard the HMT Empire Windrush led to a deep and long-lasting interest in the histories of Black Britons. In 1984, he wrote the classic book Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain (Pluto, 2018).

Gary Younge is a journalist, author and broadcaster. He is editor-at-large for The Guardian. His latest book is Another Day in the Death of America (Guardian Faber Publishing, 2017).

- David Olusoga, author of 'Black and British: A Forgotten History' 'Wonderful' - Lenny Henry 'Rare in its mastery' - CLR James 'A fascinating account of the growth of the black community in Britain over the past centuries' - Guardian 'For this retrieval of the lost histories of black Britain Mr Fryer has my deep gratitude. An invaluable book, which manages the rare feat of combining scholarship with readability' - Salman Rushdie

Foreword by Gary Younge
Introduction by Paul Gilroy
Preface
1. 'Those Kinde of People'
2. 'Necessary Implements'
3. Britain's Slave Ports
4. The Black Community Takes Shape
5. Eighteenth-Century Voices
6. Slavery and the Law
7. The Rise of English Racism
8. Up from Slavery
9. Challenges to Empire
10. Under Attack
11. The Settlers
12. The New Generation
Appendices
Notes
Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

Published by Pluto Press in Sep 2018

Paperback ISBN: 9780745338309
eBook ISBN: 9781786803344

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Staying Power is a panoramic history of black Britons. Stretching back to the Roman conquest, encompassing the court of Henry VIII, and following a host of characters from Mary Seacole to the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Peter Fryer paints a picture of two thousand years of Black presence in Britain.

# data[].attributes.headline
Forgotten Histories: Three Stories of Black Girls from Barnardo's Victorian Archive || Caroline Bressey (2002)

# data[].attributes.subject
Forgotten Histories: Three Stories of Black Girls from Barnardo's Victorian Archive || Caroline Bressey (2002)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Forgotten histories_ three stories of black girls from Barnardo's Victorian archive (Women's History Review, vol. 11, issue 3) (2002)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mixed-Race Identity Has Plurality: On Being Irish, Jamaican, and Black. It wasn't until I was twenty years old that I found out I come from a very recent Mixed-Race background - when my father told me my....

# data[].attributes.headline
A Lady of York: Migration, Ethnicity and Identity in Roman Britain || Stephen Leach, Hella Eckardt, and Colleages (2015)

# data[].attributes.subject
A Lady of York: Migration, Ethnicity and Identity in Roman Britain || Stephen Leach, Hella Eckardt, and Colleages (2015)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref.

Redfern, Rebecca C. and DeWitte, Sharon N. 2011. Status and health in Roman Dorset: The effect of status on risk of mortality in post-conquest populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 146, Issue. 2, p. 197.

Müldner, Gundula Chenery, Carolyn and Eckardt, Hella 2011. The 'Headless Romans': multi-isotope investigations of an unusual burial ground from Roman Britain. Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 38, Issue. 2, p. 280.

Pollard, A.M. Ditchfield, P. McCullagh, J.S.O. Allen, T.G. Gibson, M. Boston, C. Clough, S. Marquez-Grant, N. and Nicholson, R.A. 2011. "These boots were made for walking": The isotopic analysis of a C4 Roman inhumation from Gravesend, Kent, UK. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 146, Issue. 3, p. 446.

Chenery, Carolyn Eckardt, Hella and Müldner, Gundula 2011. Cosmopolitan Catterick? Isotopic evidence for population mobility on Rome's Northern frontier. Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 38, Issue. 7, p. 1525.

Knudson, Kelly J. O'Donnabhain, Barra Carver, Charisse Cleland, Robin and Price, T. Douglas 2012. Migration and Viking Dublin: paleomobility and paleodiet through isotopic analyses. Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 39, Issue. 2, p. 308.

Carroll, Maureen 2012. 'The Insignia of Women': Dress, Gender and Identity on the Roman Funerary Monument of Regina fromArbeia. Archaeological Journal, Vol. 169, Issue. 1, p. 281.

Evans, J. A. Chenery, C. A. and Montgomery, J. 2012. A summary of strontium and oxygen isotope variation in archaeological human tooth enamel excavated from Britain. Journal of Analytical Atomic Spectrometry, Vol. 27, Issue. 5, p. 754.

Müldner, Gundula 2013. Stable isotopes and diet: their contribution to Romano-British research. Antiquity, Vol. 87, Issue. 335, p. 137.

Eckardt, Hella Müldner, Gundula and Lewis, Mary 2014. People on the move in Roman Britain. World Archaeology, Vol. 46, Issue. 4, p. 534.

SYMONDS, LEIGH DOUGLAS PRICE, T KEENLEYSIDE, ANNE and BURTON, JAMES 2014. Medieval Migrations: Isotope Analysis of Early Medieval Skeletons on the Isle of Man. Medieval Archaeology, Vol. 58, Issue. 1, p. 1.

2015. Field Methods and Post-Excavation Techniques in Late Antique Archaeology. p. 441.

McIntyre, Lauren J. 2015. Reconstructing population size in a Romano-British colonia: the case of Eboracum. Journal of Roman Archaeology, Vol. 28, Issue. , p. 413.

Eckardt, Hella Müldner, Gundula and Speed, Greg 2015. The Late Roman Field Army in Northern Britain? Mobility, Material Culture and Multi-Isotope Analysis at Scorton (N Yorks.). Britannia, Vol. 46, Issue. , p. 191.

Aspinall, Peter J. and Chinouya, Martha J. 2016. The African Diaspora Population in Britain. p. 1.

Killgrove, Kristina Montgomery, Janet and Bondioli, Luca 2016. All Roads Lead to Rome: Exploring Human Migration to the Eternal City through Biochemistry of Skeletons from Two Imperial-Era Cemeteries (1st-3rd c AD). PLOS ONE, Vol. 11, Issue. 2, p. e0147585.

Redfern, Rebecca C. Gröcke, Darren R. Millard, Andrew R. Ridgeway, Victoria Johnson, Lucie and Hefner, Joseph T. 2016. Going south of the river: A multidisciplinary analysis of ancestry, mobility and diet in a population from Roman Southwark, London. Journal of Archaeological Science, Vol. 74, Issue. , p. 11.

Tacoma, Laurens E. Ivleva, Tatiana and Breeze, David J. 2016. Lost Along the Way: A CenturionDomo Britanniain Bostra. Britannia, Vol. 47, Issue. , p. 31.

Lightfoot, Emma O'Connell, Tamsin C. and Bondioli, Luca 2016. On the Use of Biomineral Oxygen Isotope Data to Identify Human Migrants in the Archaeological Record: Intra-Sample Variation, Statistical Methods and Geographical Considerations. PLOS ONE, Vol. 11, Issue. 4, p. e0153850.

Perry, Megan A. Jennings, Cammie and Coleman, Drew S. 2017. Strontium isotope evidence for long-distance immigration into the Byzantine port city of Aila, modern Aqaba, Jordan. Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, Vol. 9, Issue. 5, p. 943.

Gowland, Rebecca 2017. Embodied Identities in Roman Britain: A Bioarchaeological Approach. Britannia, Vol. 48, Issue. , p. 177.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain | Antiquity | Cambridge Core

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This article has been cited by the following publications. This list is generated based on data provided by Crossref. Redfern, Rebecca C. and DeWitte, Sharon N. 2011. Status and health in Roman Dorset: The effect of status on risk of mortality in post-conquest populations. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Vol.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mary Beard is right, Roman Britain was multi-ethnic – so why does this upset people so much? || John-Mark Philo (2017)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mary Beard is right, Roman Britain was multi-ethnic – so why does this upset people so much? || John-Mark Philo (2017)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere,
nec scire utrum sis albus an ater homo.

I'm not overly anxious, Caesar, to please you,
Or to know whether you're a white or a black man.

The Roman poet Catullus, now known for the erotic verse he wrote for Lesbia and Juventius, wasn't particularly bothered about a man's skin pigmentation (in this particular instance, that of Julius Caesar). So why are we?

Mary Beard, professor of classics at the University of Cambridge, has recently been at the receiving end of a "torrent of aggressive insults" for suggesting that Britain under the Roman empire - which at its height stretched from northern Africa to Scotland - was ethnically diverse. The trouble started when Beard described an educational cartoon produced by the BBC, which included a black Roman solider in Britain, as "pretty accurate".

The really interesting question here is not whether the Roman empire was ethnically diverse ( it was) or even whether there were African people in the British Isles ( we think there probably were) - but why it is now so important for some to establish beyond question that there was a time when Britain's population was white and nothing else. What exactly is at stake in promoting this view of Britain's past?

Beard's opponents, objecting to the depiction of a black man as a high-ranking Roman soldier, have been keen to pin down exactly just how dark-skinned a member of the Roman empire living in Britain could have been. "North Africans were lightskinned," one commentator was eager to point out. Rather than an opportunity to reflect on the languages, the literatures, the cross-cultural encounters that textured and enriched the Roman empire, some of the attacks on Beard are seemingly about negating in the strongest possible terms the presence of dark skin in British history.

The cultural and ethnic origins of the British Isles have always been subject to critical back and forth. In the 16th century, the Scottish historian Hector Boece recounted the tradition that the Scots were Egyptian in origin, descended from the princess Scota. South of the border, Raphael Holinshed (from whom Shakespeare derived so much of his material) rehearsed the tradition that Brutus, a descendent of Aeneas, prince of Troy (located in what is modern day Turkey) came to rule Britain with "a great train of the posterity of the dispersed Trojans".

Now, faced with what is rather more persuasive evidence for multi-ethnicity in Britain's ancient past, we are apparently no longer willing to entertain the idea that the ethnic origins of the British Isles were actually as complex as the archaeological, textual, and isotopic evidence suggests.

We might point to Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the Roman governor of Britain, who was born in Numidia (today's Algeria) and upon whom the BBC cartoon appears to have been based. Urbicus, whose presence in Britain is recorded on an inscription at Corbridge, Northumberland, was responsible for reconquering the south of Scotland.

Then there is the evidence offered by tombstones, including that of Regina, a former slave and member of Catuvellauni, a Celtic tribe to the south, who, as her tombstone explains, married the Syrian Barates, from Palmyra ( Barates Palmyrenus Natione). To this we might add the tombstone of Victor - a freedman who was buried in Britain and was "Moorish by birth" ( Natione Maurum).

Scientific research has also shed new light on migration to ancient Britain. The project by Reading University, A Long Way From Home: Diaspora Communities in Roman Britain, used skeletal and isotopic remains to examine migrant communities under the empire. The team examined the chemical signatures on ancient teeth and bone to explore potential differences in diet and health between migrants and the rest of the local population.

And, of course, there were also British migrants to be found across the empire, including the centurions Titus Quintius Petrullus - whose tombstone, describing him as "from Britain", was uncovered in Syria - and Marcus Minicius Marcellinus, who, although originally from Lincoln, was stationed in Mainz. The tomb of another Lincoln soldier, Marcus Junius Capito, has been uncovered in the old Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis - modern-day Algeria. Migration is and has always been a two-way street.

The responses Beard has received arguably are concerned with protecting a very particular, very limiting view of the past at the expense of a genuinely enlightening debate about the Roman empire. At best, this speaks of an unwillingness to engage patiently and critically with questions which can nuance our understanding of history - and at worst, of a desire to keep the British past white.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mary Beard is right, Roman Britain was multi-ethnic - so why does this upset people so much?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Nil nimium studeo, Caesar, tibi velle placere, nec scire utrum sis albus an ater homo. I'm not overly anxious, Caesar, to please you, Or to know whether you're a white or a black man. The Roman poet Catullus, now known for the erotic verse he wrote for Lesbia and Juventius, wasn't particularly bothered about a man's skin pigmentation (in this particular instance, that of Julius Caesar).

# data[].attributes.headline
Black Edwardians || Jeffrey Green (1998)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black Edwardians || Jeffrey Green (1998)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901-1914

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This study reveals the presence of black people in all walks of life all over the British Isles at the height of the imperialist era - challenging conventional views on imperialism, racism and British social history. Historians of British society have largely ignored this most visible of minorities,…

# data[].attributes.headline
Alt History: Black British History We’re Not Taught in Schools - BBC Stories || David Olusoga (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Alt History: Black British History We’re Not Taught in Schools - BBC Stories || David Olusoga (2019)

# data[].attributes.body
This video is not exclusively about the Afro-Romans but it oes include them

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Alt History: Black British History We’re Not Taught in Schools - BBC Stories

# data[].attributes.body
Linktree - https://linktr.ee/treventoured

Website - https://treventour.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/treventoured

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/tre.ventourvpbme.71

https://www.facebook.com/treventoured

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/treventoured/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tr%C3%A9-ventour-griffiths-631ab1ba/

# data[].attributes.headline
The Evidence for Diversity in Roman Britain || Warwick University (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Evidence for Diversity in Roman Britain || Warwick University (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Introduction

A few years ago, in 2016, a BBC created animation on Roman Britain caused some controversy through its depiction of a typical Romano-British family as shown below.

The depiction of a racially mixed family group had some commentators up in arms screaming that the political correctness brigade had once again stepped in to give us an image far from what might have been typical. And yet evidence suggests that the scene above was a perfectly plausible one for Roman Britain and in fact allows us to open up a very interesting discussion about the diverse make up of the Romans who found themselves on these shores. Who were they are where did they come from? And what evidence do we have?

In the following sections we will present a number of discussions, some arising from the BBC controversy, and will present the evidence for the diverse nature of the Romans who lived in Britain during the first few centuries after the Roman invasion.

How diverse was Roman Britain?

On July 28, 2017 a blog by Dr Matthew Nicholls of the Department of Classics, University of Reading discussed the diversity of Roman Britain and is quoted here in full as it gives an excellent overview of the whole topic:

"A heated conversation arose on social media on Wednesday surrounding the question of the racial diversity of Roman Britain, or the Roman empire more generally.

The tweet from Alt Right commentator Paul Joseph Watson, that kicked off the debate.

There is plenty of evidence that the Roman empire was relatively diverse, as might be expected from an empire that encouraged trade and mobility across a territory that extended from Hadrian's Wall to north Africa, the Rhine, and the Euphrates (and which, less positively, enslaved and moved conquered populations around by force). Rome itself was a melting pot of people from all over the Mediterranean and beyond (satirical poets moan about it, and we have the evidence of tombstones). Outside Italy the Roman army in particular acted as medium for change and movement in several ways.

Its legions, recruited from Roman citizens, were posted all over the empire. Soldiers might take local common-law wives and marry them on retirement, creating new generations of Roman citizens outside Italy who would then be eligible for legionary service.

The internet discussion was particularly prompted by the appearance of a black Roman soldier in the detachment building Hadrian's Wall, but in fact there is an ancient account of precisely this - the emperor Septimius Severus (himself in fact an African, from Libya) was inspecting his troops on the Wall when one of the garrison's well-known jokers, an 'Ethiopian', offered him a garland.

Severus was startled by the apparent omen, associating the soldier's black colour as a portent of his own imminent death, but no-one seems to have been particularly surprised at the presence of an 'Ethiopian' (that is, a black African) at the northern edge of the Roman empire ( Hist. Aug. Severus 22). There were other Africans on the wall - a third-century AD cohort of Mauri from north west Africa are also attested in an inscription at Burgh-by-Sands near Carlisle.

"Hadrian's Wall had garrisons of Tungrian and Batavian troops from Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as units from as far away as Syria"

Auxiliary military units, levied from non-citizens, were deliberately posted to areas of the empire far from their troops' home province, so Hadrian's Wall also had garrisons of Tungrian and Batavian troops from Belgium and the Netherlands, as well as units from as far away as Syria.

Auxiliary units like these passed on Roman military discipline, Latin, and Roman cultural habits and often rewarded their soldiers with grants of citizenship on retirement, producing more new citizens with a long training in Roman ways. And Roman army units in frontier provinces built roads and harbours and created instant large markets for food, drink, and services, stimulating the growth of towns outside the fortress gates. In the long-term, this also monetised trading economies that drew in more civilian settlers from around the empire.

We know about some of these settlers from archaeological evidence and inscriptions. Colleagues at the University of Reading have worked on both. Dr Hella Eckardt's analysis of skeletal remains found in York suggest that the city was home to immigrants from North Africa (find out more here), while Professor Peter Kruschwitz has written on moving inscriptions that document the lives and deaths of immigrants in the Roman empire (see below).

[A] remarkable monument, discovered in Arbeia (South Shields) at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall, documents the life of a British wife of a Syrian immigrant from Palmyra, including text in Palmyrene, one of several pieces of evidence for a near eastern people in northern Britain [see below]."

Quintus Lollius Urbicus?

According to Prof Mary Beard in a Guardian article, a man called Quintus Lollius Urbicus, a Berber from what is now Algeria who became governor of Roman Britain from AD 139-142, may have been the inspiration for the BBC video that triggered the storm.

Explaining that it can be difficult to be sure of ethnicity because Africans took on Roman names, she said: "Even in the case of Septimius Severus, the first Roman emperor from Africa [Libya], we don't actually know the colour of his skin, how far he was 'native', how far the descendent of Italian settler. The same goes for Quintus Lollius Urbicus, often claimed to be Berber, which he may well have been, but it isn't certain."

Beyond the colour of his skin remains the question of identity and how Quintus Lollius Urbicus viewed or thought himself. Descendent of an Italian settler? North African Berber? Citizen of the Roman Empire? All are possibilities.

Scientific Evidence for Black Romans in Britain?

So what can we say about the depiction of the black Roman soldier in the BBC video? Well, scientific evidence exists for the presence of North Africans in over 45% of the sites investigated as part of a study published in 2012 which identified origins using analysis of tooth enamel.

The investigation was summed up in A note on the evidence for African migrants in Britain from the Bronze Age to the medieval period from the blog of Dr Caitlin Green of the ICE Cambridge University on Monday, 23 May 2016. The diagram from the blog as shown below revealed the findings clearly for the Roman period.

The analysis was based on the fact that oxygen isotopes (different 'types' of oxygen molecules which differ slightly in atomic weight) found in your tooth enamel - and taken in via drinking water - will differ according to where you were brought up. Isotopes at a level consistent with an origin in North Africa were very prevalent during the Roman era-the mid-first to early fifth centuries AD-with evidence being found at Winchester (Lankhills), Gloucester, York (three sites: Trentholme Drive, The Railway & Driffield Terrace), Scorton near Catterick, and Wasperton. Furthermore, nearly 47% of all Roman sites where the analysis was undertaken have produced evidence suggestive of the presence of people who grew up in North Africa, a significantly higher proportion than is found for any other era.

