Liz Cagney
Liz was brought up in Birmingham and is of mixed Barbadian and English heritage. She describes her upbringing as that of contrasts where home had an absence of the Barbadian culture that she often glimpsed on visits to her extended family. She talks about why she makes the effort to remind her children of their ethnic connections especially as she feels that outwardly those connections may not be so apparent. She’s observes how her colour has led to the misidentification of her country of origin in this country and abroad.
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Transcription: Liz Cagney Interview
Interview with Liz Cagney
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 11 October 2016
JW: So first and foremost then, can you introduce yourself to the people that are listening?
LC: Hello my name is Liz. - Liz Cagney.
JW: Liz Cagney, what do you do then Liz? What’s your…?
LC: - I teach ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and I’ve been doing that for about twelve years now, but I have taught - abroad as well. I’ve taught - ESOL abroad.
JW: Okay, perhaps we can come onto that a little bit later then. So what’s your connection with Africa?
LC: - My connection is - through my mother. My mother is from Barbados - but we’re not quite sure what the connection is, like which part of Africa she will have come from originally.
JW: Right, OK, yeah.
LC: I just don’t know what that connection at all is. Obviously I’m mixed race so there is a connection - But I remember reading - an author whose names escapes me now, but she said that - she didn’t know who had, what her connection was, until she went to - the country. She went to an African country and she saw lots of people who just looked exactly like her, and then she realised, “My God, this is where I’m, I’m from.” - So I just think my connection is really the UK and Barbados, but I know it’s much wider. - And I don’t know if that’s got something to with me wanting to travel as well, maybe. I did want to find my doppelganger. I want to say “Oh my God, you just look like me. This must be where I originally come from.”
JW: Do you think we’ve all got that sort of innate need to, to know more about our identity?
LC: I think so.
JW: So - does your mum still live in Barbados?
LC: No, no she came to the UK when she was about sixteen, and - and she, she moved to Birmingham to be with her sister and - that’s where I was born, in Birmingham.
JW: What prompted the move at sixteen years old for your mum?
LC: I think she just had aspirations to sort of travel and, and to visit other places, and my auntie’s husband at the time saw that, saw that she wanted to, to visit other places, and so he invited her, or they both invited her over to the UK, and when she came she loved it, and so she signed up for a nursing course and then decided to stay in the UK as well.
JW: How big was the family back in Barbados when she…?
LC: Oh gosh - I think seven brothers and sisters, but they all kind of, some stayed in Barbados, some travelled to America. Only my mum and my aunt, her elder sister, - came to the UK. Everyone else stayed, sort of, in the Americas.
JW: So did your mum then work in nursing?
LC: Yeah she’s still working in nursing now yeah. She actually retired but loves it so much she kind of went back again.
JW: So what are your very earliest memories?
LC: So, very earliest memories in Birmingham would be of - lots of family, lots of my mum’s side of the family, not so much my dad’s side of the family. Maybe going to church - and seeing everybody knowing everyone, because I think they all, even though - my mum and my auntie came over, and they were from the same family, lots of other people came over from Barbados and they would know different people from different parishes in Barbados so there’d be - there’d be like a connection with - with, with Barbados, even though they were in Birmingham in the UK.
JW: Do you feel as though you’ve grown up then surrounded by West-Indian culture?
LC: When I, when I would go to visit my aunt’s house, yes. But then when we go back to our house and, and the routine of our life, our life was very different to my aunt’s house ‘cos my, my dad was white.
JW: Can you give us examples of, of the differences?
LC: - Well yeah my, we went to church, the church that was near our house, just always felt very cold and damp, and - very formal. But the church at my aunt’s – in my aunt’s area was very colourful, people were singing and there was lots of laugher - people would dress up - put their best colourful clothes on. So I would just, just those little things I noticed were very different as a child.
JW: Anything different in the, the sort of, the actual house setting, the difference between your aunt’s house and your mum’s house, your house?
LC: - Just some of the - decoration that she would have, sort of chintzy ornaments of horses and figurines and things like this, but we didn’t have anything like that. And - actually we, - my dad wasn’t religious but my mum was religious, but we didn’t really have anything like that in the house. But at my aunt’s house there would be like a prayer or, stuck on the wall or some kind of reference to God or Jesus - around the house, but not in our house.
JW: So is religious identity really strong back in Barbados?
LC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, - and, and it’s something that I couldn’t relate to growing up. I could kind of see it. I could see that my cousins and my aunt, my uncle, this was their life, and I enjoyed stepping into that and - it kind of always felt warm and cosy. But it, it wasn’t part of my, mine and my sister’s identity. I wouldn’t say that we were practicing Christians. We don’t, we don’t go to church now. But I could definitely see that in, in the community there.
