Welcome to Mixed Upwards, a series looking at the highs, lows and unique experiences of being mixed-race.

Mixed-race is the fastest-growing ethnic grouping in the UK. It means your parents hail from ii (or more) dissimilar ethnicities, leaving yous somewhere in the middle.

Aslope the unique pleasures and benefits of beingness exposed to multiple cultures, being mixed comes with complexities, conflicts and innate contradictions.

Mixed Upwards aims to elevate mixed narratives and look deeper at the nuanced realities of being part of this rapidly growing ethnic group.

Fashion blogger Nicole Ocran is half Filipino and one-half Ghanaian. She grew upwardly in the States, but she has been reconnecting with her black British family unit since moving to London eight years ago.

Mixed Up - Lifestyle - Natalie Morris

(Motion picture: Jerry Snyder for Metro.co.uk)

'I grew upward in Virginia, merely outside of Washington DC and Alexandria. My parents still alive in that location now. I moved to London to exercise my Masters, I was actually planning on going to New York, but information technology was cheaper to study in London,' Nicole tells Metro.co.uk.

Mixed-race identity has always been a big issue for Nicole. Living an ocean away from her British Ghanaian relatives, she had to navigate a space where she was perceived as black but was physically, so far removed from her black heritage.

'I feel similar information technology's ane of those things that has been a big factor in my life – even up until at present. Growing upward, I was much more than preoccupied with being black than with being mixed,' she explains.

'I grew upwards with the Filippino side of my family. My mom and her sisters all emigrated to the Usa together, then that side was much more than prominent in my life, and I felt a lot closer to them.

'When I was a kid, it was really difficult for me because they all expect so unlike to me. They had that closeness. And information technology wasn't that I didn't feel that too, it was more than that I was very aware that I didn't await similar them, and people who saw united states of america out together wouldn't get the fact that I was with them.

'Now I am here in London. My dad has a lot of sisters who live here.

'I have reconnected with this black British side of my family, and I feel very much like the odd one out here likewise, because I didn't grow upwards with them, I didn't abound up with much Ghanaian food, then it'south non really my taste – and there are all these really conflicting things.

'It's a lot of re-learning stuff for me, to find all this newness now as an adult. It's a bit of a dichotomy. There are definitely lots of emotions involved.

Little Nicole with her parents Picture: Nicole Ocran/Metro.co.united kingdom of great britain and northern ireland)

'Information technology'south and then funny because the two cultures in my family unit are really really similar.

'Both sides of my family are large – both parents are one of five or half dozen siblings. But I'm an simply child, and so having a large extended family has always been really cool, but also information technology's merely similar loud and overwhelming at times.

'Nutrient and family are both big, big features for the two sides. A actually potent respect for elders is a really big matter in both of these cultures. Faith is a big thing. Both sides of my family are Christian.

'My mom and dad talk virtually it a lot, and they find it so interesting that at that place are so many similarities between the two families.'

Growing up in the The states gave Nicole an entirely different perspective on race and racism. Racism in the US is public, brash, violent and frighting. In the U.k., it is equally frighting, but ofttimes it is more insidious. It's hidden and systemic.

Just from what Nicole has seen over the eight years she has spent in London, that gap is endmost. UK racism is becoming louder and worryingly emboldened.

'Peculiarly now, because of Twitter and social media, there are a lot of those viral videos of people being really outwardly racist towards people, existence actually aggressive and sometimes fierce – which I feel like we're seeing happen hither in the UK more,' Nicole tells us.

'Those videos used to get effectually in the US a lot, particularly last year when the Black Lives Affair movement was actually strong, all those atrocious clips of law brutality.

'Only I feel like nosotros're seeing more of it in Great britain now.

'With things like Brexit, we're finding that there are a lot more than of those people here – like we saw in the Brixton McDonalds video.

'I don't want to say it's a trend, similar racism is trendy, or like it ever went anywhere – simply I definitely call up people in the UK have become a lot more than comfortable in expressing those feelings.'

Nicole says information technology comes down to education. When she speaks to her British cousins it's clear to Nicole that there are stark gaps in noesis virtually the history of race in this country.

'I think there is often a lot of focus on American racism, American history and American ceremonious rights, and what I assemble is that people know more about what happened in the US than the history of black people in the UK.

'Even here in London, people tend to look at racism through an Americanized lens.

'I feel like a lot of black Brits struggle with their history. I don't think people actually know near the U.k.'s involvement in the slave trade for case. I don't think the education is there.'

Nicole says that her perception of the UK has inverse pretty dramatically from when she first moved hither as a pupil.