Syrians in Roman Britain

On September 6, 2015 Peter Kruschwitz, Professor of Ancient Cultural History of the University of Vienna posted an article on his blog titled What have the Syrians ever done for us...?

The blog was in part inspired by the negative press on the Syrians at the time of its writing given the actions of ISIS in Syria at sites such as Palmyra, and the heart breaking images of the body of the three year old Syrian refugee boy Aylan Kurdi, washed up on the beach in Turkey. With certain sections of the British tabloid press forced to re-evaluate their thoughts on immigration given the image of Aylan Kurdi, Prof Kruschwitz sought to investigate the earlier immigration of Syrians into Britain during the Roman period, highlighting the colour and diversity they brought to these shores:

The historical presence of Syrians in Britain is one such story, however - and it dates back a lot further than one might at first expect. In fact, it dates back - at least! - to Roman times, when Syrians, as part of the Roman auxiliary forces, helped to establish and to build the province of Britannia.

In the corpus of Roman inscriptions from Britain, there are numerous examples of individuals who self-identify as Syrians by nationality. The single most remarkable instance is attested on a lavish (and undoubtedly expensive) memorial that was discovered at Arbeia (South Shields), by the Eastern end of Hadrian's wall:

The piece - a tombstone for a woman called Regina of uncertain date (possibly second century A. D.?) - consists of three essential components, only two of which may immediately appear to the untrained eye: a sculpture, and two inscriptions (yes, two, not just one).

The 'main' (as in: 'bigger, framed') inscription is written in Latin and reads as follows:

D(is) M(anibus). Regina(m) liberta(m) et coniuge(m)

Barat(h)es Palmyrenus natione

Catvallauna(m) an(norum) XXX.

In English:

To the Spirits of the Departed. Barathes of Palmyra (sc. buries here) Regina, a freedwoman and his wife, a Catuvellaunian by origin, aged 30.

Barathes, a Syrian, who self-identifies in this inscription as a native of Palmyra, would appear to be a foreigner (peregrinus) not only to Britain, but to the Roman Empire - and one may well wonder what he and his wife Regina were doing in Roman Britain near Hadrian's wall.

Another inscription from Hadrian's wall, discovered at the Roman fort of Coria(Corbridge) just over 25 miles away from the above item and substantially less well executed, mentions another citizen of Palmyra. Due to its fragmentation, the stone does not exhibit his name in full - all that survives is the second half of it: [- - -]rathes (RIB 1171):

It is tempting (and perfectly plausible) to supplement this as [Ba]rathes. But is this the same man as the Barathes of the inscription above? After all, Barathes is not an altogether uncommon name in Palmyrene nomenclature. But how many of them will have been at Hadrian's wall at the time...?

If - and that is a big if - the two Baratheses are identical (to be clear: more likely than not, they were NOT identical!), then the second stone reveals the man's occupation: according to the Corbridge stone he was a vexil(l)a(rius) and died aged 68 (vixit an(n)os LXVIII).

The most obvious understanding of vexil(l)a(rius) is 'standard-bearer' or 'flag-bearer', i. e. a military position. As suggested before, however, there are very good reasons to assume that neither Barathes (whether or not they were identical) were a Roman citizens, but peregrini instead. In that case, one must wonder if the Barathes of RIB 1171 was a military man at all, or whether vexillarius was a title for either a merchant in flags and other signs (unattested otherwise, but not to be ruled out a priori) or whether he held a ceremonial function in a collegium fabrorum ('guild of engineers'), for example.

The discrepancy in lavishness between the stone for the wife and for Barathes himself (if identical!) could thus be explained by a decrease in wealth, once Barathes had reached a certain age and could no longer work as a craftsman.

Be that as it may (and once again, the identification of the two, as proposed by some, is tenuous at best). Returning to the stone from South Shields, one must wonder about another detail: Regina, the wife, is described as a native of the Britannic tribe of the Catuvellauni as well as a freedwoman. The Catuvellauni were a Celtic tribe that inhabited an area north of modern-day London, roughly covering modern-day Hertfordshire and stretching as far north as Cambridgeshire.

How did she end up (i) at Hadrian's wall and (ii) in Barathes' possession, so that he could act as her patron (though not under Roman but, presumably, under Palmyrene law)?

The first question is impossible to answer. The second question cannot be answered with any certainty, but there are two main options: either she was captured and sold into slavery as a result of a Roman military campaign, or - equally possible - she was sold into slavery by her own family.

It is not clear as to whether Barathes was the 'first' owner of Regina as a slave, or whether he acquired her from someone else. As Regina ('queen') is a Latin name unlikely to be her native Celtic name (and hardly a Palmyrene name, unlike Barathes'), one must assume that she took this name during her enslavement.

The way in which Barathes chose to have his former slave and then wife represented in the sculpture of her tombstone lives up to the notion of, if not a queen, an eminently dignified, upper-class lady. The editors of the Roman Inscriptions of Britain describe the artwork of the stone as follows:

'[T]he deceased sits facing front in a wicker chair. She wears a long-sleeved robe over her tunic, which reaches to her feet. Round her neck is a necklace of cable pattern, and on her wrists similar bracelets. On her lap she holds a distaff and spindle, while at her left side is her work-basket with balls of wool. With her right hand she holds open her unlocked jewellery-box. Her head is surrounded by a large nimbus (...)'.

Regina may not have been a queen in real life, but Barathes certainly presents her as almost sitting on a throne - presented in the garments and posture of a lady from Palmyra, dignified, wealthy, leading a distinguished, civilised life up to the time of her (relatively young) demise.

There is another aspect to the memorial, however, that is quite indicative of both Barathes' attitude towards identity and his relationship with Regina. As mentioned initially, the monument does not only exhibit one (Latin) inscription, but two. Underneath the framed Latin inscription, there is a second one, written in Barathes' native tongue, Palmyrene, which reads as follows:

רגיןאבתחריברעתאחבל

Regina, freedwoman of Barathes: alas!

The Latin inscription pays heed to circumstance - an environment in which Latin had become the language of the rulers and in which the couple had learnt to survive (and apparently to do reasonably well - at least to a certain point in Barathes' life). It operates with official terms such as liberta ('freedwoman) and coniux ('wife') - though they are unlikely to be labels under Roman law (as mentioned before).

In letters rather less awkwardly written than the Latin (leading some scholars to believe that this was carved by an Eastern craftsman rather than a local one), the inscription does not merely repeat the essential information in the widower's own language - it adds the personal expression of grief, 'alas!' to it, visible only to those who pay attention to the 'fine print' at the bottom, understandable only to those who know the script and the language, meaningful only to Barathes himself. It is the personal aside of someone who has largely accepted the leading culture for himself, without being prepared to bid farewell to his own identity - that of a foreigner, thousands of miles away from his native Palmyra in Syria.

Barathes, the Syrian in Roman Britain, has done something beautiful. He acquired, freed, and married a girl from Britain, whose life had taken a disastrous turn - becoming a slave, either as a result of Roman campaigns or as a result of her family's poverty (or greed) in uncertain times. He, as the tombstone suggests, gave her dignity, safety, and made her his queen, not only in name.

Times have changed a lot. Regina's story is one that, nowadays, happens on a daily basis in Syria, in Palmyra, in the war-torn Near East, under the vicious regime of ISIS fighters and other parties.

Who will save those people from their predicament and restore their well-being and dignity?

Who will be their Barathes?

Other British Romans from across the Empire

Linked to the University of Reading, some great resources on diversity have been created by Runnymede, the UK's leading independent race equality think tank. Their Romans Revealed site gives information on various individuals with possible links to the continent.

For example, check out the information on an individual they call Piscarius who they think was born in a colder climate, possibly off the coast of Poland - his story is useful for discussions and activities about movement and settlement. Another individual, Savariana is also a helpful character to use for discussions about second or third generation migration as some of her grave goods, her bracelets for example, suggest that members of her family may have been 'incomers'. Finally, Julia's grave goods suggest that she may have had North African heritage and have been quite wealthy. Her example can be used to talk about how diverse, both the Roman Empire generally and Roman Britain in particular, was, but also, in view of her possible wealth, to challenge views about what African Romans may have been like.

Mobility, Migration, and Diasporas in Roman Britain

Hella Eckardt and Gundula Müldner - Adapted from The Oxford Handbook of Roman Britain (2014)

Inscriptions can identify foreigners through individual names, stated places of origin, and reference to regionally specific cults or calendars. From this sort of data we can build up personal, individual histories and allow for the exploration of wider patterns in terms of age, gender, and status. However, the evidence is unevenly distributed (we rely on inscriptions surviving and being legible) and there are relatively few inscriptions known from Britain in comparison with other provinces. The evidence is also biased towards urban and military areas, as opposed to small settlements or farms for example.

Across the empire, out of almost 600 inscriptions studied, 623 examples have been found of travellers or foreigners - an intricate web of travel in all directions: Spaniards in Italy, Pannonians (an area in central Europe around modern day Hungary) in Dalmatia (Croatia), Gauls (modern day France, Germany and other areas of central and western Europe) in Africa (see Handley 2011: 17).

The reasons for travel are diverse, including war/soldiery, pilgrimage, ecclesiastical business, exile, trade, and the emigration of individuals and families; there is also some evidence that the dead were moved, sometimes over considerable time periods and distances (Handley 2011:53-62).

Ultimately, it is in any case not the identification of biological origin that is truly of interest, but its interplay with social identity. As today, people make choices about whether to cling to an old, national, or ethnic identity or to adopt a new one-a decision that may be described as the 'sport team choice' (Handley 2011: preface).

The Our Migratory History website presents the often untold stories of the generations of migrants who came to and shaped the British Isles. While it is primarily designed to support teachers and students studying migration to Britain, its aim is to be a useful resource for anyone interested in Britain's migration history.

One way we can learn about early migration history is through the work of archaeologists, who have studied human remains to learn more about the people of Roman Britain. For example, the grave of a young woman (see main source above) was discovered in 1901 in Sycamore Terrace York; she was buried in a stone sarcophagus with very rich grave goods (objects placed into a burial for the afterlife, or as an offering to the dead) in the later 4th century. The objects placed into her grave included bracelets made from local jet and more exotic ones made of ivory. A short inscription on a bone mount, that once probably decorated a box, suggests that this high status young woman was a Christian as it says 'Hail, sister, may you live in God'. Recently, the skull and teeth of her skeleton, which have been stored in Yorkshire Museum, were examined by scientists at the University of Reading.

The shape of her skull suggests that she had North African ancestry; this is not very surprising in a place like York, where inscriptions and written sources mention Africans. People from Africa who came to Britain include the Emperor Septimius Severus, who was born in what is Now Libya and ruled from AD 193-211.

Archaeological scientists can also analyse the chemical signatures preserved in human teeth. The ratios of stable isotopes such as oxygen, carbon, nitrogen and strontium in human teeth can provide information about ancient diet and origin. Oxygen and strontium signatures vary depending on the climate and underlying geology of the area where an individual grew up. Individuals from hot, coastal, areas will have a different signature to those who grew up in cooler areas of continental Europe. However, it is important to stress that isotope analysis is better at excluding local origin (i.e. an individual's signature is very different from the local signatures) than pinpointing a specific area of origin (i.e. many areas have similar isotope signatures).

Studies of the remains of the Ivory Bangle Lady suggest that she was born and brought up in the south of Britain, or the continent, rather than in Africa. Archaeologists can interpret this finding in a number of ways. For example, it is possible that one parent of the Ivory Bangle Lady was from North Africa, but that she grew up in a different part of the Empire. Other skeletons from York and other Romano-British towns show that some incomers (as identified by their isotopic signatures) look almost like locals in terms of their burial rites and grave goods, while some archaeologically very exotic burials are in fact those of people born locally. Why could this be? We need to consider the fact that the dead do not bury themselves. Grave goods and burial rites might be shaped by parents or partners who had a different geographical origin to the deceased. A few hundred skeletons from the Roman period have now been studied by scientists using what is a very expensive technique, and the results show high levels of mobility and migration - up to 30% in some towns. However, the sample study is biased as it examines mostly unusual and exotic burials, so actual migration levels were likely much lower. A different picture of movement would probably emerge if countryside burials for the same period were sampled.

Cambridge Faculty statement concerning ethnic diversity in Roman Britain

"Roman Britain has long been an important part of the teaching and research in the Faculty of Classics. The question of ethnic diversity in the province has been getting unusual amounts of attention recently. Professor Mary Beard has been at the centre of some of this attention. In the Faculty we welcome and encourage public interest in, and reasoned debate about, the ancient world, such as Professor Beard has always sought to encourage. The evidence is in fact overwhelming that Roman Britain was indeed a multi-ethnic society. This was not, of course, evenly spread through the province, and it would have been infinitely more noticeable - it can be assumed - in an urban or military context than in a rural one. There are, however, still significant gaps in our understanding. New scientific evidence (including but not limited to genetic data) offers exciting ways forward, but it needs to be interpreted carefully."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Evidence for Diversity in Roman Britain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Introduction A few years ago, in 2016, a BBC created animation on Roman Britain caused some controversy through its depiction of a typical Romano-British family as shown below. The depiction of a racially mixed family group had some commentators up in arms screaming that the political correctness brigade had once again stepped in to give us an image far from what might have been typical.

# data[].attributes.headline
Afro-Romans: “There were Africans in Britain before the English came here” || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
Afro-Romans: “There were Africans in Britain before the English came here” || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Whilst watching the first episode featuring Aballava, we must acknowledge that Olusoga and Benjamin were also not the first Black and Brown scholars to discuss Black history - from J. A Rogers and his work that combatted racist views of history, to Trinidadian Ron Ramdin on the working class, resulting in The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain(1987). A short breath after Peter Fryer's Staying Power(1984). An argument could be made, though, is David Olusoga was the first to take it mainstream.

Anyone that was came through the British education system would have learnt about the Romans. Now, as a man, I know there have been Black people in this country since at least the third century (well, the recorded history), an idea that stands in opposition to the notion that there is no Black British history outside of transatlantic slavery and post-war migration. When you grow up being told your history is just enslavement and immigration, the presence of Black people in Romans times, or Afro-Romans (or The Moors, later Blackamoores), makes me question what we mean by Black British.

Ivory Bangle Lady was a Mixed-Race heritage African Roman woman living in York during the 4th century (Source: York Museum)

The revelation of Afro-Romans makes me think, were they having conversations about race in their communities in the third century in the same way we are having them now? Did they get to name themselves as Moors or were they given that title by the dominant homogenous population? In the same way Black and Brown people today criticise and welcome terms like BME and BAME, did the Black Roman populations get to name themselves? What about the connotations of the words and terms like blackamoore? Blackamoore means "Black black", as "'Moor' means 'black', so why add the word 'black' to it?'" (Nubia, 2019: 21). In his essay, talking about Renaissance-era Black populations in Britain, Onyeka Nubia discusses the connotations of the term. He argues that this could be an assertion of their own Blackness and could thus be seen as a statement of how they saw themselves, including concepts of identity, belonging and heritage.

We also know of a unit that included North African soldiers at Hadrian's Wall, named Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum after Marcus Aurelius - near to what is today Burgh-by-Sands in Cumbria. Additionally "one of the black soldiers in this unit presented a garland of cypress boughs to Emperor Severus" (Adi, 2019: 5) with archaeological finds dating back to 101AD - 300AD like pottery. North African-Roman head pots have also been found in Chester and Scotland. Furthermore, tombstones, and inscriptions. Finally, Adi tells us (from: Swan) of writings described as "neo-Punic script" and of "A Moorish freedman" at South Shields, "probably within the period c160-180/90."

For decades, it has been known that there were Black people part of Roman Britain. For example, Libyan-Roman commander Septimius Severus was cremated in Britain. Also, originating from what is now Algeria, Quintus Lollius Urbicus was governor of Britain between from 139 to 142 CE. Historians past and present have known about a Black presence in Roman Britain for some time. When we think the Roman Empire, it would be arrogant to portray that story as an exclusively white space.

Both the British and Ottoman empires were diverse and that is picked up on in what little public consciousness there is. Why do we think about the Romans differently? An empire that spanned from Rome to North Africa, where there was Multiracial soldiers and their families. What these characters show us, is not only are the generalisations about Black British history wrong but it tells a story of Black agency outside of insurgency against racism.

Despite modern ideas of empire, there were Black men in positions of power, just as there were in the Mali Empire. There were also Black and Brown people in positions of vulnerability. Black and Brown generals were also giving orders to white soldiers. In comparison, in the context of the First World War, we know from the Manual of Military Law (1914) that the British Army practiced a colour bar. In his 2016 series Black and British, Prof. David Olusoga has a conversation with author, historian, and Cambridge's celebrity classics Professor Mary Beard about how the Romans may have percieved human racial differences in that period:

"The Romans certainly said nasty hateful things about foreigners. The Brits... the poor little Brits came in for quite a lot of stereotypical propaganda. And what the Romans weren't, is racist in our terms. There is no sense that skin colour is really the thing that marks you out for your position." - Prof. Mary Beard

In light of her comments, is it surprising that people like Septimius Severus existed back then? The idea of racial difference as we know it today is a relatively new phenomenon and racism as a tool of violence in the Global North was popularised by colonisers and the societies that came afterwards (i.e the wartime colour bar). Race as we know it, is a new invention and I think despite the brutishness of the Romans, there's a lot to learn from this period on how to view difference. Empire-building thugs, certainly, but according to Professor Beard, not racist, in the modern meaning of the word.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Afro-Romans: "There were Africans in Britain before the English came here"

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Whilst watching the first episode featuring Aballava, we must acknowledge that Olusoga and Benjamin were also not the first Black and Brown scholars to discuss Black history - from J. A Rogers and his work that combatted racist views of history, to Trinidadian Ron Ramdin on the working class, resulting in The Making of the Black Working Class in Britain (1987).

