Ghanaian | Jamaican

Hannah Opoku.jpg

My mum is Jamaican and my Dad is from Ghana. Being mixed Jamaican and Ghanaian has a great advantage one of them is food, a great combination. 
When I was much younger I never thought much about mixed race. I just thought, I was black, because that's what I am. (I grew up in Croydon) in Croydon everyone is from everywhere. So I got comfortable with all that, everyone was from everywhere until I moved into UCL University in Central London. Then it was clear that there were groups of people sticking together and that was just not normal to me at all. There were certain, demographics of people in the UK they kind of gravitate it together. I kind of gravitated more towards the African Caribbean Community as well. People came over from different countries as well, so they kind of stuck together and we still mixed but not as much as we did when I was in Croydon. 
It’s only after that experience that I started to identify myself as black British, for me it's difficult to say I'm black Ghanaian or black Jamaican because I don't want to make either of them less than what they are, I'm very conscious of the fact that my culture is British. It has elements of Ghanaian in it, and it has elements of Jamaica in it, but ultimately I'm black British and I love that because I can still make changes around it cause I've got bits of this part and bits of that part and that's what makes it interesting for me. 
In Jamaica they see me as white cultured, we were walking around with my grandparents and some Jamaican guy calls out to my grandparents and says, ‘why'd you bring the white people over here ‘ so we looked at our hands, and we were like, no, we are black. In Ghana it’s the same, if you don’t speak the language you are automatically foreign. 
Obviously they can tell when you're not from these countries, and that kind of reinforces the fact that yes, I have these cultural elements that are part of me, but ultimately my culture is British. So it made more aware that I have to embrace the two great places Jamaica and Ghana but ultimately, even people back there, they're not going to see me as Jamaican or Ghanaian because In a sense I'm diluted.