Featured as the cover story in our latest issue, one of our Young Voices team members, Shanine Gallagher, pens this intimately personal essay in pursuit of her mixed Scottish-Filipino identity and growing the community in Glasgow that have supported her.

Shanine as a child in the Highlands. Printed with permission of the author.

By Shanine Gallagher

“There is still a windy place at the core of my heart…I struggle against the windy place. I sometimes even forget it. But there it is.”

I remember reading these words from Jackie Kay’s ‘Red Dust Road’ out loud in my Higher English class. When Kay realised that her skin was a different colour from the rest of her family, her curiosity had already planted a seed. One day she would undertake a courageous, revelatory and emotional journey to find her biological parents that would hopefully put her mind at ease.

There was something about Kay’s compelling memoir, which explored themes of adoption, race, family and complex relationships that made me feel vulnerable and raised questions in my head about my mixed identity; something that I chose not to interrogate through fear. Why am I still missing something? Do you ever think about me? What if we stayed together? It was a painful reminder of ‘what ifs?’, so I tried to avoid it. Although I was surrounded by friends who made me feel loved, I felt like there was a type of love that I craved that I wasn’t receiving from my family. I lacked a sense of belonging at a time I really could have done with it. It ached then, but I was good at hiding it. It aches now, but I'm less good at hiding it.

I look at a picture of my mother standing next to a dog and a ‘passing place’ sign on a remote road with a stunning mountainous backdrop. I think she looks like me but I’m not sure that she looks all that happy to be there. There’s a shadow cast across her face, so it’s hard for me to tell. I think I’d look happy if it was my photo, because the Highlands breathe life into me, but I think she felt isolated and the idea of this leaves a lump in my throat. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for her, not speaking great English, far away from her family in the Philippines, trying to raise two children in a rural, foreign country without family support.

I don’t know much at all of how my parents ended up to be together or their story, and I’m not sure that I’ll ever get the full version. What I do know is that my mother (Filipino) had a dysfunctional relationship with my father (Scottish), and that leaving the Highlands for Edinburgh was best for her. The day we left I had no idea that I’d only ever get to see my dad once a year and the struggles that would begin around my mixed identity.

My memories of growing up in Edinburgh were unpleasant – I was constantly attacked with racial slurs at school that were not even about my own race. I was called out for my mum having skin that was darker than other parents and also my hairy arms drew a lot of attention. From the age of nine I was shaving my arms over the bathroom sink with the words echoing in my ear “girls don’t have hairy arms', just so that I was perceived the way that people wanted to see me.

Portrait of Shanine Gallagher | Photo by A. Ponce Hardy

I was torn between two worlds, because as well as feeling too Filipino at school and hating that I couldn’t seem to fit in, with my mum, I never felt Filipino enough. I didn’t speak Filipino like the other children I met at get-togethers with my mother’s Filipino friends, and I often felt the pressure to do well all the time. I was constantly seeking my mum’s approval and praise, wondering if any of my achievements would be acknowledged but more than anything, I desperately wanted her to show me love back. I recall being chased around the house with a bottle of sunscreen because freckles were forming on my face, and apparently this is not what I was supposed to look like either. In fact, I remember her telling my dad off over the phone about me being let loose into the wild and allowing the sun to swallow me when I was outside playing in the Highlands. I am fascinated by these little dots that cover my face now. They are part of my mixedness, we are on a journey together, and it's only now that I feel brave enough to start joining these dots together.

When I was eleven, my relationship with my mother, my Filipino identity and having a female figure in my life was severed and I moved to the Highlands with my dad and my brother. My teenage years were difficult and my curiosity has been feasting on me ever since. Now I am hungry wondering if I will ever be able to build a relationship with her again. I often have dreams about my Filipino family that I haven’t had the opportunity to meet yet, a warm place where my freckles would be dancing, the taste of the food that my mum used to make that nobody else could, hearing her speak Tagalog to her friends, seeing her look happy. I wonder what my mother might think of me now? I did everything she told me not to – I spent hours in the sun, I did dangerous sports such as horse riding and played football which was seen as a men’s sport in her eyes. I was not academic, I dyed my hair, I got my body pierced and I covered myself in tattoos. These are all things that are part of me, so why can’t that be okay? I wonder whether I would be the person I am today without the turbulent journey I have been on? Would my imagination be the same and help me the way it has to write music, films and everything creative I chose to do in between? It is intense, it is beautiful, it can be painful but I am so grateful that I have found it within myself to explore this captivating place again and finally help to create a community and find people who are on a similar journey to myself.