# data[].attributes.headline
“A Lady of York”: The Life and Times of the Ivory Bangle Lady || Adam Parker (2022)

# data[].attributes.subject
“A Lady of York”: The Life and Times of the Ivory Bangle Lady || Adam Parker (2022)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
“A Lady of York” - The life and times of the Ivory Bangle Lady

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A high-status grave from Late-Roman York is better known as the “Ivory Bangle Lady”. Analyses of her remains and her grave goods have helped us to understand her biography. In this article, Adam Parker explores what we understand of her life of wealth and migration to Roman Britain.

# data[].attributes.headline
Limehouse Blues: Looking for 'Chinatown' in the London Docks,1900-40 || John Seed (2006)

# data[].attributes.subject
Limehouse Blues: Looking for 'Chinatown' in the London Docks,1900-40 || John Seed (2006)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Bloodaxe Books, 2009
BUY FROM AMAZON.CO.UK
BUY FROM WATERSTONES
BUY FROM BLOODEAXE

1997

BUY FROM AMAZON
BUY FROM WATERSTONES

A semi-autobiographical verse novel based on the author's family history. The cover photograph is of her parents' wedding day in Camberwell, London, 1955. (This new edition of the book is revised and expanded by a third from the 1997 edition.) The novel travels back over 150 years, seven generations and three continents. The eponymous Lara grows up as the mixed raced daughter of an Englishwoman and a Nigerian man in London of the 60s and 70s, and the novel shifts backwards from the past to the present, including the stories of her parent's childhood and inter-racial marriage and her predecessors in England, Nigeria, Ireland, Germany and Brazil.

'First novels don't often make my heart beat faster....Bernardine Evaristo is a gifted black writer. Her Lara is a beautifully written novel-in-verse.'

New Statesman, (A Book of the Year)
Read more reviews...
website © Bernardine Evaristo 2022
Cookie policy
Admin login
design: AERTA UK

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bloodaxe Books, 2009 BUY FROM AMAZON.CO.UK BUY FROM WATERSTONES BUY FROM BLOODEAXE 1997 BUY FROM AMAZON BUY FROM WATERSTONES A semi-autobiographical verse novel based on the author's family history. The cover photograph is of her parents' wedding day in Camberwell, London, 1955.

# data[].attributes.headline
Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration || Wai-ki E. Luk (2008)

# data[].attributes.subject
Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration || Wai-ki E. Luk (2008)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
chinatown in britain: diffusions and concentrations of the british new wave chinese immigration  by wai-ki e. luk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration By Wai-ki E. Luk

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Chinatown in Britain: Diffusions and Concentrations of the British New Wave Chinese Immigration By Wai-ki E. Luk.

# data[].attributes.headline
Race, Law, and "The Chinese Puzzle" in Imperial Britain || Sascha Auerbach (2009)

# data[].attributes.subject
Race, Law, and "The Chinese Puzzle" in Imperial Britain || Sascha Auerbach (2009)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In the early twentieth century, Chinese immigration became the focal point for racial panic in Britain. Fears about its moral and economic impact - amplified by press sensationalism and lurid fictional portrayals of London's original 'Chinatown' as a den of vice and iniquity - prompted mass arrests, deportations, and mob violence. Even after the neighborhood was demolished and its inhabitants dispersed, the stereotype of the Chinese criminal mastermind and other 'yellow peril' images remained as permanent aspects of British culture. This painstakingly researched study traces the historical evolution of Chinese communities in Britain during this period, revealing their significance in the development of race as a category in British culture, law, and politics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Race, Law, and "The Chinese Puzzle" in Imperial Britain

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In the early twentieth century, Chinese immigration became the focal point for racial panic in Britain. Fears about its moral and economic impact - amplified by press sensationalism and lurid fictional portrayals of London's original 'Chinatown' as a den of vice and iniquity - prompted mass arrests, deportations, and mob violence.

# data[].attributes.headline
Where Did You Sleep Last Night? ||  Danzy Senna (2010)

# data[].attributes.subject
Where Did You Sleep Last Night? ||  Danzy Senna (2010)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"A keen examination of a utopian-minded marriage scarred by America's racially divided past." - Vogue

"Stirring . . . Caught between her parents' divergent histories, Senna finds her own identity at odds with itself, despite having been cultivated in a sort of bohemian 'new world order.' Senna relates these winding, uncertain stories with a sense of quiet devastation. She's as fiercely driven to unearth her parents' pasts as they were eager to rise above them." -Eryn Loeb, Time Out New York

"Senna's spare style allows her to maintain control of this emotionally painful material. . . . Her descriptive skills are precise, with humor and humanity shining through at unexpected moments. An impressive feat, packing so much into a short book." -Ariel Gonzalez, Miami Herald

"[Senna is] masterly at relaying--and more important, withholding--information, so that every lead, every twist, begs for a page-flip . . . The author propels these early chapters along with the kind of snappy knockout prose Ross Macdonald might have employed, had he been given to long ruminations on race and identity in American culture . . . Her observations are often nod-inducingly brilliant." -David Matthews, The New York Times Book Review

"Wistful yet bitter-toned . . . a haunting, introspective meditation on race and family ties that tackles the tricky questions involved in constructing identity." - Publishers Weekly, Pick of the Week, March 9

"Senna, author of Caucasia and Symptomatic, offers a stunningly rendered personal heritage that mirrors the complexities of race, class, and ethnicity in the U.S." - Booklist, starred review

"Quietly reflective and gorgeously written." - Kirkus Reviews

"There are stories we need to find, and stories that must be told. In this masterful work of seeking and telling, hoping and letting go, Danzy Senna stalks her ancestral past like an attorney assembling the case of a lifetime. Her closing remarks prove that as improbable as it sounds, the people of this great country we call America really are indivisible; we truly are one. This book is a great gift. Read it." -Rebecca Walker, author of Black, White, and Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self

"In her courageous portrait of the tumultuous union between her Boston Brahmin mother and her enigmatic black father, Danzy Senna offers a powerfully personal take on the progress of American race relations since the civil rights movement. Where Did You Sleep Last Night? reminds us of the consequences of our origins and our inescapable desire to make sense of them." -Bliss Broyard, author of One Drop : My Father's Hidden Life-A Story of Race and Family Secrets

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"A keen examination of a utopian-minded marriage scarred by America's racially divided past." - Vogue "Stirring . . . Caught between her parents' divergent histories, Senna finds her own identity at odds with itself, despite having been cultivated in a sort of bohemian 'new world order.'

# data[].attributes.headline
Subalternity and DifferenceInvestigations from the North and the South || edited by Gyanendra Pandey (2011)

# data[].attributes.subject
Subalternity and DifferenceInvestigations from the North and the South || edited by Gyanendra Pandey (2011)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Focusing on concepts that have been central to investigation of the history and politics of marginalized and disenfranchised populations, this book asks how discourses of 'subalternity' and 'difference' simultaneously constitute and interrupt each other. The authors explore the historical production of conditions of marginality and minority, and challenge simplistic notions of difference as emanating from culture rather than politics. They return, thereby, to a question that feminist and other oppositional movements have raised, of how modern societies and states take account of, and manage, social, economic and cultural difference. The different contributions investigate this question in a variety of historical and political contexts, from India and Ecuador, to Britain and the USA.

The resulting study is of invaluable interest to students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines, including History, Anthropology, Gender and Queer and Colonial and Postcolonial Studies.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Focusing on concepts that have been central to investigation of the history and politics of marginalized and disenfranchised populations, this book asks how discourses of 'subalternity' and 'difference' simultaneously constitute and interrupt each other. The authors explore the historical production of conditions of marginality and minority, and challenge simplistic notions of difference as emanating from culture rather than politics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Meet the members of the BlindianProject team and discover the backstory that led to the growth of this transformational community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Lovingly rendered.... A vivid tableau of a family and an era." -

"Terrific stuff.... The See family's adventures would be incredible if On Gold Mountain were fiction." -The New York Times Book Review

"Weaves together fascinating family anecdotes, imaginative details, and the historical details of immigrant life.... Enviably entertaining." -

"Astonishing...as engagingly readable as any novel...comprehensive and exhaustively researched." -Los Angeles Times Book Review

Get the latest updates about Lisa See

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

And go from well-read to best read with book recs, deals and more in your inbox every week.

Become a Member

Start earning points for buying books! Just for joining you'll get personalized recommendations on your dashboard daily and features only for members.

Success!

Your account has been created. Upload book purchases, access your personalized book recommendations, and more from here. GOT IT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
On Gold Mountain by Lisa See: 9780307950390 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Lovingly rendered.... A vivid tableau of a family and an era." - "Terrific stuff.... The See family's adventures would be incredible if On Gold Mountain were fiction." -The New York Times Book Review "Weaves together fascinating family anecdotes, imaginative details, and the historical details of immigrant life.... Enviably entertaining."

# data[].attributes.headline
The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity || Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (2010)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Chinese in Britain, 1800–Present: Economy, Transnationalism, Identity || Gregor Benton and Edmund Terence Gomez (2010)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed-Race Britannia, Episode 1 || BBC (2011)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed-Race Britannia, Episode 1 || BBC (2011)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) is a biennial conference, field of study, and scholarly and activist community in partnership with Mixed Roots Stories, a non-profit organization that advocates for mixed race storytelling and brings art and cultural programming to the conference. The CMRS conference draws over 500 multiracial scholars, artists, students, activists, clinicians, community organizations and advocates from all over the world. The CMRS conference was the first, and remains one of the only, counterspaces for those interested in critically exploring constructions of race through a multiracial lens.

Our fifth conference #CMRS2018 was held March 2018 at the University of Maryland. With Keynote Fanshen Cox DiGiovanni; over 50 panels, roundtables, workshops, and caucus sessions organized by the CMRS Association; a feature film screening; TOTUS Spoken Word Experience's Mixed Monologue with an Open Mic; as well as a LIVE performance show and Performance Sampler produced by Mixed Roots Stories.
For our sixth conference we're headed to the Southwest!
ANCESTRAL FUTURISMS:
Embodying Multiracialities Past, Present, and Future
February 24-26, 2022
Virtual

cmrs2022.dryfta.com

#CMRS2022

--

Subscribe to the CMRS List-serve

If you would like to be updated with CMRS events and information, such as news about our upcoming conference, then please sign-up to our mailing list. Provide your email address below to receive messages from CMRS.

Success! You're on the list.

--

Donate to CMRS

Please help support the mission and conference events of the Critical Mixed Race Studies Association by donating any amount through the ASU Foundation HERE. We appreciate your support to help us better serve the CMRS community.

"Critical Mixed Race Studies is about recognizing the totality of one's heritage-seeing race and systems of racism in the particular context of mixed race and talking about what this means for our lives and communities today, what it has meant historically, and what we might envision our futures to be like, and what we can do now to help in anti-racist struggles across many different communities." - CMRS Co-Founder and Artist Dr. Laura Kina

"CMRS offers so much: cutting-edge research, diverse topics, arts and entertainment and a chance to build community." - Thomas Lopez, Multiracial Community Organizer

"Much of the work presented at CMRS is issue-based, and many of the connections and relationships that are established in these spaces have led to more direct activism." - Rob Buscher, Contributor of the Pacific Citizen

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) is a biennial conference, field of study, and scholarly and activist community in partnership with Mixed Roots Stories, a non-profit organization that advocates for mixed race storytelling and brings art and cultural programming to the conference.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Afua Hirsch - co-presenter of Samuel L. Jackson’s major BBC TV series Enslaved - the Sunday Times bestseller that reveals the uncomfortable truth about race and identity in Britain today. You’re British. Your parents are British. Your partner, your children and most of your friends are Briti…

# data[].attributes.body
Loughborough - https://www.lboro.ac.uk/subjects/geography-environment/staff/rhianna-garrett/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/garrett_rhianna?lang=en-GB

Blog - https://rhi-mixedviews.blogspot.com/

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhianna-garrett-690525196/

# data[].attributes.headline
“Mixed-Race” Has Its Own History || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
“Mixed-Race” Has Its Own History || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For a while now I have been having lots of conversations with friends and colleagues that identify a Mixed-Race. Whether they call themselves Multiracial, Mixed-Race or Biracial, there are multiple terms for the people that do not fit into the monoracial boxes society assumes for us. Whether we're talking two (bi) or multi (two or more). In the not so distant past, the derogatory term " half-caste " was a socially accepted term, and it is still used to varying degrees. However, in my love for history, pertinently the stories featuring those that are racialised as 'Black', I have found society more widely has "adopted" in a manner of speaking, Mixed-Race people as Black.

A monoracial history may not seem an issue to some, but it is doing a disservice to a race that also have a history in its own right (beyond slavery). Including Multiracial people into a Black history such as Walter Tull, says so much about society and their focus on his Blackness. Although it's not widely acknowledged, part of Walter Tull is a product of his white working class ancestry through his White English mother and the other part is from his Black Bajan father. He was a product of not only an interracial relationship, but a united one through marriage.

In "adopting" Multiracial individuals into the Black historical narratives without thinking about other parts of their racial, cultural and / or ethnic identities, we are missing opportunities to have vital discussions about not only Multiracial identity but also class and Whiteness.

What we are also missing out on are prevalent conversations on unconscious bias in the sense that there is really only one dominant narrative of what "Mixed-Race" can look like, consistent with lighter skin and looser hair. However, I have known Multiracial people to have hair textures ranging from 2c/3a all the way up to 4c, also well-depicted in the Emma Dabiri nonfiction text Don't Touch My Hair. There is also a narrative here of 'good' and 'bad' hair (but that's another conversation). Moreover, the connotations that light-skinned Black people can be stereotyped as Multiracial tells me that the common thoughts about those from Multiracial backgrounds is that they must have "lighter skin." Yet, plenty who have monoracially Black parents also have lighter skin tones. So, there is lots to unpick here, and discuss, not only in terms of identity but also the unconscious bias against Multiracial people from all ethnic groups.

I grew up thinking of myself as Black but if we take this definition of "Multiracial" into its fullest meaning, I would also fit into this demographic, having Multiracial grandmothers on both sides my family with White Irish and Indo-Caribbean heritage. Has this changed how I think of myself in relation to my race and my cultural identity?

What we also have to realise is that Black has changed meaning over time and Black is not a monolith, just as Mixed-Race is not a monolith. Blackness is fluid. It brings me to ask questions about the Caribbean diaspora and how in somewhere like Jamaica, there is an African presence. There has also been a European presence (still is) and there is an Indigenous American presence. Also to include Jewish, Chinese, Indian and Lebanese people. Jewish and Lebanese communities came to Jamaica as part of the merchant trading class, and Indian and Chinese communities came as indentured labourers after the end of enslavement in 1838 in order fill the new labour market made in the abolition of enslavement. Consequently, these immigrant settlers had interracial relationships and thus created a Multiracial community.

Within Black communities there has been contestation of who is / isn't Black and like most identities, it is not something one gets to choose. I have met Multiracial people of African and Caribbean heritage that look like me that would call themselves Black and have also met others that identify as 'Mixed-Race.' However, one of the issues I have, is not that Multiracial Black-racialised figures are included in Black History Month campaigns, but by including these individuals, there is no gesture or want to discuss Blackness as fluid, which would also mean that Black History has multiple facets and many identities.

In African Renaissance: When Art Meets Power, in the second episode, journalist and broadcaster Afua Hirsch is in Sénégal. She says "the French legacy lingers in Sénégal today: in language, in architecture, but also in the people themselves." The city Saint Louis was at the centre of French colonialism in this country. Hirsch also says "France turned Saint Louis into a grand experiment, seeding a hybrid Creole culture, like that of Havana and New Orleans. And it created a new caste that would bolster their rule."

Like what happened in places like India, European colonisers had children with Sénégalese women, thus creating a new Multiracial population, who were then called the metis(se), and became a merchant class influencing much power within the colonial structure.

Whilst Black History Month campaigns so often discuss Multiracial individuals, why is that only in proximity to their Black identity? Why do we focus on the most visible identity, often the Black identity? Much alike the one-drop rule, why do we focus on the most visible identity? Frequently, I hear things like "Mixed-Race is the fastest growing racial group." My question is, if this is the case, why are these conversations about Multiracial identities not being had on the same level and enthusiasm as that of Black identity? Blackness is fluid - and whilst lots of Multiracial people may be racialised as Black, they may not all see themselves that way in terms of racial identity.

Many of my friends and colleagues that are part of this race identify as Multiracial, especially those that grew up with their White family members away from their Black relatives. Some have been made to feel othered by both society and White and Black relatives. But some are also quite proudly Mixed-Race. In our discussions about race, more could be done to talk about fluidity of Blackness, especially historically. It is a constant and as society becomes more diverse, definitions of Blackness will shift again.

Mixed-Race / Multiracial doesn't have a face because it is diverse

Both Walter Tull and Mary Seacole have become establishment figures, indicative of 'good Black British history.' Both of them had jobs that are considered respectable - in, the military and healthcare - and names that are easy to say. On the surface of those Black postboxes, we are witness to a metaphor that 'we will celebrate you' if you are not too angry or too political - which makes talking about the history of this country within these isles and its former-colonies so difficult, as much of it is angry and very political. And even in discussing Walter Tull, there is a lot of focus on the "good history" (his achievements in football/breaking the British Army's colour bar), but not much thought or discussion goes into actively interrogating the institutional racism at the time, nor narratives of class or the history of the care system - a history that him and his brother Edward Tull were part of.

One of my biggest qualms in Black History Month campaigns is this notion that all Black History has to be positive. I disagree. Not all stories have to empower, not all stories need to. The focus on that is to varying degrees problematic. In establishment figures like Mary Seacole, an example of 'good history', there is a Mixed-Race history, coming from a White Scottish father and Jamaican mother. Mary Jane Grant Seacole was a Mixed-Race Jamaican Creole woman. Whilst it is important to show the ways Black and Black-racialsed people have positively contributed to the world, we also have to tell the stories of struggle, not only but also including transatlantic slavery, the revolts and rebellions, and the anti-racist movements of the 20th century.