'I think people from other countries tend to look at the Uk as this kind of racial utopia, where nothing bad e'er happens – I even idea that when I moved here.

'It was on a UK TV show where I first saw a mixed race couple in the media, and I just idea that is so bizarre – because that'south just not what we do in America. And so when yous see things like that you lot go a sure thought of how the UK is with race.

'Only now that I'm living here, it's a completely different story.

'The racism here is less obvious, there are a lot of microaggressions for sure.

Nicole spent near of her childhood with the Filipino side of her family unit (Picture: Nicole Ocran/Metro.co.uk)

'I got married in Virginia last twelvemonth – and that was the aforementioned year the girl in Charlottesville died. It was simply a couple of minute's drive away from where we were having the wedding,' explains Nicole.

'I picked that venue because information technology's and then difficult to find a wedding venue in Virginia that wasn't a plantation, but I know my husband was quite nervous to go there afterwards what happened just down the road.

'So in America there is that level of open racism that is outward and hateful. Which isn't the same here.

'Here, you get U.k. First marches that barely bring out a oversupply of v people – and I call up that is where the deviation between the ii actually lies.'

Despite spending much of her youth thinking of herself as blackness, Nicole has merely really connected with the Ghanaian side of her family since moving to London.

Nicole's dad has three sisters who live in the capital, so Nicole has suddenly found herself surrounded by dozens of Ghanaian aunties, uncles and cousins.

'Fifty-fifty just learning near my family has been and then eye-opening,' she tells us.

'Obviously, growing up with my dad I knew things about the civilization – nosotros went to Republic of ghana, I went to see my grandparents. It was kind of there… only my friends and cousins and my mom's side were all Filippino, so I never felt similar my Ghanain heritage was something I could always really talk about.

'Since I came to England, I have spent more time with them, learning the simple things similar how they spend their days, and likewise just building those relationships that I never got to experience because I was so far away – it has been interesting for me.

'They empathize the different dialects, they understand Twi, Fante, Ga, all those other things. I don't sympathize whatever of information technology, my parents spoke English to me because they didn't even speak the aforementioned languages – that was the mutual language between them.

'Existence able to run across things from their perspective has not only helped me come to terms with being a blackness woman, just being a blackness African adult female, and how important that is to united states and our family unit.

'My grandpa was part of a presidential committee in Ghana – he was quite a key figure in African history. And it'due south so good for me and my cousins to exist able to talk about that. We plant out he wrote books on it – and that was simply something I hadn't known annihilation about!'

Nicole and a Filipino relative Picture: Nicole Ocran/Metro.co.u.k.)

Nicole has seen both sides of the effects of colourism. At home, surrounded by her Filipino family unit, she is nighttime, closer to black. Here in the Britain with her Ghanaian relatives, she has the privileges that come with being light-skinned.

'My Filipino side is non the same equally being white, at all, but there is a much closer proximity to lightness, and that makes it an entirely different experience to being blackness,' explains Nicole.

'People see my Filipino side as this amazing, great thing in my life, which of course it is – I dearest beingness half Filippino. But no one always has the same reaction about my African side. No one is like – "oh my God, you're half Ghanaian, that'southward amazing."

'Existence half Filipino brings me that little chip closer to whiteness, which allows people to find me more palatable.

'Whereas, on the opposite finish of the spectrum, being in the UK and being closer to the African side of my family – it has made me much more than aware of how that colourism really exists.'

Nicole wants people to sympathize that existence mixed-race is more than but pare-deep.

She says she has noticed that some people feel like they accept the right to cherry pick the more appealing elements of black – but it doesn't piece of work that manner.

'There's a thing that really bothers me at the moment where so many people are talking nigh how they actually want mixed-race babies.

'My husband is white, and anybody goes on about how beautiful our kids are gonna be. I just think there's cypher that makes mixed-race people better than other people – information technology's that simple really.

'I too call back there is this real issue with people wanting to be black in a way that's more than palatable to white people.

'So many people desire to be blackness, but nobody really knows what that means. They want to exist able to pick and cull the elements of blackness that they like, without taking on the whole package.

'It'south non that simple.

'There are and then many layers to being mixed-race that I don't recall people really understand.

'Not necessarily difficulties or hardships, only it's and so much more than nuanced than just being near the way you look – so when people fixate on that or say that they want "cute dark-brown babies", they are totally missing the point.'

Mixed Up is a weekly serial focused on telling the stories of mixed-race people. Next week we speak to George who is half Indian, merely looks like a completely different race to his brother.

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