A Being Mixed potluck. Photo by Peter Clark.

Being Mixed was born out of a photography project created by Glasgow-based Scottish-Mexican photographer, A. Ponce Hardy who says: “I started the Being Mixed Project out of a yearning to meet other mixed folk who I could share experiences with – I had always felt quite lost within my own experience. It began as a photography project and has since grown into a beautiful community.”

I met Aph through participating in the project myself last summer. Scrolling through some of the images and interviews that Aph had shared, I realised that there were a lot of things that people were saying that I was really able to resonate with. I was nervous about reaching out because I was unsure about exploring that part of myself even though it was at the back of my mind all of the time, but I am really glad that I did. Aph made me feel safe, comfortable and in a bizarre way I felt whole for once and I did not want to leave after our short meeting.

As restrictions began to lift, Aph posted about arranging a meet-up for mixed folk. We held it in the Wild & Kind CIC studio, where I was working at the time. It was a very relaxed occasion, consisting of tea, snacks and more people than we expected to come to our first, lowkey event. Workshops we have held include a collaborative t-shirt making session where everybody made a design to print onto the same t-shirt, and also an intimate poetry workshop with Sean Wai Keung. When people open up and share their own experiences around mixed identity, it makes me realise the importance of this community and the need to provide this space.

Alongside creative workshops, Aph and I have been hosting a potluck every second month because we have found that food plays such a large role in connecting people with their mixed identity and also a way to share and connect with other people. The variation of dishes, the time put into each one and the stories behind them make it a magical event where we hope each person leaves with a full heart and a full belly. Something that we hear people say about almost every event is that they have never been in a room with this many mixed people in their lives before. We decided to create a dedicated quiet space at each of the events in case anyone feels overwhelmed. We have created a WhatsApp group for future events and for people to share any projects or events they might be hosting themselves or suggestions they may have for future workshops. We have several ideas for the future, funding permitting. We would like to organise a market to uplift the mixed folk within the community in selling goods that they make, and promoting themselves. We have an array of creatives whose work we would love to share including photographers, jewellery-makers, DJs, crafters and tattoo artists.

As Aph says: “It has been a really wonderful experience to meet other people whose experiences are widely different, however there always seem to be similarities where we can relate to one another. It’s also been so lovely to be able to bring people together and see friendships flourish within and outside of the Being Mixed meet-ups.”

Follow Being Mixed on Instagram all the latest info on the meet-ups and how to get involved.

Being Mixed

The following are extracts from interviews carried out for the Being Mixed project.

To read them in full, visit here. All photos by A. Ponce Hardy.

Laura Barton (she/her)

What is your mix and how do you identify within it?

My dad is from Nevis in the Caribbean and my mum is from from Essex and her family is from Scotland. I identify as a black woman.

Have you experienced othering? Can you give an example?

I grew up in a very white part of Scotland where my family really stood out. For me it was normal for people to stare at me and my family wherever we went. When people used to ask me where I was from I would say Scotland, then say but where are you really from? That used to really annoy me and thankfully that doesn’t happen much anymore.

Where do you feel most at home?

I feel most at home in Glasgow. I moved here when I was 16 and at that time I loved the anonymity of the city. Now I live in the Southside and through having a yoga studio I’ve gotten to know the local community really well.

Do you feel represented/seen in mainstream media?

I don’t really consume mainstream media anymore because I got so sick of the narrow beauty standards. For so long I felt I needed to conform to white beauty ideals and it really didn’t serve me! This was mainly to do with how my hair looked. It’s hard to feel good about yourself when all you see is women with long flowing locks in the magazines. I reached a point where I just thought f*ck it and got an afro. Now I like using platforms like Instagram because, to an extent, I can curate what I see and who I want to follow.