Mary Seacole (Artist: Martin Jennings)

In closing, more can be done to discuss narratives of Multiracial communities, especially as it is an interesting avenue into discussing the complexities of Whiteness, class and White identity. From Barack Obama and Akala alike, being raised by their White mothers - to Frederick Douglass reportedly being the son of the White slave master, and Mary Seacole, Naomi Campbell (Chinese grandmother), Stephen Graham (mixed-race half-Jamaican father) and the Black Georgians and Black Victorians that married interracially in the 18th and 19th centuries.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For a while now I have been having lots of conversations with friends and colleagues that identify a Mixed-Race. Whether they call themselves Multiracial, Mixed-Race or Biracial, there are multiple terms for the people that do not fit into the monoracial boxes society assumes for us.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century || Chamion Caballero and Peter Aspinall (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century || Chamion Caballero and Peter Aspinall (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"In Mixed Race Britain in the Twentieth Century, Chamion Caballero and Peter J. Aspinall critically investigate newly discovered archives, photographs, first-hand lived experiences and existing academic literature to present an unprecedentedly comprehensive history of racial mixing in Britain. ... Overall, the book is an invaluable contribution to the study of the mixed race population in the British context." (Ivana Chen, LSE Review of Books, July 24, 2019)" Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century is a fine example of incisive scholarship underpinned by detailed critical analysis of transformations in discourses of mixed race. Its examination of hidden or forgotten histories of mixed race avoids simplistic generalisations about either mixed race people or white British society. It brings the voices of ordinary people to public attention and, in doing so, situates them in history and illuminates the complex ways in which competing discourses are entangled in old and new racial projects. Its refusal to be drawn into telling a singular story--of a move from denigration to celebration--is intellectually exciting. This book is a must read for those in critical mixed-race studies and anyone interested in racialisation, gender, family life and social reproduction and change. There is no doubt that it will become a much-cited classic."(Ann Phoenix, UCL Institute of Education, UK, and Helsinki University Collegium for Advanced Studies, Finland)

"Here at last is a book we have long needed: a scrupulously researched and highly readable account of twentieth century mixed-race Britain. Its range is extensive: charting the history of British racism and the slow shifts in attitudes towards and cultural representations of racial mixing, it also examines how interracial relationships have long been a part of wider communities and how 'mixed race' has finally become a positive identity. This informative, thoughtful and wise book is a landmark text." (Lucy Bland, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK)

"This important new book skilfully links both the distant and the more recent histories of mixing in Britain to 'mixing' in the here and now. With nuance and meticulous investigation, Chamion Caballero and Peter Aspinall have written a book which extends our understanding of the lives and experiences of mixed race people in Britain." (Miri Song, University of Kent, UK)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mixed Race Britain in The Twentieth Century

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"In Mixed Race Britain in the Twentieth Century, Chamion Caballero and Peter J. Aspinall critically investigate newly discovered archives, photographs, first-hand lived experiences and existing academic literature to present an unprecedentedly comprehensive history of racial mixing in Britain. ... Overall, the book is an invaluable contribution to the study of the mixed race population in the British context."

# data[].attributes.headline
Cardiff’s history of migration inspired me to live-tweet the 1919 race riots || Yasmin Begum (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Cardiff’s history of migration inspired me to live-tweet the 1919 race riots || Yasmin Begum (2019)

# data[].attributes.headline
The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting ‘British Chineseness’ in the Arts || D. Yeh (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting ‘British Chineseness’ in the Arts || D. Yeh (2018)

# data[].attributes.body
Yeh, D.  (2018). The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting ‘British Chineseness’ in the Arts. In: Yeh, D.  & Thorpe, A. (Eds.), Contesting British Chinese Culture. (pp. 31-59). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Yeh, D. Yeh, D. ORCID: 0000-0001-8324-5342 & Thorpe, A. (Eds.), ORCID: 0000-0001-8324-5342 (2018). The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting 'British Chineseness' in the Arts. In: Contesting British Chinese Culture. (pp. 31-59). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

Actions (login required)

Admin Login

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting 'British Chineseness' in the Arts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yeh, D. Yeh, D. ORCID: 0000-0001-8324-5342 & Thorpe, A. (Eds.),ORCID: 0000-0001-8324-5342 (2018). The Cultural Politics of In/Visibility: Contesting 'British Chineseness' in the Arts. In: Contesting British Chinese Culture. (pp. 31-59). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. CORE (COnnecting REpositories) Admin Login

# data[].attributes.headline
Roads From The Past || Travellers' Times Online (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Roads From The Past || Travellers' Times Online (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Roads From The Past - Short Film - Travellers' Times Online

# data[].attributes.headline
Afropean: Notes From Black Europe || Johny Pitts (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
Afropean: Notes From Black Europe || Johny Pitts (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Winner of the Jhalak Prize
Winner of the Bread & Roses Award for Radical Publishing ‘A revelation’ Owen Jones ‘Afropean seizes the blur of contradictions that have obscured Europe’s relationship with blackness and paints it into something new, confident and lyrical’ Afua Hirsch A Guardian…

# data[].attributes.headline
The Table Setting as Medium: Lived Curriculumand Mixed-Race Identity || Gloria J Wilson (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Table Setting as Medium: Lived Curriculumand Mixed-Race Identity || Gloria J Wilson (2020)

# data[].attributes.headline
No More Black Messiahs: Let Black History Bask in Ordinariness - Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
No More Black Messiahs: Let Black History Bask in Ordinariness - Thinking About Black Excellence in the Life of Walter Tull || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The tragic stories of the 1919 race riots | Alt History - BBC

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'Barack Obama had a special talent for making different kinds of people feel comfortable around him because of his biracial life experience, says Adekoya. By...

# data[].attributes.headline
Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible || Imtiaz Habib (2008)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible || Imtiaz Habib (2008)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500–1677: Imprints of the Invisible

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Containing an urgently needed archival database of historical evidence, this volume includes both a consolidated presentation of the documentary records of black people in Tudor and Stuart England, and an interpretive narrative that confirms and significantly extends the insights of current theoreti…

# data[].attributes.headline
How live-tweeting Cardiff’s 1919 race riots helped us uncover a forgotten part of Welsh history || Yasmin Begum (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
How live-tweeting Cardiff’s 1919 race riots helped us uncover a forgotten part of Welsh history || Yasmin Begum (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
One hundred years ago, Cardiff was home to some of the most vicious race riots ever seen in the history of the United Kingdom. In June 1919, race riots gripped the nation's capital over four days which saw three deaths, thousands of pounds worth of property damage and segregation strengthen in the city's streets.

On Wednesday 11th June 1919, a group of black and minority ethnic men were returning to Cardiff after a picnic with their partners. Their partners were white women, which caused a tremendous amount of outcry from a white mob in the centre of the city who saw them pass on a vehicle.

Within half an hour or so, the groups were squaring up to each other after the white group verbally abused those on the vehicle. It escalated, and stones were thrown. Finally, a fight broke out.

Dispersed by police walking by, this displaced and scattered the fights around the city centre like the seeds of a dandelion blown by a child. Canal Parade, the Hayes, Custom House Street, Caroline Street. A man was killed - allegedly by a man of colour- but there is no evidence that any men of colour were located near the Hayes at the time.

More people would die over the next three days and many more injured. Revellers came to gawp at the ruins in Butetown, taking photographs. Cardiff saw unspeakable amounts of violence which has deeply scarred the city ever since with dozens arrested and hundreds deported. In fact, the violence was so deep that we are unaware of the number of those dead. Jacqueline Jeneikson says six people died, but most official records say three.

Men deported were sent to the Caribbean and Africa, but lascars, South Asian sailors, were given preferential status under the British Empire and were allowed to stay in Cardiff. In "Sugar and Slate" by Charlotte Williams (published by Planet), she writes that the returning seamen sent to the Caribbean were pivotal in agitating against the Empire in protest at their treatment. These demonstrations were key to decolonisation processes in their own countries against the British.

The repatriation committees at the time decided that deportation of men who had settled with white women and had families could cause a disturbance to the social orders in their country of origin if to be deported. It suggests those without children or wives (or with children, but without wives, perhaps) didn't have as much of a tie to somewhere that they, like hundreds of thousands of Cardiffians throughout time, had called home.
100 years
No full account exists of the 1919 race riots. The 1919 Race Riots collective (of which I am a part) decided to live-tweet the details of the riots after it was casually suggested by our elder, Kyle Legall. Between over twenty sources, one google document, a week's subscription to Buffer (turns out we could have done it all on Tweetdeck!) and a stack of coffee, we live-tweeted those accounts of the race riots to the best to our ability.

If British history is anglocentric, and BAME history focuses overwhelmingly on groups in England, the location of Welsh people of colour in history is a relatively barren field to both negotiate and manage. Our resources were in Somali, English and Welsh, found in multiple sets of archives written over the past 100 years and located in half a dozen countries.

The live-tweeting account however allowed followers to get in touch, revealing the stories of their own ancestors' involvement during the disturbances. Someone's grandfather's boarding house on Bute Street, south Cardiff, was attacked during the race riots. Another person's grandmother lived through the Newport riots of 1919, leading the BBC to get in touch and write an article on her experiences. People interacted with us.

The knowledge that people were reading and connecting our work to the heritage of their parents consolidated and demonstrated the need for broader public discussions on Welsh history, and on the history of Welsh people of colour.

That's what led us to create an open-access curriculum online with resources about the 1919 race riots. A number of considerations fed into the style of this resource, keeping in mind various accessibility requirements members of the public might have around different learning styles. It allowed us to bold and innovative - our curriculum isn't just journals or academic texts. It's videos, photo galleries and online articles, too.

100 years isn't a long time. While there is nobody alive who remembers the riots (in Cardiff, at least) there are many for whom these riots are remembered as cultural history passed down between families.
If you would like to stay in touch with the 1919 Race Riots collective, follow them on @1919RaceRiots or email them on Cardiff1919raceriots@gmail.com.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How live-tweeting Cardiff's 1919 race riots helped us uncover a forgotten part of Welsh history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Yasmin Begum One hundred years ago, Cardiff was home to some of the most vicious race riots ever seen in the history of the United Kingdom. In June 1919, race riots gripped the nation's capital over four days which saw three deaths, thousands of pounds worth of property damage and ...

# data[].attributes.headline
The Secret Deportations: How Britain Betrayed the Chinese Men Who Served the Country in the War || Dan Hancox (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Secret Deportations: How Britain Betrayed the Chinese Men Who Served the Country in the War || Dan Hancox (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
n 19 October 1945, 13 men gathered in Whitehall for a secret meeting. It was chaired by Courtenay Denis Carew Robinson, a senior Home Office official, and he was joined by representatives of the Foreign Office, the Ministry of War Transport, and the Liverpool police and immigration inspectorate. After the meeting, the Home Office's aliens department opened a new file, designated HO/213/926. Its contents were not to be discussed in the House of Commons or the Lords, or with the press, or acknowledged to the public. It was titled "Compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen".

As the vast process of post-second world war reconstruction creaked into action, this deportation programme was, for the Home Office and Clement Attlee's new government, just one tiny component. The country was devastated - hundreds of thousands were dead, millions were homeless, unemployment and inflation were soaring. The cost of the war had been so great that the UK would not finish paying back its debt to the US until 2006. Amid the bombsites left by the Luftwaffe, poverty, desperation and resentment were rife. In Liverpool, the city council was desperate to free up housing for returning servicemen.

During the war, as many as 20,000 Chinese seamen worked in the shipping industry out of Liverpool. They kept the British merchant navy afloat, and thus kept the people of Britain fuelled and fed while the Nazis attempted to choke off the country's supply lines. The seamen were a vital part of the allied war effort, some of the "heroes of the fourth service" in the words of one book title about the merchant navy. Working below deck in the engine rooms, they died in their thousands on the perilous Atlantic run under heavy attack from German U-boats.

Following the Whitehall meeting, in December 1945 and throughout 1946, the police and immigration inspectorate in Liverpool, working with the shipping companies, began the process of forcibly rounding up these men, putting them on boats and sending them back to China. With the war over and work scarce, many of the men would have been more than ready to go home. But for others, the story was very different.

In the preceding war years, hundreds of Chinese seamen had met and married English women, had children and settled in Liverpool. These men were deported, too. The Chinese seamen's families were never told what was happening, never given a chance to object and never given a chance to say goodbye. Most of the Chinese seamen's British wives would go to their graves never knowing the truth, always believing their husbands had abandoned them.

Get the Guardian's award-winning long reads sent direct to you every Saturday morning

It was only decades later, with the declassification of HO/213/926, and painstaking investigations by some of the seamen's adult children, in archives in London, Shanghai and New York, that parts of this dark chapter of British history would gradually come to light. But the children of the deported Chinese men have had no official help in this immense task - and, 75 years later, there has been no government acknowledgment, no inquiry and no apology.

"We were of little consequence," Yvonne Foley, the daughter of Shanghai-born ship's engineer Nan Young, told me the first time we met, over tea in a London hotel lobby in January 2019. Foley was born in February 1946, and it was not until 2002 that she began to discover what had really become of her father. "We were a blip," she said, "no big deal in Whitehall."

Tucked in next to Liverpool's south docks, Chinatown was the cosmopolitan heart of a city of seafarers - the Chinese mixing not just with scouse neighbours, but migrants from Scandinavia, Africa, the Mediterranean and ports beyond. The Chinese provisioners and grocers who settled in Liverpool sold great barrels of imported plums, sacks of watermelon seeds and dried shrimps, lychees, pork bao, salt fish, beef jerky soaked in soy sauce, ginger and tofu cakes, to the expatriate community and intrigued locals. "We used to go to Low Tow's and buy one-penn'orth of guah-gees, a kind of dried watermelon seed which had a lovely tasting nut inside," recalled one anonymous testimony collected by local historian Maria Lin Wong in her 1989 book Chinese Liverpudlians. "He also sold 'China beetles'. I never fancied those but most kids liked them ... as I remember them, they were beetles, dried, and they used to pick the legs and shell off them - ugh!"

For most of the century, Chinese-born people in Britain were officially classed as "aliens", the category for all non-colonial migrants, and they had to carry papers recording their status - registering with the authorities and checking in periodically, as if on probation. While many Chinese people in Britain experienced racism and hardship, that wasn't the whole story. "Among the local people, there was quite a lot of affection for the Chinese guys, and the community that grew up around them," said Rosa Fong, a Liverpudlian film-maker and academic. They made a strong visual impression in early 20th-century Liverpool. "All the Chinese guys used to dress up really smartly, when they were on land. They wore these great coats and trilby hats, and they looked very striking, very suave." A 1906 report from Liverpool's Weekly Courier reflected the suspicion and admiration that characterised attitudes of the time: the article praised the Chinese for their kindness, "tireless industry and strict temperance", while also describing Chinatown with the squalid cliches of the opium den: "Purple shadows blur the outlines of the old houses and veil the few sauntering figures ... out of the dusk loom strange figures, moving with the stiff-jointed shamble of the Orient."

A hundred metres from where Liverpool's red and gold Chinatown Gate stands today - it was built in 2000 and is the largest of its kind in the world outside China - is where the Blue Funnel Shipping Office once stood, and next door to it, The Nook pub. Now abandoned and graffitied, for decades The Nook thronged with Chinese seamen on shore leave. When the English landlady called time, she did so in English and Chinese. Across the road from the pub there was a club, the Southern Sky, where the seamen played games like pakapoo and mah-jong for money in the basement. Working on British merchant ships for months at a time with locally born crews, the men became part of Liverpool life, and some set up home. When their ships came back in after six or more months at sea, the seamen brought with them toys, exotic birds and Chinese slippers, and their Liverpudlian families would wait at the Gladstone Dock to greet them home.

The second world war would bring many more Chinese seamen to Liverpool. China was, in historian Rana Mitter's formulation, "the forgotten ally". Not only did China play a vital role in the fight against Japan in Asia, Chinese seamen also kept the British merchant navy going. Beginning in 1939, Alfred Holt & Company, along with Anglo-Saxon Petroleum (part of Shell), recruited men in Shanghai, Singapore and Hong Kong. They were to crew the ships on missions across the Atlantic, bringing essential supplies of oil, munitions and food to the UK, and escorting convoys to the front. This was exceptionally dangerous work. About 3,500 merchant vessels were sunk by Nazi U-boats, and more than 72,000 lives were lost on the Allied side.

One Chinese merchant seaman, Poon Lim, became famous for surviving 133 days adrift on a tiny raft, after his British vessel was torpedoed by a U-boat in the south Atlantic. Lim and his countrymen were hailed as firm comrades in a 1944 Ministry of Information propaganda film, The Chinese in Wartime Britain. "East met west, and liked it," explains the film's narrator in his finest Pathe News accent, as we are shown these new friends working as doctors, engineers and scientists, and then recovering on land in between missions, drinking tea, practising calligraphy and playing table tennis. The Chinese merchant seamen fought "shoulder to shoulder in the greatest battle of naval history, alongside their British seamen comrades. They, too, brave the torpedoes and the bombs and the mines, making history under fire ... life at sea fuels a unique spirit of comradeship between the men of all nations."

For the Chinese seamen, official British gratitude and friendship did not extend far beyond the silver screen. On Holt's ships, they initially received less than half the basic wages of their British crewmates. Nor were they paid the standard £10 a month "war risk" bonus - even though the risk of death in the engine rooms and kitchens where most of them worked was usually much greater than on the upper decks, where you could find the British. And when these Chinese men died in battle, the compensation paid to their relatives was less.

In early 1942, the Communist-affiliated Liverpool Chinese Seamen's Union went on strike over these disparities. Violent clashes with the police at one union meeting led to several seamen being jailed. But, in the end, they won. In April 1942, the Chinese seamen were awarded a basic pay increase of £2 a month, and the same war risk bonus as the British. That was not the end of the tensions between the seamen and their employers. By September, the Journal of Commerce was reporting, under the headline "Chinese Run Amok", that more than 400 seamen from the RMS Empress of Scotland were due in court after allegedly using "axes, adzes, swords, daggers, heavy wooden mallets, nozzles, ship's sounding leads and any piece of wood that could be used as a weapon" to try to free 12 of their peers who had been arrested. The reason? The 12 men had refused to do their onboard duties, in protest that they had still not been paid the war bonus.

When the war finally came to an end, surveying a militant, unionised workforce, and needing to recoup its wartime losses while competing on the international shipping market, Alfred Holt immediately slashed the wages of the Chinese seamen. This made it near-impossible to survive on shore between jobs. The new wages were "insufficient for living", an internal Alfred Holt memo acknowledged in November 1945.

The Chinese were, the Liverpool Daily Post reported shortly after the war, a "gallant body of men whose service to the Allied cause, through the Merchant Service, is greatly appreciated". This sense of indebtedness and comradeship was sincerely felt by many Britons.

"They were war heroes, really," said Rosa Fong. "It all makes what happened next so tragic, and such a tremendous betrayal."

The Home Office's plan was impeded somewhat by British law: only those who had been discharged from the merchant navy because of criminal activity could be legally deported. That accounted for just 18 of the 2,000 men. Some of the other seamen had committed minor gambling and opium offences, but the Home Office admitted that these were a normal part of dockside life, and insufficient to warrant deportation.

The remaining Chinese men were denied the right to work onshore. But on its own, that wouldn't achieve the desired result. The Home Office also needed an active plan for mass repatriation, and the help of the Liverpool immigration team, police and the shipping companies to make it happen. Following the 19 October meeting, the Liverpool immigration officers began amending the dates on the official papers that the Chinese seamen were required to carry as "aliens" - requiring them to leave the country by a specific, imminent date. That way, any men who failed to board the waiting ships voluntarily could then have deportation orders issued for violating their "landing conditions", and be forcibly taken on board by the local police. For maximum efficiency, the Home Office signed a large batch of deportation orders and dispatched them to Liverpool that autumn, just so they were ready.

Beginning in those autumn months of 1945, the Blue Funnel repatriation ships were anchored out in the middle of the Mersey, their cargo hatches empty of the usual crates and barrels, and instead rigged up with makeshift bunkbeds. The Liverpool police and immigration officers drove around the city, in particular to multi-occupancy addresses in Chinatown, such as the Alfred Holt-run boarding houses, rounding up the men and taking them out to the anchored ships, from which there was then no escape.

In December 1945, the first two of these cargo ships departed for Saigon and Singapore. By the end of the year, 208 Chinese men had been repatriated. The operation had got off to a good start, Home Office civil servants recorded in their correspondence. Meanwhile, the Liverpool immigration officers were ramping up the hunt for the others. "It should not be difficult," one officer wrote in a memo, "if energetic steps are taken, to weed these out of the restaurant kitchens, laundries, etc."

Initially, the Home Office specified that the 100 or moreseamen with British-born wives and children were not to be automatically deported. These men were to be "reported on individually", presumably affording discretion to the immigration team and police in Liverpool. Although marrying a local woman did not give the Chinese men the right to British citizenship, the Home Office was aware that it did give them the right to stay in the UK. This information was deliberately withheld. On 14 November, Liverpool Immigration Officer JR Garstang had written to London that "it would be unwise ... to give any indication to the Chinese that because a man is married to a British-born woman he will have a claim to domicile in the UK". In a follow-up letter, sent on 15 December, Garstang reiterated that it was best not to give the married men "a lever in their claim for domicile". The authorities were determined to finish the job they had started.

The secret repatriation campaign was not a placid or cooperative affair. Written records suggest that it was conducted as a manhunt. The phrase "roundup" is used repeatedly in official correspondence. An immigration officers' report to the Home Office filed on 15 July 1946 announced that: "Two whole days were spent in an intensive search of approximately 150 Pool boarding-houses, private boarding houses and private houses." They had "spread the net as widely as possible", they promised, alerting police chiefs across the country to look out for Chinese seamen. The report concluded: "When the operation is completed within the next few days I shall be satisfied that every possible step has been taken to secure a maximum repatriation of Chinese."

Where mysteries remain, it is because the British state determined that we should not know - and that wives and children would live out their lives, in some cases, their whole lives, never knowing. Beyond the official records, there are oral testimonies from older Liverpudlians, since passed away, that are now impossible to verify. Accounts of immigration wagons prowling the streets of Liverpool and seizing men by force. Of raids on Chinatown boarding houses in the dead of night. Of men hiding in cellars and attics, and others who went down to the docks to meet friends and disappeared for ever. Of home visits from covert special branch officers, to seize the deported men's documents, as if to erase any record of them. As if the children themselves were not a record.

By the summer of 1946, the rumours had spread into some degree of local awareness about what had happened. On 19 August, under the headline "British Wives of Chinese", the Liverpool Echo reported: "Despairing that their husbands, recently compulsorily repatriated, may never return to this country, 300 British wives of Chinese seamen who on Sunday formed a defence association in Liverpool, today sent a telegram to the Chinese ambassador appealing for his intervention on their behalf." They were led by a 28-year-old Liverpudlian, Marion Lee. No other record survives of this defence association, or of Marion Lee. None of the descendants I have spoken to recall hearing anything about it.

Around the same time, the charismatic Labour MP for Liverpool Exchange, Bessie Braddock, attempted to take up the women's case with the Home Office, but was rebuffed. Given that some newly married men had "probably already been repatriated", an official wrote to her in the summer of 1946, "it might embarrass the immigration officer, Liverpool, the police and the shipping companies concerned" if they now allowed others to remain.

In the internal communication between those responsible, there was denial, confusion and attempts to shift the blame. After the newspaper article about the wives' campaign, SE Dudley of the Home Office wrote to immigration officer Garstang, claiming that "no such enforced repatriation" of married men had taken place. Instead, Dudley claimed, the drastic pay cut and further pressure from Alfred Holt's managers may have compelled some of them to leave. In his reply, Garstang agreed, blaming "economic forces outside our control", and the Ministry of War Transport for not giving the Chinese men work on British ships. Perhaps, Dudley conjectured, the solution would be to allow the married men to take up some shore employment, if the Ministry of Labour did not object? It would have been a fine solution, were it not being proposed nine months after the first ships departed for the east.

By the summer of 1946, the Liverpool immigration inspectors were reporting that 1,362 "off-pay and other undesirable" Chinese seamen had been deported.Perhaps, Dudley wondered, another meeting of the relevant departments should be called at some point, to discuss the married men? "It is clear that something has to be done," his memo concluded, in the quintessential manner of the British civil service, drawing up plans for an exploratory committee to look into the possibility of potentially addressing a problem that it was already far too late to fix.

For many of the children, their early years were marked by poverty, racist abuse and stepfathers who were "bad in the drink", to quote one of Foley's interviewees. "I think especially for the boys, or rather the men, missing that father figure had a lasting emotional impact," said Rosa Fong. "It weighed on them quite heavily. To be angry at your father for all those years, and then find out it was completely misplaced all along. And for some of them, they weren't just losing a father, but also losing an aspect of themselves - never having that connection to their Chinese heritage."

"This country doesn't know the damage it's done to kids like me," Peter Foo told me from his home in Liverpool when we first spoke earlier this year. Foo's father was one of the deported seamen. When he was 14, Foo's mother and stepfather emigrated to the US, leaving him in Liverpool with his grandmother, who died shortly afterwards, leaving him in the care of his older half-brother. "So you can imagine what a brilliant life I've had," he chuckled darkly, "when it comes to bloody parents." When, as an adult, Foo learned the truth about what had happened to his father, it seemed to fit with his experience of life in the UK. "In a way I wasn't shocked, really, because I've had to put up with racism all my life," he said. "I've never talked about compensation, I'm not interested in money. I just want a bloody apology."

In mid-April, Foo drove me around Liverpool's Chinatown, and then down to the waterfront, where we parked up by the River Mersey, beneath the vast ACC Convention Centre, in between Queens Dock and Dukes Dock. We sat in his burgundy Mercedes with its personalised number plate, P3FOO, and, with a mixture of outrage, pride and droll humour, he told stories about his past. He recalled how he had appeared as an extra in The Inn of the Sixth Happiness in 1958, alongside a number of other poor Anglo-Chinese kids from Liverpool - and Ingrid Bergman. The film was based on the true story of Gladys Aylward, a British missionary in China before the second world war, and 20th Century Fox had chosen to film the Chinese scenes in nearby north Wales.

Growing up, Foo was still connected to some of the Chinese community in Liverpool - and once, when he was a young adult, an old friend of his father's suggested he travel to Singapore and try to track him down. "I said, what am I going to go and see him for? I'm not going to go out of my way to do that if he's done a runner. That was my attitude." No one ever suggested to Foo that his father had been forced to leave, until it was too late. Foo later found out he had passed away in Singapore in 1979. "Do you understand how angry I am, over things like that?" he said.

Foo delved into the car boot and brought out some large folders (saved from his job as a draughtsman) stuffed with documents and photocopies: marriage certificates, birth certificates, Singapore identity papers, email printouts and photos of some of the deported seamen and their wives from the 40s, neatly posed and full of hope. "When I look at the things I've missed out on, by not having a father ... " He tailed off. "When I was a kid, we had nothing. But I could kick the bucket tomorrow now, it doesn't worry me. I've done what I came here to do."

It was late afternoon, and joggers, cyclists and couples passed by, enjoying the last of the spring sunshine. Occasionally, Foo would break off from talking and nudge my elbow to point out different ships coming and going - a tanker, a container ship, ferries large and small. He explained that he often drove down to the docks, of an afternoon, to watch the boats come and go. "The only reason why I've got an attachment to the sea," he said, "is my father."

ith an official policy of secrecy from the Home Office, and a stoical silence from the women left behind, it was only in the 2000s, after most of their parents had passed away, that the surviving Anglo-Chinese children began to uncover the truth. The starting point for many was a 2002 BBC North West documentary called Shanghai'd. It pointed to the contents of the declassified files in HO/213/926, and spoke to two older British men, who have since died, who witnessed the Chinatown raids and saw men being dragged away to the ships.

The government's efforts to cover up what had happened were not wholly successful. When Zi Lan Liao, the director of Liverpool's Chinese community organisation Pagoda Arts, moved to the city in 1983 with her family, some of what had happened was known in Chinatown. "When I talked to the locals, they all said it's a well-known thing, that a lot of Chinese people just mysteriously disappeared," Liao said. "These histories get written out, but in the community, people knew." The precise details, however, remained unknown.

In 2002, after seeing the BBC documentary, Yvonne Foley visited the Public Record Office in Kew to see if she could find out more. There she read the Home Office files on the deportations, and the letters between Whitehall and the Liverpool immigration officers, in which they referred disparagingly to the Chinese seamen - asserting without evidence, for instance, that "over half" were "suffering from VD or TB". They were equally disdainful of the seamen's wives. One of the officers told the initial meeting at Whitehall that "Some 117 of the Chinamen have British-born wives, many from the prostitute class, and would not wish to accompany their husbands to China."

For Foley, it was this line that lit a fire in her. "That was the statement that got my gander up, and really spurred me on to find out more," she told me. "How dare you make such a sweeping statement about these women? I've met some of these women - and my own mother! How dare you say that?"

It was to be the start of more than a decade of phone calls, emails, interviews and hunting through maritime records scattered across the world. There was "masses of information that had to be sorted and analysed," Foley later wrote. "It was a detective story. A three-dimensional jigsaw." As warm as she is in person, Foley gives a strong impression that she will not suffer fools gladly, and a stubborn perseverance that has become an asset in her long search for the truth. "You're just like your father," Foley's mother had told her once. "Always arguing, wanting to change the world."

Foley visited libraries, museums and private collections in Shanghai, Hong Kong, Dalian, Melbourne and London. She had Alfred Holt documents sent from the Netherlands, and others from the New York-based archive of Wellington Koo, the Chinese ambassador to the UK at the time of the deportations. It all helped build a vivid picture of what had happened: the desperation of postwar life, the shipping companies' commercial imperatives, the government's callous disregard for the people affected. At one stage Foley went to meet one of the last surviving wives in a nursing home. "She said: 'Even at my age, it's nice to think I might not have been deserted,'" Foley recalled.

Foley also created a website, Half and Half, to share what she found, and slowly a network of fellow children of deportees emerged. They called themselves the Dragons of the Pool. Together, they pieced together more of the story, finding solace in one another and solidarity in realising they had not been alone. "It's nice to recognise that there's another part of you," Foley told me. "I think my mum would have been pleased."

A few of the people Foley and her husband, Charles, interviewed for their self-published book, Sea Dragons, were just about old enough to remember their fathers. But those memories are hazy and dreamlike, fragments snatched from a distant past. One recalled an image of his father cooking diced potatoes in a wok. Another, his father visiting when he was a young child, and placing a folded £5 note in his hand. Another remembers a stranger, a Chinese man on a motorbike - perhaps a friend of their deported father? - turning up in Liverpool and asking after her mother, only to disappear again.

For some of the children, their early years were tough but happy. After Leslie Gee's father, Lee Foh, was deported, the family lived in a hostel for a time. But there was still a connection to the local Chinese community and culture. A few years later, Gee's mother remarried, to another Chinese seaman who came to Britain in a later wave of migration. "It was still hard for me mam," recalled Gee, who is now 76. "But the Shanghainese kept together. My stepfather would take us kids down to Chinatown, we used to get taken to the Chinese cinema - we didn't understand what they were talking about, but it was great fun. We'd watch the Chinese news, and they had the Chinese opera, it was amazing, eye-opening to see."

There's a philosophical response detectable in many of the surviving descendants. Their mothers had been left on their own, and they had coped with their situation by trying to shake off a difficult past and move on. Many of their children have this same stoic attitude. This was, many of them have reminded me, a very long time ago - and people didn't talk about things like this back then. As Gee's wife, Joan, put it: "Les's mother was like a lot of that generation: none of your business, it's in the past, not to be spoken about."

Gee only began looking for his father a few years ago, he said, because his wife was keen on ancestry websites, and had pressed him into it. They discovered that Lee Foh had ended up in the US some years later, and with the help of the obliging US immigration service, they got hold of photos, fingerprints and his shipping passbook. "I was born in April '45," Gee said, "and his passbook ends abruptly that year. The last date printed is 'went to sea' in December 1945 - and that was the last we ever heard of him."

At least one of the men did make it back to Liverpool, and stayed. Perry Lee's dad, born Chann Tan Yone in Ningbo in 1903, had served as a "donkey man" or "greaser" in the Blue Funnel engine rooms during the war. Two of his ships were torpedoed, and he spent some time in a prisoner of war camp in Germany. He was, Lee told me, forcibly repatriated sometime in 1946, leaving behind Lee's mother, Frances, and a two-year-old daughter, his older sister.

That might have been that. But three years later, Chann Tan Yone returned to Liverpool on one of the same Alfred Holt ships that had been used to deport the seamen, the SS Sarpedon. To avoid suspicion from the British authorities, he was now calling himself Tse Pao Lee. He reunited with Perry's mother and sister in Liverpool in 1949, and, in 1952, Perry was born.

Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

"All the things I've achieved in my life are down to the fact that my dad managed to come back," Lee told me as he drove us in his converted camper van to Everton cemetery, where his father is buried. Lee is a big character, and on the day we met he wore a checked blue-grey blazer, sunglasses and a Donald Trump parody "NOPE" T-shirt in the style of the famous Obama poster. As we drove through Toxteth on our way to the cemetery, Lee narrated the history of the 1981 riots, breaking off occasionally to shout cheerful greetings and queries out of the window to strangers.

"My dad made a valuable contribution, like hundreds of thousands of other Chinese seamen, and was unceremoniously booted out," said Lee. "He had to leave his wife and daughter - but managed to come back again. What does that say about resilience?" When, later in life, his father suffered a stroke and needed to move into a nursing home, Liverpool council placed him in a grand 19th-century mansion overlooking the city's majestic Sefton Park. It was Holt House, built as the residence of the Holt family, owners of the Blue Funnel Line.

Eventually, after making our way through Everton cemetery to the large Chinese section, Lee spotted his father's grave. He is buried beneath a bilingual headstone that bears his original name, Chann Tan Yone. "He told me that if he was going to die and be buried in a foreign country," Lee recalled, "he wasn't going to be buried in a grave under someone else's name."

Maritime record-keeping is notoriously thorough: every head is counted, every inch, knot, fathom and ounce logged. In the course of researching this piece, I have unearthed sepia-coloured lists - documents known as "ship's agreements" or "ship's manifests" - for at least some of the deportation ships. For the SS Diomed's departure on 8 December 1945, the manifest contains a page devoted to "Names and descriptions of ALIEN passengers". Printed in type-script are the names of two first-class passengers, one Danish and one French. Below that, handwritten in an elegant old-fashioned cursive, as if an afterthought, the following words appear: "100 Chinese seamen shipped by the Home Office. Manifest prepared by HM Immigration Office."

For the SS Menelaus, which departed 14 December 1945, we have the names and particulars of the 107 deported Chinese seamen, too - their dates and places of birth, "last landing' date in the UK, and their addresses in Liverpool: the majority in Great George Street and Great George Square, Pitt Street, Nelson Street - the heart of Chinatown. Another Alfred Holt cargo ship, Theseus, departed 1 August 1946, with no fewer than 27 of the 91 Chinese seamen listed as being resident at 13 Nile Street, presumably one of the crammed seamen's boarding houses. In December 1946, it seems that the deportations were still going: this time via the cargo ship Priam. The list of "alien repatriates" on that ship numbers 196 people: 194 men, one woman, and "baby Kenneth Ling".

There are several references in the Home Office documents to lists of various kinds. A letter from the Liverpool police commissioner to the Home Office's aliens department dated 9 November 1945 requests "full particulars" of those to be repatriated. Some of the Home Office meeting minutes from 1946 refer to a "nominal roll of Chinese seamen married to British born women". For now, these details remain elusive. "We've searched everywhere we possibly could," Foley said. "We could keep going, but ... " she smiled, "we're getting old. Our aim was to get it out there, and we think we've done that."

At a local level at least, there is now some awareness of what happened. In 2006, Foley got clearance from the council to place a plaque, inscribed in English and Chinese, on the pier head at Liverpool, paying tribute to the seamen and their families left behind. A representative from Alfred Holt laid a wreath at its unveiling. (Funding for the plaque came from Foley herself.) In 2015, Liverpool city council unanimously passed a motion acknowledging this "profound injustice" and calling for the Home Office to acknowledge and apologise for the deportation. Peter Foo made an emotional speech to the 200 people present. "We live with the hurt every day," he said.

Foo has drawn up plans for a memory garden in Liverpool, with terracotta sailors, water features and a Chinese-style footbridge. Rosa Fong is hoping to make a film about the deported men. Local artists Moira Kenny and John Campbell, who have conducted extensive oral history research in Liverpool's Chinese community, would like to turn The Nook pub into a Liverpool Chinatown Museum. None of these projects has received any serious official support, financial or otherwise.