Sam Goodrich (she/her)

What is your mix and how do you identify within it?

I typically tell people and identify as half Korean and half American; however, it's a bit more than that. On my mother's side, my grandfather escaped from North Korea post-war and met my South Korean grandmother making me both a quarter South and North Korean. While from my father's side I'm supposedly a mix of several European ethnic groups: English, Czech, and Polish.

Additionally, I’d like to believe that was brought up as a global citizen, as I had quite the nomadic lifestyle moving every 2-4 years between many states in the US, South Korea, and the UK.

Are there any objects/practices/things that you relate or connects you to your different cultures?

Food- I feel is the most accessible way I have been able to connect with my Korean heritage. Unlike the Western/American style of eating where each person has their own plate which is theirs alone, the Eastern/Korean style of eating has always been shared and communal. While I know that this is not included in the official categories for ‘Love Languages’; sharing food has always been a favourite form of intimacy. Making Korean food not only strengthens my mixed identity but also allows me to share these precious dishes that are tied to my most precious memories.

Additionally, to my mother’s disapproval and dismay, I’ve started a collection of tattoos that represent parts of my Korean heritage and upbringing that I treasure so dearly. These little mementos sprinkled on my body remind me that I choose to celebrate my mixedness.

Yasmin Hackett (she/her)

What is your mix and how do you identify within it?

On my dad’s side I’m white British, and on my mum’s side my heritage is Black East African (Tanzanian) and Gujurati Indian. I try to identify with all of them but having three racial identities can be quite a confusing experience at times. I love that I’m mixed race, and I feel very proud to be who I am now, especially because in recent years I’ve tried to take more ownership of my identity and culture. Part of that is acknowledging my privilege as a light-skinned woman.

How do you feel about speaking or not speaking multiple languages? (if this applies to your heritage)

My mum speaks six languages, so anything I do next to her is always going to feel inadequate. When I lived in Nairobi, and because I travelled to Nairobi a lot as a child, I picked up bits of Kiswahili, but it went away when I moved back to the UK because it’s not a very widely spoken language here. I’ve recently been trying to learn it again by having lessons with my mum and it’s coming back to me, and I love feeling closer to my mum because of it. I know she’d love it if I spoke Kiswahili fluently. It also opens up the opportunity for me to go back to East Africa in the near future. I would want to go and feel able to speak the language rather than being just another tourist. Other than Kiswahili, I know how to ask my dog if he wants to go for a walk in Gujurati, and can recite parts of a dua in Arabic, but that’s about it.

Do you feel represented/seen in mainstream media?

Not often, really, although I think that I as a light-skinned person, and because of colourism, I get more representation than a lot of POC. What I’d love to see is more books being published by people of mixed race, about people of mixed race. Not only is representation quite poor for people like me, but when there is representation I don’t think it’s done very well, or it lacks in cultural sensitivity. One of my greatest frustrations is not knowing that people in the media are mixed race because they are racialised as white, or made to seem more white, whilst other white people in the mainstream media can co-opt cultural characteristics which don’t belong to them.

Peter Clark (he/him)

What is your mix and how do you identify within it?

I identify as Scottish/Bolivian. Although my background is a little more mixed than that. My father’s side of the family come from England, however, he worked in Brussels where I was born and it wasn’t until I was 8 years old when we moved to Scotland. My mother is fully Bolivian by blood, but she too moved around various countries in South America before she met my father and moved to Belgium. We then moved to Scotland when I was 8.

Were you brought up learning/knowing about your different cultures? If not, have you become more interested in this?

I remember, while I lived in Belgium, meeting lots of Bolivians and Latin Americans, getting together for carnivals where we would dance in the street and eat authentic Bolivian food. When we moved to Scotland, there was suddenly no Latin American community at all and I almost fully embodied my British side, and all I had was a fond memory of those events. It wasn’t until I moved to Glasgow that I gained an interest in learning more about my culture. I got more in touch with family I had in Bolivia, and tried to visit more. It also meant I became more aware of how much Glasgow, and Scotland in general, is lacking in a Bolivian community. I am now trying to reconnect with Latin Americans and hopefully some Bolivians through my own photography project.