Former Liverpool MPs Luciana Berger and Stephen Twigg made private representations to the Home Office on behalf of their constituents in the 2010s, too. Replying on behalf of the government, Conservative immigration ministers Robert Goodwill, Brandon Lewis and Caroline Nokes each rejected the idea of any wrongdoing, and pointed to the Home Office documents' unsupported assertion in August 1946 that there had been "no forcible repatriation", in spite of the other Home Office documents that detail "roundups" and raids - and indeed the phrase used in that first meeting in October 1945: "Compulsory repatriation". (The irony, of course, of contemporary Tory ministers rebuffing the protestations of Labour MPs, is that it was Clement Attlee's Labour government that deported the men - something several of the descendants mentioned to me.)

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the deportations, and the new MP for Liverpool Riverside, Kim Johnson, welcomed the lunar new year in February by calling on the Home Office to finally apologise to the families. The forced repatriation scheme was, she said, "one of the most nakedly racist incidents ever undertaken by the British government". It was "a shameful stain on our history", yet "barely remembered". On 3 March in Prime Minister's Questions, she spoke of the "lasting emotional trauma" for the children, and asked Boris Johnson to acknowledge the forced repatriations, and give a formal apology. With that day's budget on his mind, the PM smirked about how much he loved visiting Liverpool, and breezily fobbed her off. "Her message has been heard loud and clear," said Johnson.

"Someone asked me: 'Why don't you get angry about it?'" Yvonne Foley said to me in 2019. "My anger has been channelled into my research. What can you do? There's no point in ranting and raving. None of the people responsible are around to defend themselves." All she wants from the government of today is an acknowledgment of what happened. The journey has provided some kind of peace in itself.

"I didn't set out to find my father," she told me. "I set out to find the truth. But in doing what we've done, I've found him in myself, in my own character. That's the way I've explained it."

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, listen to our podcasts here and sign up to the long read weekly email here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The secret deportations: how Britain betrayed the Chinese men who served the country in the war

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The long read: During the second world war, Chinese merchant seamen helped keep Britain fed, fuelled and safe - and many gave their lives doing so. But from late 1945, hundreds of them who had settled in Liverpool suddenly disappeared. Now their children are piecing together the truth

# data[].attributes.body
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/themixedgirlmeetup/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are a digital museum and archive sharing and preserving the history of racial mixing in Britain for future generations.

# data[].attributes.headline
Liverpool and Its Chinese Seamen || n.a (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
Liverpool and Its Chinese Seamen || n.a (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Liverpool Chinese or Eurasian 'community' from which we come fits into an established pattern. That is, Chinese men emigrating for financial reasons and, like isolated males of any race, taking local women as partners.

However, the community in Liverpool is unique. Initially, it owed its existence to one main factor - the shipping line of Alfred Holt and Company, which established the first direct steamship link to China in 1868.

It was as a result of this trade that Chinese seamen started coming ashore and settling in Liverpool in the late nineteenth century. They moved into an area already inhabited by numbers of other non-British people including Jews, Russians and Scandinavians.

That area was around Pitt Street . It was here that the pre-World War Two Chinatown was to grow. It was here that, gradually, the Chinese began to open shops and restaurants that catered for other Chinese working on merchant ships docking in Liverpool . In effect, Liverpool's Chinatown was almost the classic Chinese trading settlement seen throughout the Far East .

The Chinatown that never was

Liverpool's Chinatown was never a truly Chinese community. This was a 'Chinatown' that in reality had a minority of Chinese. Their white wives plus their Eurasian children considerably outnumbered the Chinese men in this community.

Insofar as there was a Chinatown, it consisted of those who had not established a business elsewhere in the city. Often because they still catered for the Chinese seamen whom Alfred Holt continued to employ throughout its existence.

Most of the Chinese-Liverpool couples appear to have spread all over the city. Many opened laundries integrating into Liverpool's society through the Liverpool Irish wives and children like us - Liverpool's Eurasians.

And we have been around a long time. We Eurasians began to appear in Liverpool 100 years ago. By 1906 there were small numbers of us all over the city. From this date onwards, Eurasian children begin to enter the schools in increasing numbers. We had arrived.

But aren't America's Chinatowns the normal ones?

For many of us, when we think of 'Chinatown' we think of a community consisting almost exclusively of Chinese and demonstrating a vibrant Chinese culture. We think of a 'China in the West'. We think of people wandering around in exotic costumes, temples with strange gods and firecrackers exploding.

Perhaps we are too influenced by what we have read and seen of Hollywood's version of America's Chinatowns. But if we consider the evidence on Chinese settlement in Asia and the inter-marriage of Chinese men with local women, perhaps it was these American communities that were not normal.

What happened in America to create Chinese communities so different to the one from which we come?

Over the centuries Chinese emigration was almost exclusively male. And so it was initially in the USA. However, the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco changed that in America. The earthquake destroyed the official records. That meant that it became possible for Chinese wishing to enter America to claim that they were citizens. As citizens, men could bring in their wives. So, from 1910 to 1924, one in four Chinese entering the USA was a woman. The contrast with the UK in this period could not be greater.

Moreover, in America we were almost legally impossible!

California, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, south Dakota, Virginia, Utah and Wyoming all passed laws forbidding intermarriage between Chinese and Caucasians. Whilst there were undoubtedly cohabiting couples, the USA had prevented the rapid assimilation that took place in the UK.

There was also the exclusiveness of the Chinese themselves. Chinatown in the USA was Chinese. Chinese families would not let their sons date an American girl. They preferred to send their sons to China to marry a "proper" girl.

The community and culture appears to have been isolated and self-isolating. Large enough to be self-sustaining and with on-going reinforcement of the culture through the import of brides. And this despite heavy restrictions on immigration. It was the product of circumstances almost unique to the USA .

So, Liverpool is normal. San Francisco is not!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Liverpool Chinese or Eurasian 'community' from which we come fits into an established pattern. That is, Chinese men emigrating for financial reasons and, like isolated males of any race, taking local women as partners. However, the community in Liverpool is unique.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Amazing Adventures of Walter Tull || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Amazing Adventures of Walter Tull || Tré Ventour-Griffiths (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Tre Ventour examines the life and times of Water Tull...
Today, there are numerous black footballers being adored by fans and earning millions of pounds in the British Premier League. But when the game began, it was more or less exclusively white. Well, until one Black Briton had the courage and candour to cross the white line.

Nearly one hundred years ago, he was one of the first, black professional footballers. He was playing at the very highest level. You'd think that swimming among with the sharks would guarantee him his place in the history books. But he has been lost to history. Not only was he a sporting hero, he was the first black officer in the British Army - an institution that referred to black people as "woolly-headed niggers" on official correspondence.

Yet, he still fought and died for his country, this country. His name, Walter Tull.

Modern, British society has perpetuated the idea that Black British History begins and ends with slavery, and Windrush. But it isn't so. Walter Tull is proof of that. There are pioneers out there, many of whom have been lost to history.

In order to understand the story of Walter Tull, one must know where the Tulls came from.

Born in Barbados in 1856, his father Daniel Tull was the son of slaves Anna Lashley and William Tull. Daniel was a carpenter and he could read and write - a rare thing for a person of colour in Victorian times, times where education for non-whites was illegal. By 1876, Daniel had migrated to England, decades before the Windrush.

England was a magnet for colonists looking to make better lives for themselves. Whilst the Irish looked to the United States, the West Indians looked to England. There were as many as 20,000 black slaves in London in 1787. Immigration is as British as apple pie is to the United States.

In late-Victorian England, Daniel Tull would meet Alice Palmer at Grace Hill Wesleyan Chapel in Folkestone (Kent) - a white, English woman who wasn't in the least bit prejudice or racist. They married, and had six children: Bertha, William, Edward, Walter, Cecilia and Elsie. However, their happiness was short-lived, as Breast Cancer would kill Alice. The children needed a mother and Daniel married Clara, Alice's cousin. He would then die from heart disease on 10 th December 1897. Alice's parents were dead and her extended family were poor working-class people with families of their own.

With no money to feed the children, they were now devastated and destitute. Not even Charles Dickens could rival this. The workhouse clawed at their minds. They were prisons for the poor and a spectre that haunted working-class families. It stopped them rising above their position and kept them in their place. The British working-class population would do anything to avoid it.

But there was a light. Bonner Street Children's Home in Bethnal Green (London) would take Walter and Edward Tull. Here, there were three hundred and forty tough, city street kids.

It's dawn. The boys in their rooms rise from their beds and get dressed. Being the new kids, they start at the bottom, in the gutter. They cleaned the shoes and boots of the household. Not simply one pair but all the pairs of the orphanage, the sisters' especially. Having finished scrubbing fifteen pairs of shoes, an inspection by the sisters is enacted. If positive, they are put away in various lockers. Breakfast arrives like a happy release.

The Tull brothers were orphans and that connotes a lacking, of: joy, hope and happiness. Misery and disadvantage would follow them wherever they went. And being of mixed-race, they would be marginalised within society. In 1900, Edward Tull was adopted by a Glaswegian family. Walter was now alone.

Walter found a release in football. He was exceptional and at age twenty, he was playing for Clapton Orient. In 1909, he was spotted by Tottenham Hotspur F.C. He was their star player - young, handsome and the world was his oyster. He was in his prime at the height of football in Edwardian Britain and was one of the most high profile black men of the time, shamelessly nicknamed "Darkie Tull" because of his skin colour.

Racism to British society was as valuable as a battleship. These colonial values put white on a pedestal and people of colour in the gutter. It was done on the street level. It was done via organised religion. It was done via missionaries and popular culture. Racism was not illegal in Britain until 1965. The arguments against it were moral and ethical, not legal. These racist values said to Black Britons that "You may be born here but this is our patch and you are not going to come here and do well."

On 2 nd October 1909, Tottenham's bout with Bristol City would see the end of Walter Tull's career at Tottenham. It was over before it had barely started. A mob of 20,000 football fans abused him through ruthless racist chants and Spurs weren't prepared to stand up for their player. He was pushed from the first team and into the reserves. Simply, the club believed it was too much hassle. It wasn't good for business.

A report from the game stated:

"Let me tell these Bristol Hooligans that Tull is so clean in mind and method, as to be a model to all white men who play football. Tull was the best forward on the field."

Like many players since, Tull didn't react to the racist abuse. He rose above it and that truly showed the measure of the man. Despite everything, he persevered and soldiered on. He had great composure, courage and resolve, all qualities he'd take to the Western Front. He had to be brave, even at home where he fought a war every day.

The racism through these vessels was a metaphor for colonialism. It was upholding the British Empire at home as well as abroad. Walter was British but he was black. Bristol's colonial history runs deep. Deep like the scars of slavery that visible in the West Indies, even today. You can see the very same scars in England as well. Whether we're talking street names or stately homes, the British Slave Trade made its mark and Walter Tull is a product of that. Cities like Bristol were slave ports during the times of import and export of human cargo. And into the 1970s and 1980s, the Windrush Generation suffered. Black neighbourhoods were set ablaze, a fire that Walter would have seen on the football field.

1901 saw the death of Queen Victoria, a motif of imperialism that lasted decades. Her death did not bring an end to imperial rule. The Empire was still vast. It didn't have the tagline where the sun never set for no reason and Britain continued to rule with bureaucracy. Though, in the early 20 th century, football was leaving its private school origins. Its spectators were heavily made up of the working-class. And due to leaving those origins behind, men like Walter were given a chance. This was his chance to prove that he was more than a "woolly-headed nigger", as he (and others like him) were branded in the British Army.

And by 1911 he was playing at Northampton Town, a small industrial settlement in the East Midlands. It wasn't cosmopolitan like London. It was the sort of place, like Folkestone, where nobody would have seen any black people before. Nonetheless, at Northampton, Tull was on top of the world - scoring goals and thriving. And that was a form of protest against the white fear and prejudice that followed him.

After a tragic childhood, it looked like he was winning. He was doing what he loved, playing football. He was respected by his team mates. Then the war came and football was labelled as a distraction. Conscription was not mandatory in 1914 but Walter volunteered to fight. On 21 st December 1914 he went to London to present himself at the recruitment office. He was ready to fight for the nation that he was born in. The nation he was raised in - the same nation that had shown him contempt and disrespect in his footballing career. And the British Army showed much of the same.

The 1914 Edition of The Manual of Military Law states:

"Troops formed of coloured individuals belonging to savage tribes and barbarous races should not be employed in a war between civilised states. The enrolling, however, of individuals belonging to civilised coloured races and the employment of whole regiments of disciplined coloured soldiers is not forbidden."

The same Manual of Military Law states:

"Commissions in the special reserves of officers are given to qualified candidates who natural-born or naturalised British subjects of pure European descent."

These quotes speak volumes. Legally, he should not have succeeded, but Walter Tull was not an unknown black man in England. He was one of the most high profile black men of the time and a famous name in sports, up and down the country. He was physically fit and in the best condition he could be. The British Army could not turn him away like they did with lots of Black Britons (who were not of European descent). But this was Walter Tull. He got on with the job and put his head down.

He fought in battle after battle. He was respected by his peers and his superiors. He had the leadership qualities every officer should have. His only "disadvantage" was that he was "of non-European descent" (black). However, he was recommended for officer training in late 1916. How? Surely, it was illegal. Maybe it was mixture of luck, circumstance and skill that allowed Tull to be put forward. Among the 17 th and 23 rd Footballers' Battalions he was able to himself. The men were players who all knew each other. They could be men, footballers and soldiers.

On 25 th March 1918, a German soldier fired his gun at 2 nd Lieutenant Walter Daniel Tull. He was hit in the neck. He fell to the ground, face forced into the mud in Pas-de-Calais in France. He didn't get up. But he accomplished so much. He led white men into battle, something an "alien" officer isn't lawfully allowed to do. He broke the colour bar and the white line.

The story of Walter Tull is the sacrifice of a generation - a generation of men who should be remembered. Men from the colonies (and their descendants) who gave their lives have just as much right to be remembered as the white Europeans men who are remembered every year.

From slavery to football to the war, the Tulls had done well. 2 nd Lieutenant Walter Daniel Tull was good at his job. He was a friend, a brother, a soldier and above all, a down to earth human being. His life is an example of the extremities of tragedy and heroism. It's a lesson to those dishing out prejudice today, no matter if we are white, black, a president or a student.

No matter our colour or creed, it is possible to defy expectations. We remember Frederick Douglass and Dr Martin Luther King. I grew up reading about them but Black History is not just American history. It did not begin with Christopher Columbus in 1492. The roots are way deeper. We must look at the Arawaks and the Maroons. We must look at the black people who came with the Romans from North Africa. We must remember the Black Georgians like Francis Barber, and the Black Tudors like John Blank. And we must remember Walter Tull who is special to Northampton, a town rich with history and community. His story resonates with me because I am a Black Briton like him. His story could have been mine had I been born in the 1880s instead of the 1990s. And it truly shows that most of our ancestors did not wear crowns but were more simply working people, slaves and peasants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Tre Ventour examines the life and times of Water Tull... Today, there are numerous black footballers being adored by fans and earning millions of pounds in the British Premier League. But when the game began, it was more or less exclusively white. Well, until one Black Briton had the courage and candour to cross the...

# data[].attributes.headline
Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England || Onyekia (2013)

# data[].attributes.subject
Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England || Onyekia (2013)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
When we think of Tudor England we do not automatically think of Africans being present. Instead we limit such an African presence to modern times, implying that cultural diversity is a relatively new concept in Britain. However, Onyeka in this book emphasises that Africans were present across Tudor England: in cities and towns such as London, Plymouth, Bristol and Northampton. Significantly, these Africans were not solely enslaved peoples occupying the lowest portions of society. The few modern historians who have written about Africans in Tudor England suggest that they were all slaves, or transient immigrants who were considered as dangerous strangers and the epitome of otherness.

Onyeka references a variety of documents: both manuscript and printed, some of which have been found by him for the first time, whilst other evidence has been neglected or forgotten - until now. This book is long overdue. Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England is changing the way we look at the Tudor period, and challenging our perception on it, as well as our perception of this country.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England - Narrative Eye

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When we think of Tudor England we do not automatically think of Africans being present. Instead we limit such an African presence to modern times, implying that cultural diversity is a relatively new concept in Britain. However, Onyeka in this book emphasises that Africans were present across Tudor England: in cities and towns such as London, Plymouth, Bristol and Northampton.

# data[].attributes.headline
Suleman Noor in Shakespeare’s Times || Arup K. Chatterjee (2018)

# data[].attributes.subject
Suleman Noor in Shakespeare’s Times || Arup K. Chatterjee (2018)

# data[].attributes.attachment_caption
'Blackamoores' have their own names in early modern England by Onyeka Nubia (pp. 15-36)

# data[].attributes.headline
Black British History || Hakim Adi (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black British History || Hakim Adi (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent have played a significant and far-ranging role in the country's history, from the African soldiers on Hadrian's Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas. But while there has been a growing interest in this history, there has been little recognition of the sheer breadth and diversity of the Black British experience, until now.

This collection combines the latest work from both established and emerging scholars of Black British history. It spans the centuries from the first Black Britons to the latest African migrants, covering everything from Africans in Tudor England to the movement for reparations, and the never ending struggles against racism in between.

An invaluable resource for both future scholarship and those looking for a useful introduction to Black British history, Black British History: New Perspectives has the potential to transform our understanding of Britain, and of its place in the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent have played a significant and far-ranging role in the country's history, from the African soldiers on Hadrian's Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas.

# data[].attributes.headline
'Strangers' in Tudor England and Stewart Scotland || British Library (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
'Strangers' in Tudor England and Stewart Scotland || British Library (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In Tudor England and Stewart Scotland foreigners were termed 'aliens' or 'strangers'. They settled mainly in southern and eastern England and eastern Scotland, either for short periods or more permanently. While often welcomed for their skills and experience or because they filled a gap in the labour market, immigrants could find themselves subject to both prejudice and discriminatory legislation. In 1521, for example, the mayor of London forced an Italian immigrant to place a lattice over his shop window and hang no sign above, as 'he is but a Foreiyn' (London Metropolitan Archives, COL/CA/01/01/005, f. 182r). 15 years later the printer Jean le Rous, originally from Normandy, found himself targeted during an anti-French riot on Fleet Street, in which the native Londoners shouted 'down[e,] down[e] w[i]t[h] the frenshe dogg[e]s' (London, The National Archives, SP 1/112, M. f. 223r). (In the late Elizabethan play, , there is a scene set in the year 1517, and reputed to have been written by William Shakespeare, which describes a mob of Londoners demanding that the 'wretched strangers' in their midst be expelled.) After she returned to her homeland in summer 1561, many of her protestant subjects regarded Mary, Queen of Scots, with suspicion and hostility as both French and catholic.

A letter from Sir William Cecil to Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, 26 August 1561, describing the arrival of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her French servants in Scotland: Add MS 35830, f. 189r

Yet, England and Scotland could be surprisingly diverse and tolerant places. Contemporary records suggest that 1% of Tudor England's population was immigrant (a figure not exceeded until 1901). Lack of evidence makes it impossible to determine immigration levels in Stewart Scotland, but foreigners were certainly present. For example, they could be found at court, both as visitors and as permanent household members. Many of Mary's servants had been with her since her days in France. Similarly, the English crown welcomed talent from abroad, like the Bassano family of Venetian Jewish musicians and instrument makers. One of the Bassano brothers, Baptista, taught Princess Elizabeth Italian and how to play the lute between 1545 and 1552. In 1537 another Italian immigrant was even licenced to open a tennis court in London. Immigrants also prospered beyond the capital and the court. The Spanish goldsmith Martín Soza, who was probably a converso (a Jewish convert to Christianity) became sheriff of York in 1545.

Most immigrants came from neighbouring countries: in England they were from France, the Netherlands, and Scotland; while in Scotland they were usually English, Irish and Netherlandish in origin. Individuals from further afield like Luke de la Ark, who said he was from Cappadocia in Ottoman Turkey when he became an English denizen in 1541, were very rare. He was probably Orthodox Greek and perhaps originally named Loukios tis Erkilet. French people living in England traditionally held a wide variety of occupations, including as priests, servants, tailors and ironworkers. A significant number were skilled masters like surgeons, clockmakers, and bookbinders. One was a parchment maker, Guillaume du Quesnay. The Netherlanders, though more numerous, usually made more modest livings, for example as coopers and brewers, cobblers, weavers, and the like. Scots worked as farmhands, shepherds, labourers, and servants, mainly in the north-east. Immigrants in Scotland are mostly recorded as servants, but there were some masters like artists, moneyers, and gun founders.

Part of a map of Ireland, England and Scotland, c. 1564-65, made by Lawrence Nowell for William Cecil, entitled 'A general description of England and Ireland with the costes adioyning': Add MS 62540, f. 4r

During Elizabeth I's reign many immigrants were protestant refugees who had fled their homeland after the outbreak of the French Wars of Religion or the Dutch Revolt. Most were skilled craftsmen and women working in the cloth industry and the cloth trade. Natives generally remained tolerant of these newcomers.

Diego Homem, 'Map of the Whole World', from the Mary I Atlas, 1558: Add MS 5415 A, f. 8r

The expansion of English overseas exploration during the 16th century, from its origins in coastal trading at the beginning to Francis Drake's voyage of circumnavigation in 1580, led to direct encounters with people from distant lands. The first native Americans were brought on return voyages from Newfoundland in 1501 or 1502. But Africans were already settled in the British Isles by the 11th century; and there is growing archaeological evidence of Africans in Roman Britain. During the early 16th century most Africans came to the British Isles from the Maghreb, Northwest Africa, via Spain and Portugal - like John Blanke, trumpeter at the court of Henry VII and Henry VIII between 1507 and 1512. Blanke seemingly arrived from Spain in Katherine of Aragon's household in 1501. Like Catalina de Motril, one of Katherine's servants, he too may have been an enslaved person, whose origins were morisco (a Muslim Moor convert to Christianity). Because the condition of their enslavement was not recognized in English common law, Blanke, de Motril, and presumably other moriscos would have become free when they landed in England. The same appears to have been true in Scotland, where Scots law permitted native serfdom but not enslavement. In 1549 a Moor was recommended to Mary of Guise's service in the war against England, being as 'scharp ane man as rydis [rides]' ( Scottish Correspondence of Mary of Lorraine, 1543-60, ed. A. I. Cameron (1927), no. 206).

Detail of John Blanke from the Westminster Tournament Roll, by an unknown artist, 1511, by courtesy of London, College of Arms

Over the course of the 16th century people from South, East and Central Africa, as well as from the Maghreb, could be found in the British Isles. A man called Diego, probably originally from Senegambia in West Africa, joined Drake's crew in the Caribbean in July 1572, returning with him to England as his servant. Africans dwelt in London, Edinburgh, and other big settlements, but also in towns and villages like Blean in Kent. By the close of the century we know that people of African descent were born, lived, and died in England, among them Helen Holman, who was baptised in St Andrew, Plymouth, on 2 May 1593.

The reigns of Elizabeth I of England and Mary, queen of Scots, and the relationship between these two rulers, are the subject of a major British Library exhibition. Elizabeth and Mary: Royal Cousins, Rival Queens is on in London until 22 February 2022. Tickets can be bought in advance or on the day, subject to availability.

Alan Bryson

Follow us on Twitter @BLMedieval

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Strangers' in Tudor England and Stewart Scotland

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In Tudor England and Stewart Scotland foreigners were termed 'aliens' or 'strangers'. They settled mainly in southern and eastern England and eastern Scotland, either for short periods or more permanently. While often welcomed for their skills and experience or because they filled a gap in the labour market, immigrants could...

# data[].attributes.headline
Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History || Rozina Visram (2002)

# data[].attributes.subject
Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History || Rozina Visram (2002)

# data[].attributes.body
I have put this book in this category, but it covers 400 years of history including Asian links with local white populations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This is a comprehensive history of Asians from the Indian subcontinent in Britain. Spanning four centuries, it tells the history of the Indian community in Britain from the servants, ayahs and sailors of the seventeenth century, to the students, princes, soldiers, professionals and entrepreneurs of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Rozina Visram examines the nature and pattern of Asian migration; official attitudes to Asian settlement; the reactions and perceptions of the British people; the responses of the Asians themselves and their social, cultural and political lives in Britain.

This imaginative and detailed investigation asks what it would have been like for Asians to live in Britain, in the heart of an imperial metropolis, and documents the anti-colonial struggle by Asians and their allies in the UK. It is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the origins of the many different communities that make up contemporary Britain.

Rozina Visram is an independent scholar working on history and education. She is the author of Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (Pluto, 2002).

'This excellent book does a great deal to explain how the idea of white supremacy lingers' - Hanif Kureishi, The Observer 'A lively- and timely- survey of British Indian history' - Salman Rushdie 'An invaluable resource for academics and journalists who want to study and understand the thriving Asian community in contemporary Britain' - The Times 'Gripping to read' - Dilip Hiro, TLS 'A compelling book ... essential reading' - Farrukh Dhondy, Guardian 'A work of great scholarship, which amply demonstrates the truth of the author's conclusions' - Wasafiri 'An exceptional introduction to Asian legacy and heritage in Britian' - Muslim News

Preface
Acknowledgements
1. A Long Presence
2. Early Arrivals: 1600-1830s
3. A Community in the Making: 1830s-1914
4. Through Indian Eyes: Travellers' Perceptions of Britain in the 18th and 19th centuries
5. Parliamentarians, Revolutionaries and Suffragettes
6. Indians in the First World War
7. Citizens or Aliens? Racism, Repatriation and Passport Control
8. Lascar Activism in Britain 1920-1945
9. Asians in Britain 1919-1947
10. Radical Voices
11. Contributions in the Second World War
12. Conclusions
Notes
Select Bibliography
Index

Published by Pluto Press in Apr 2002

Paperback ISBN: 9780745313733
eBook ISBN: 9781783715572

504 pages

Read on any device

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is a comprehensive history of Asians from the Indian subcontinent in Britain. Spanning four centuries, it tells the history of the Indian community in Britain from the servants, ayahs and sailors of the seventeenth century, to the students, princes, soldiers, professionals and entrepreneurs of the 19th and 20th centuries.

# data[].attributes.headline
Anglo-Indians: Is their culture dying out? || BBC (2013)

# data[].attributes.subject
Anglo-Indians: Is their culture dying out? || BBC (2013)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A product of the British Empire, with a mixture of Western and Indian names, customs and complexions, 2,000 Anglo-Indians are to attend a reunion in Calcutta. But their communities in both the UK and the subcontinent are disappearing, writes Anglo-Indian Kris Griffiths.

Southall in west London is home to Britain's first pub accepting rupees, railway station signs in English and Punjabi, and main thoroughfares alive all year with street food stalls, colourful saris and Bhangra music.

It's my hometown, where I spent my first 20 years among the country's most concentrated population of Indians, but as one of the minority 10% white British inhabitants. Indeed, I was the only white person on my avenue in the years before I left.

My mother is Anglo-Indian, raised in Jamshedpur, near Calcutta, before moving eventually to London's own "Little India". After she married a Welshman, I and my siblings were born fair with blue eyes.

We are symptomatic of the biggest problem facing the global Anglo-Indian community - it is dying out. In the UK and the Commonwealth, it is losing its "Indianness", while back home in India its "Anglo" element is fading.

The definition of Anglo-Indian has become looser in recent decades. It can now denote any mixed British-Indian parentage, but for many its primary meaning refers to people of longstanding mixed lineage, dating back up to 300 years into the subcontinent's colonial past.

In the 18th Century, the British East India Company followed previous Dutch and Portuguese settlers in encouraging employees to marry native women and plant roots. The company would even pay a sum for every child born of these cross-cultural unions.

By the late 19th Century, however, after the Suez Canal's construction had made the long journey shorter, British women were arriving in greater numbers, mixed marriages dwindled and their offspring came to be stigmatised by many Indians as "Kutcha-Butcha" (half-baked bread).

When the British finally departed in 1947 they left behind a Westernised mixed-race subpopulation about 300,000-strong who weren't necessarily glad to see them leave.

"The Anglo-Indians, left in a twilight zone of uncertainty, felt a bitter sense of betrayal," explains Margaret Deefholts, author of two books on Anglo-Indians. "And dismay at the fact that Britain made no effort to offer her swarthier sons any hospitality in the land of their forefathers."

They began leaving in droves in the 1950s and 1960s, dispersing throughout Commonwealth countries of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and their "motherland", the UK.

Joining the exodus were my Anglo-Indian grandmother Esther, six of her siblings, and her daughter Phyllis, my mother. They were bound for London and Toronto.

Most of the Anglo-Indians were more "Anglo" than "Indian". Only darker complexions betrayed their origins.

Otherwise, they dress like the British, their mother tongue is English, with an accentual twang of Indian and they are Christians. They were also stereotyped as drunks in India over the years.

The Anglo-Indians also have a distinctive cuisine - jalfrezi was a staple in our household, but unlike anything on Indian restaurant menus. Then there was pepper water, a spicy thin soup ladled on to rice. Other typical dishes include Country Captain Chicken and Railway Lamb Curry - a throwback to the subcontinent's railways on which many Anglo-Indians worked.

But the younger generations are no longer cooking these dishes. The unique hybrid culture overarching Anglo-Indian identity is expiring, diluted through intermarriage.

"I'm part of that culture now rapidly disappearing as the younger generations merge - as they should - into the mainstream of their adopted countries," says Deefholts, who left India for Canada. "Other than nostalgic reminiscences of an older generation, their Indian past has all but faded into oblivion."

It's uncertain how many Anglo-Indians remain in India, uncounted since a 1941 census. But the estimated 125,000, living mostly in Calcutta and Madras, are enacting the same assimilation - marrying Indians and adopting their culture. They are becoming indistinguishable.

"Previously, the community was too Anglicised - clinging to English traditions and customs," explains Philomena Eaton, convenor of the Calcutta Anglo-Indian Service Society. "But today it's clearly visible that they are much more integrated into society in customs, language, clothing, social interactions, etc. Many Anglos today can easily converse in Hindi and Bengali."

It's a significant turnaround for the community in India, which rarely married Indians before 1947. After that date, they saw employment opportunities diminished by their inability to speak local languages. But today their job prospects are rosier - they are well equipped for multinational customer service positions and speak English fluently.

There are many who want to preserve the Anglo-Indian identity in India. Charles Dias, the parliament's Anglo-Indian representative, has campaigned for greater government support, including reserved university places, new cultural centres and a fresh caste census. An online international marriage portal is being launched in Kerala, enabling youngsters worldwide to marry within the diaspora.

It has been noted in recent years that the number of Anglo-Indians who have succeeded in certain fields is remarkably disproportionate to the community's size. For example, in the music industry there are Engelbert Humperdinck (born Madras), Peter Sarstedt (Delhi) and Cliff Richard (Lucknow).

The looser definition of Anglo-Indian (any mixed British-Indian parentage) encompasses the likes of cricketer Nasser Hussain, footballer Michael Chopra and actor Ben Kingsley.

In 2007, on the BBC's genealogical TV series Who Do You Think You Are? impressionist Alistair McGowan discovered his Anglo-Indian origins. His Calcutta-born father had concealed his Indian nationality until his death, telling McGowan he was darker-skinned after summers spent working in greenhouses.

The same paranoia had apparently afflicted Anglo-Indian Hollywood actress Merle Oberon, who denied her ancestry.

"Throughout my life I had asked him why the family was (in India)," recalled McGowan. "Were his parents Indian? Did he speak Urdu? Did he have an elephant? He always told me simply: 'We were an English family who happened to be living in India'."

In that episode I could relate to McGowan quizzically perusing photos of increasingly Indian-looking ancestors with incongruously English names. My own relatives on the Indian side are named Ronald, Maureen, Nigel, Patricia and Adrian, among others.

I will be meeting hundreds more Anglo-Indians at what might be one of the last triennial Anglo-Indian Reunions in Calcutta in January, when I'll also be visiting my mother's humble hometown for the first time, and she'll be visiting for the last.

Soon all that might remain of Britain's human legacy in India are these ebbing memories and faded photos.

You can follow the Magazine on Twitter and on Facebook

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Anglo-Indians: Is their culture dying out?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A product of the British Empire, with a mixture of Western and Indian names, customs and complexions, 2,000 Anglo-Indians are to attend a reunion in Calcutta. But their communities in both the UK and the subcontinent are disappearing, writes Anglo-Indian Kris Griffiths.

# data[].attributes.headline
The Chinese in Britain || Barclay Price (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Chinese in Britain || Barclay Price (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Today over 400,000 Chinese live in Britain, many more attend British universities, and an increasing number visit Britain on business and as tourists. But until now, there has been no comprehensive history of the Chinese who came to the country. This book tells that story, from the first recorded visitor in 1687 through to the twentieth century, drawing on accounts by visiting Chinese, newspaper articles, memoirs, royal diaries and other contemporary sources. The book encompasses, among much else, the sailors who worked on British ships and briefly lodged in the country between voyages; the emergence of Chinatowns in London and Liverpool; servants; students; links to missionaries; Chinese entertainers; exhibitions relating to China; Chinese envoys and ambassadors; and British royalty's engagement with visiting Chinese. The book also includes extended biographies of some of the most significant Chinese to settle in Britain, including the first such immigrant, who has been overlooked in the historical record. The author also deals with the suspicion and prejudice that the Chinese have historically experienced due to their different physical appearance, dress and culture. At the same time, he shows the beneficial impacts Chinese visitors have had on British cultural life over three centuries. As China becomes a pre-eminent world power again in the twenty-first century, this book uncovers our long relationship with the country and its people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Today over 400,000 Chinese live in Britain, many more attend British universities, and an increasing number visit Britain on business and as tourists. But until now, there has been no comprehensive history of the Chinese who came to the country.

# data[].attributes.headline
What We Lose When We Focus On Whiteness In Interracial Relationships || Nylah Burton (2021)

# data[].attributes.subject
What We Lose When We Focus On Whiteness In Interracial Relationships || Nylah Burton (2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In a world that places so much value on representation, it's important to point out when the representation we're given is shallow or toxic. To me, it's pretty clear that depictions of interracial relationships in pop culture and conversations surrounding these pairings are failures because they are binary and almost laughably predictable - like white partners asking their racialized partners to accept them for being white, or even using their relationship as a shield against accusations of racism.

Currently, interracial relationships are portrayed as social phenomenons to be fetishized and commodified. And perhaps most unforgivingly, this outlook strips the conversation of the only thing worth discussing: how power operates in our most intimate spaces. As a society, we've grown accustomed to viewing interracial relationships of all kinds through a lens of consumption and commodification. And proper recognition of power dynamics is completely at odds with the mission of commodification. Interracial relationship influencers on TikTok and Instagram are a prime example of this. Under #mixedfamily and #interracialcouple, one can find the most subtly noxious - and frankly, incredibly cringeworthy - discourse about race.

Interracial relationships are potrayed as social phenomenons to be fetishized and commodified. And perhaps most unforgivingly, this outlook strips the conversation of the only thing worth discussing: how power operates in our most intimate spaces.

In these videos, it's common to magnify the "othered" experiences of the white partner. For example, a white woman married to a South Asian man might create an online identity as an interracial relationship counselor, discussing all the problems she had adjusting to his "conservative" culture, which erases the harm she's capable of causing as a white person and reifies stereotypes people already have about Desi people. She might talk about how she felt like she wasn't ever going to be a "perfect Indian wife" but that her husband assured her that he "accepted her just the way [she] is."

It seems innocent, but racism and colorism are forces too powerful and widespread in our society for white partners to consistently equate their experiences of "adjusting" to their partner's culture to their non-white partner's experience of having an intimate relationship with someone whose very identity represents oppressive power structures that threaten them every day.

Not only are relationships between white people and people of color the focus of most conversations about interracial dating, there is a focus on the non-white partner being Black. Brianna Holt, an NYC-based author and writer who penned a New York Times article on how many Black people feel they need to code-switch in interracial relationships, points out that "we tend to focus on relationships between Black and white people because that's where the power disparity seems to be the greatest."

In many cases, that's true. But unequal - and intricate - racial or ethnic power dynamics can exist between any two people of different identities. When we erase the realities of non-white people in relationships, those power dynamics and instances of harm are allowed to flourish because they are often unexamined, unchallenged, and ignored.

Layla*, a Black woman who has been in a relationship with a Native American man for the past year says that although she and her partner found common ground in their experiences as racialized people, navigating race with him has been difficult. She's never seen a relationship like hers represented in media or even discussed much in real life. "People assume it will be easier than a Black and white pairing, and that isn't true. It's more complicated; familiar and complicated," she tells R29Unbothered.

For some people, that familiarity can make the power dynamics that do arise easier to navigate. Aditi Juneja, a South Asian lawyer and activist in New York City, says that she's almost exclusively been in interracial relationships with people of varying races and ethnicities, but never a white person. These relationships have shown her that shared experiences matter a great deal.

Media commonly makes the mistake of portraying interracial relationships with white people as shining examples of racial progress [and] assuming interracial relationships between people of color are devoid of any need for progress, or even learning.

"I think that a big thing people in interracial relationships - including friendships - have in common when neither are white are their experiences of racism and marginalization by white people. The experiences are different but we can talk about colonization, colorism, white beauty standards and respectability," Juneja says. Layla agrees. "There is a sense of familiarity given the history of Black folks and Indigenous folks in this country," she says.

Drawing from my own romantic and platonic relationships with non-Black people of color, I know that sharing experiences of racism do provide us with common ground. But so do more positive things like cultural traditions, habits, and memories around family. However, it is those same shared experiences that make it harder to discuss problematic or hurtful things that might come up. It feels almost like turning your back on something that previously bonded you together.

Radhika G, a South Asian university student, says that in her previous relationship with a Filipino and Uruguayan man, she wasn't prepared to have to deal with issues of race, but they did come up. "I feel like there are dynamics between various ethnic groups that sometimes complicate things. With white people you may assume and prepare for some backlash, but I was not prepared for that from my partner's family, especially the Filipino side," she says, noting that she was shocked when his step-grandmother commented on how dark-skinned Radhika was.

If media commonly makes the mistake of portraying interracial relationships with white people as shining examples of racial progress, then it also makes the mistake of assuming interracial relationships between people of color are devoid of any need for progress, or even learning. It's assumed that the two people are coming to the table with enough shared history of oppression to overcome any harm that might arise.

So when problematic things are said, it can be difficult to know whether we should give more grace, because isn't this person dealing with the same internalized racism due to white supremacy and colonization that we are? With white people, it feels more cut and dry. The intimacy of interracial relationships between people of color can lead to more complex and fulfilling discussions, but also more conflict over how to deal with it.

In her relationship, Layla sometimes feels this tension and doesn't always know how to handle it. Her partner's parents intentionally distanced themselves from their Indigenous community and passed as white, and her partner grew up in an anti-Black household. "As a teenager, when he tried to date a Black girl, his dad beat the shit out of him," Layla says, adding that their relationship taught her how pervasive anti-Blackness can be in many Indigenous communities, something she was previously unaware of due to lack of public discussion around it. Although her partner has reclaimed himself in many ways, he's still unlearning things from his upbringing.

Aisha is a Black woman married to an Indian-American man, and she says that she and her husband never see themselves represented in the media. "Most of the discourse is about Black men and white women," she tells R29Unbothered. Because of that, she feels a lot of the challenges Black people face in relationships with non-Black people of color can be erased by the public. "I think that the amount of anti-Blackness [in those communities] is usually glossed over," Aisha says.

It's painfully obvious that we're not given much of a road map when it comes to navigating interracial relationships with non-white people. But even in social media and pop culture representation of interracial relationships with white people, white racism is heavily sanitized or ignored. Often, the burden of prejudice is laid on the non-white partner's shoulders through stereotypes, e.g. a Desi family that is too conservative, an East Asian family that is too emotionally withholding, or a Black family that is too ignorantly suspcious of white people. Or even, in perhaps the most egregious example, an Indigenous family that's too resistant to their own genocide.

There is also the festishization of interracial relationships on full display on Instagram, where there are "mixed baby" accounts where parents can submit photos of their children with details about the parent's ethnicities. Here, biracial children - and particularly those without white parents - are exotified. When they exist outside of whiteness, people in interracial relationships and multiracial people are often denied their humanity. However, from my observation, the people harmed most by our current discourse around interracial relationships are often dark-skinned, monoracial Black women, whether they're in interracial relationships or not.

Take for example, the show mixed-ish. For Wear Your Voice Magazine, I pointed out that the family the show centered is "shown as frustratingly innocent and never capable of causing harm, because their very existence" as a mixed couple - a white man and a Black woman - "is shown as the ultimate good deed." Whereas Aunt Denise (Christina Anthony), a monoracial, dark-skinned Black woman on the show, was consistently portrayed as ignorant because of her hesitancy about relationships with white people.

Perhaps the most harmful fiction the media has pushed is that interracial relationships are special. At their core, interracial relationships are deeply boring.

When we hold up relationships with white people as a sign of radical social change - they most definitely are not - we position Black women with no proximity to whiteness and no distance from Blackness as the enemy of racial progress. Black women's distrust of others' white partners - especially if they are women - is recast as a combination of hate, ignorance, and bitter jealousy. I've seen countless Black women teased and harassed online if they dared to say anything that might be seen as hostile towards interracial relationships, and this harassment has often devolved into anti-Black insults about their appearance or intelligence. Black women become the obstacle holding everyone back, a figure to be mocked and derided and ultimately ignored, even though it is Black women's particularly keen understanding of gender and racial power dynamics that often causes their wariness in the first place.

"I felt really invisible," Evan Lewis, a Black queer writer, tells R29Unbothered about growing up watching unhealthy depictions of interracial relationships like the ones in or How To Get Away With Murder. "Positive representation for me is anything that portrays a relationship that is actually supportive of the Black woman, where she's able to be vulnerable," they continue. Race, Evan Lewis says, doesn't even have to be a factor in TV representation of Black women in relationships. And if they're in interracial relationships, positive representation is still when "human problems or even race problems [exist to] add spice to the conflict, they aren't the whole conflict. Because that's real life."

And perhaps the most harmful fiction the media has pushed is that interracial relationships are special. At their core, interracial relationships are deeply boring. They can be a different lens to examine and reflect on power, but after that, all you're left with is a couple like any other. These relationships won't eliminate racial bias. Implying that interracial relationships are revolutionary, inspirational, or enlightened is "silly." Latina journalist Nicole Fiore, says, "My individual choice to date a white person isn't actually changing things on a structural level. I am just a person living my life with my partner, and to say all of that is a political act or that it's anti-racist, is really lacking in nuance."

Seeking freedom and acceptance within your own romance is something we all must do, but seeking a world that extends freedom and acceptance to the most vulnerable people requires moving away from the myopia often present in these relationship dynamics and being willing to have actual conversations about power, accountability, and revolution. And you definitely don't need to be in an interracial relationship to have these conversations.

The revolution will not happen in the bedroom. It will not happen if we learn a new language or a new recipe. It won't happen if we learn how to address our partner's parents or what kind of music their family likes to listen to at reunions. Those are all nice and often necessary things, but to have real discussions, we have to start getting serious about discussing power and decentering whiteness.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
What We Lose When We Focus On Whiteness In Interracial Relationships

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The way we talk about interracial relationships in the U.S.- especially in pop culture - is often reductive and harmful. In these discussions, whiteness is constantly centered and anything outside of that is "othered." Talking about interracial relationships between people of color can lead to more complex and fulfilling discussions.

# data[].attributes.headline
Black Victorians: Hidden in History || Keshia N. Abraham and John Woolf (2022)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black Victorians: Hidden in History || Keshia N. Abraham and John Woolf (2022)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A landmark work of revisionist history exploring and celebrating the lives of Black Victorians.
Our vision of Victorian Britain tends to the monolithic - white, imperialist, prurient, patrician. However, though until very recently overlooked in our textbooks, there was another, more diverse Britain, populated by people of colour marking achievements both ordinary and extraordinary.

In this deeply researched, dynamic and revelatory history, Woolf and Abraham reach back into the archives to recentre our attention on marginalised Black Victorians, from leading medic George Rice to protestor William Cuffay to attention-grabbing abolitionists Henry 'Box' Brown and Sarah Parker Remond; from pre-Raphaelite muse Fanny Eaton to composer Samuel Coleridge Taylor. Black Victorians shows how Black lives were visible, present and influential - not temporary presences but established and rooted; and how paradox and ambivalence characterised the Victorian view of race.

Engaging, informative and accessible, Black Victorians shines a light on a little-known aspect of British history. It is written with passion and attention to detail. I highly recommend this book' - STEPHEN BOURNE, author of Black Poppies: Britain's Black Community and the Great War

Similar books you might like

Sign up to hear more

Sign up to get the latest news and events from Duckworth.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A landmark work of revisionist history exploring and celebrating the lives of Black Victorians. Our vision of Victorian Britain tends to the monolithic - white, imperialist, prurient, patrician. However, though until very recently overlooked in our textbooks, there was another, more diverse Britain, populated by people of colour marking achievements both ordinary and extraordinary.

# data[].attributes.headline
Asian Migrants in Europe: Transcultural Connections || edited by  Sylvia Hahn and Stanley Nadel (2014)

# data[].attributes.subject
Asian Migrants in Europe: Transcultural Connections || edited by  Sylvia Hahn and Stanley Nadel (2014)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This volume explores the renewal of Asian migration to Europe that began in the late 18th century while still in the frame of the colonial regime. It counters the construction of an unchanging East versus a dynamic West developed in the 19th century; of static, rooted populations versus adventurous young men seeking opportunities afar (the producers of this cliche overlooked migrating women). These essays provide analyses of some of the migrants from the different societies of Asia in Europe. They focus on migrants from East and South Asia and explore their different experiences in Europe from the 18th century to the present.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This volume explores the renewal of Asian migration to Europe that began in the late 18th century while still in the frame of the colonial regime. It counters the construction of an unchanging East versus a dynamic West developed in the 19th century; of static, rooted populations versus adventurous young men seeking opportunities afar (the producers of this cliche overlooked migrating women).

# data[].attributes.headline
Black England || Gretchen Gerzina (2022)

# data[].attributes.subject
Black England || Gretchen Gerzina (2022)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Get recommended reads, deals, and more from Hachette

By clicking 'Sign Up,' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use

In the 1990s, an assistant in a London bookshop informed the African American historian Gretchen Gerzina that there "were no black people in England before 1945". Gerzina effectively disproved that assertion by going on to write the classic book on black people in Georgian London, Black England

<br> Wonderfully vivid, multifaceted and engrossing . . . this book brings history alive

<br>Black England taught me more history than I ever learned at school. This book helped me to understand the history that my generation are making now. To say that it is groundbreaking is stating the obvious. Black England is part of our canon. With books like this to guide us, we are unstoppable. Gretchen Gerzina tells it as it was, so we know how it is. Black England is a book that will be relevant for ever

<br>A classic that deserves to be read . . . indeed, needs to be read, Black England is deeply researched, lucidly written and utterly fascinating. If you ever thought Black British history began with Windrush, read this book - this is a story we should all know

MIRANDA KAUFMANN, author of Black Tudors

<br> Gerzina brings the world of the Black Georgians to intriguing life, introducing us to the era's most fascinating individuals while placing them in the wider story of the struggle against enslavement. It is a treat to have a pioneer of the field bring together all the latest scholarship to tell this important part of British history for a wide audience

<br> The admirable clarity of Black England should win it many admirers. Gerzina's book should take its rightful place alongside the work of her predecessors

Black England is well-researched, with interesting quotes throughout and has a number of 'I didn't know that!' moments as Gerzina throws up surprising snippets of information, such as the existence of an entirely black brothel in London catering for the nobility . . . charting the progress of the anti-slavery moment in England, Gerzina highlights the mixed and often murky motives held by white abolitionists who are often less altruistic than might be expected. This is echoed in Zadie Smith's passionate and insightful foreword

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

# data[].attributes.headline
Irish-Chinese Families || Mixed Museum (n.p)

# data[].attributes.subject
Irish-Chinese Families || Mixed Museum (n.p)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Irish-Chinese families in Britain - The Mixed Museum

# data[].attributes.headline
The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas || edited by Elizabeth Sinn (1998)

# data[].attributes.subject
The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas || edited by Elizabeth Sinn (1998)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The papers collected in this anthology look at Chinese overseas, residing in five continents in the half century after the Second World War, from many new perspectives. Some papers raise questions about the Chinese diaspora in broad conceptual terms, and inquire into the meaning of being Chinese outside China. Other papers examine life in local communities, analysing how historical and contemporary circumstances affect their lives and the ways they negotiate their identity in the host country. In-depth case studies further bring out the complexity of the subject by identifying the range of variables, including the social, economic, political and cultural characteristics of the places of origin and destinations, as well as emigration and immigration policies, which affect the patterns of migration and the nature of settlement in any place at any time. This is especially highlighted in chapters using a comparative approach. With scholars from different disciplines, using different types of data, methodologies and theoretical tools, the richness of the subject matter becomes apparent. This volume will no doubt go a long way both to broaden and deepen our understanding of the Chinese overseas, and, by showing the many possibilities for further investigation, to strengthen Chinese overseas as a field of study.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Last Half Century of Chinese Overseas

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The papers collected in this anthology look at Chinese overseas, residing in five continents in the half century after the Second World War, from many new perspectives. Some papers raise questions about the Chinese diaspora in broad conceptual terms, and inquire into the meaning of being Chinese outside China.

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed-Race Britannia, Episode 2 || BBC (2011)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed-Race Britannia, Episode 2 || BBC (2011)

# data[].attributes.headline
Mixed-Race Britain: Charting the Social History (Laura Smith, 2011)

# data[].attributes.subject
Mixed-Race Britain: Charting the Social History (Laura Smith, 2011)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Mixed race Britain: charting the social history

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
While mixed race is one of the fastest-growing ethnic groups in the UK, there is nothing new in people from different cultures getting together

# data[].attributes.headline
1944 We Were Here: African American GIs in Dorset || Louisa Adjoa Parker (2013)

# data[].attributes.subject
1944 We Were Here: African American GIs in Dorset || Louisa Adjoa Parker (2013)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Louisa Adjoa Parker is a poet and writer who specialises in writing about the history of black and minority ethnic people in Dorset. She is of white British and Ghanaian heritage. Having lived in the West Country from the age of 13, she has long been aware of 'difference', and began writing to talk about her experiences of racism living in predominantly white areas all of her life. Her poetry collection 'Salt-sweat and Tears' was published in 2007. Her books and exhibitions include 'Dorset's Hidden Histories'; 'All Different, All Dorset'; and 'We Black Men of England.' Her poetry and other creative writing has been published in a range of publications including Wasafiri; Envoi; the Forward Prize collection; Out of Bounds: British Black and Asian poets; and Ouroboros. She co-edited 'Dorset Voices' in 2012.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
1944 We Were Here: African American GIs in Dorset

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'1944 We Were Here: African American GIs in Dorset' explores the stories of the black soldiers who came to Dorset to train for D-Day. Told through the eyes of local people as well as the children of the GIs themselves, this is an important addition to Dorset's rich and diverse history.

# data[].attributes.headline
Britain's Brown Babies: The Stories of Children Born to Black GIs and White Women in the Second World War || Lucy Bland (2019)

# data[].attributes.subject
Britain's Brown Babies: The Stories of Children Born to Black GIs and White Women in the Second World War || Lucy Bland (2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
'In this thoughtful and poignant work, Lucy Bland not only meticulously details the history of Britain's 'brown babies' but, by placing their voices at the very centre of her scholarship, offers invaluable fresh perspectives. Bland's compassionate and insightful foregrounding of these moving memories of racial mixing and mixedness can't be applauded strongly enough. An outstanding achievement.'
Chamion Caballero, Goldsmiths, University of London

'Lucy Bland's stories of Britain's Brown Babies evoke a potent mix of rage, tears, joy and thankfulness: rage at everyday racisms, both institutional and individual, tears for the cruelties suffered, joy at the love and care that some found and thankfulness that we can hear these voices.'
Catherine Hall, Emerita Professor of History, UCL

'Using oral histories as well as revealing analyses of governmental policies and the politics of racially warped institutions, Lucy Bland's wonderful book lays out in no uncertain terms how the stigma of illegitimacy coupled with racism shaped the experiences of children born to white British women and African American G.I.s during and in the aftermath of World War II.'
Sonya O. Rose, Professor Emerita of History, Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Michigan

'Lucy Bland's book beautifully and carefully recovers the intimate, painful and sometimes joyous stories of Britain's 'brown babies'. [.] Throughout Bland writes with sensitivity, care and an astute sense of her positionality as interviewer, offering an exemplar of undertaking this essential oral history research. [.] Her meticulous attention to the ways in which these children navigated their own sense of belonging and difference - at home, in the care system, in British society and with their American families - is a tremendous achievement, with important findings for historians of migration, Black Britain, childhood and family alike.'
Women's History

'An important advancement of the historio-graphy and, due to its clear style and unique source material, is ideally suited for use in the classroom, as well. Graduate students will benefit in particular from Bland's careful discussion of her methodology ; for undergraduates and graduate students alike, Bland's skillful use of oral history and biographical material makes her book highly accessible and engaging.'
'[...] Professor Bland seamlessly weaves the stories of more than forty of these children for whom she has obtained in-depth interview material and who form the core of the book. The result is a work of substantial scholarship, accompanied by forty pages of notes and an extensive bibliography. The story appears close to the author's heart which also makes it a humane and compelling narrative that is written with lucidity and precision.'
Peter J. Aspinall (2021), Ethnic and Racial Studies

'Meticulously researched and sensitively handled, Britain's 'Brown Babies' not only makes a major contribution to the history of black people in Britain, but through it, shines a light on attitudes to illegitimacy and, in particular, race in the 1940s and 1950s - attitudes which are shockingly familiar to us still today.'
History Workshop Journal

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Manchester University Press - Britain's 'brown babies'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
'In this thoughtful and poignant work, Lucy Bland not only meticulously details the history of Britain's 'brown babies' but, by placing their voices at the very centre of her scholarship, offers invaluable fresh perspectives. Bland's compassionate and insightful foregrounding of these moving memories of racial mixing and mixedness can't be applauded strongly enough.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
WW2 'Brown Babies': A little-known part of British 20th Century history - BBC World Service podcast

# data[].attributes.headline
Bigger than the Sound: The Jamaican Chinese Infrastructures of Reggae || Tao Leigh Goffe (2020)

# data[].attributes.subject
Bigger than the Sound: The Jamaican Chinese Infrastructures of Reggae || Tao Leigh Goffe (2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Tao Leigh Goffe 2020 Bigger than Sound (1)