JW: So how much of an influence do you think - that -West-Indian heritage has had on you?
LC: - I don’t think that much, I would say - because we only kind of stepped in and would step out again, so weekends we’d go there and then come back. I mean even, I mean Birmingham is very multicultural, but the schools that I went to - I would be the only, sort of, mixed race girl there. There would be like one mixed race girl, one Chinese girl and one Indian girl. It just felt very, that sort of looking at school photos, you’d just see that it was a very - yeah it wasn’t a mixed community that I lived in. But if I went to visit my aunt’s, obviously I would see more people that were like me - but not in the area that I lived in Birmingham. So I wouldn’t say that it was - wasn’t something that I thought about. But funnily enough I am thinking about it for my own children now.
JW: Right.
LC: I kind of think about their identity because my partner is white, and so are my children. I’m quite - I want them to realise that they come from mixed heritage even though they may not look- so mixed. But I want them to be aware of that so I, I try to go to Birmingham a lot so they can be with their grandmother and they can see their cousins, so that they know that, you know, this is where they come from.
JW: And what do they think of that?
LC: They’re quite young, so they don’t really think about the fact that I have a different colour skin to them. - I suppose we only talk about hair. They notice that in Birmingham everyone has black hair, but in Hull everyone has blonde hair. So it’s like, “Right, ok,” but that might just be the school they’re attending at the moment. So it’s just hair at the moment, not skin colour.
JW: So tell me something about your mum’s ambitions for you, when you were growing up? What did your mum want you be, you to be achieving in life?
LC: Well she’s very strict about education, and that was really important for me to achieve, and I think there was very strong work ethic when I was - growing up. So, not so much she wanted me to achieve at school, but, but then start work at maybe sixteen like maybe she did, because she didn’t, she, later she went onto university, but because she’d come to England and started working at sixteen, I think she maybe wanted me to follow her, her path as well. Before she came to the UK she was actually working in a factory when she was about fourteen - because - my grandad had been injured, because he was preacher as well, he, he worked in a factory, but he was a lay preacher, so he would go ‘round -preaching to people and I think he’s been attacked - one day, so he was off work for a while and even though my mum was the youngest of seven, she was the one who took the initiative - the initiative to go and work and give some money to my grandmother. But going back to your question, I think she just wanted me to just kind of do well at school and then maybe be a nurse like her, which I didn’t really want to do.
JW: So was your mum’s - you know ambitious streak, - hardworking streak, was that, was that just her character or was there something of a - a Barbadian - sort of influence to that.
LC: Maybe, maybe in the family yeah I think so. It was just in the family. I’m not sure about in the rest of society but definitely in that family.
JW: How close do you feel with your wider family? Do you keep in touch a lot, or…?
LC: - I do more so now, so again going back to that thing about saying about my children, I kind of feel that it’s really important for them to, to know - that you know your life is much bigger than just Hull and, - and Birmingham as well. You’ve got family - in Barbados and in America and Canada as well, so, I do keep and touch, and obviously Facebook as well. - It’s great to see what everyone’s doing.
JW: Yeah - how would you go about - describing - oh no let’s go back, let’s go back even further - what brought you to Hull?
LC: Okay, - my partner’s from Hull. My husband’s from Hull. - His family’s originally from London but they came to Hull to study - and they stayed, and then I met my husband in London and we were both to university together. Well, he was at art college, I was at another university, but we’d kind of meet at the same parties and - and then we lived in London for a while and then we, I went to teach abroad. I went to Japan and - got pregnant, so we decided to come back to the UK, but then we just thought; where would be a good place to base ourselves for a short time before we go back to London. So we thought we’ll go to my partner’s mum’s house - we’ll stay there for six months - So we came back to Hull, but we’re still here fifteen years later.
JW: And how do you describe Hull then to your wider family when you’re chatting to them on Facebook and they’re asking you about it?
LC: - Well they’ve been, I mean, well, one of my cousins - came over from Barbados. She came, came, had Christmas in Hull, I think she had two Christmases in Hull actually. Usually she goes to New York, but she came to Hull for a change, and they like it here, they like it. I mean we, we take them out. I mean when we get together it’s very, there’d be about fifteen or sixteen of us altogether, so we just all congregate together, enjoy ourselves, and then maybe meet up with some other friends as well. So over Christmas we’re kind of based in the house really. We’d visit the parks - and they liked it when they've come over. They've enjoyed their time here.
JW: Your mixed race makeup – what are the differences you've noticed about how people accept you in Hull in comparison to what you might have experienced in Japan?
LC: Well that was one of the questions that I asked, I asked the interviewer when I had, when I went for the job in Japan, I was worried about being accepted as a mixed race person and the interviewer said you'll just Gaijin you'll just guide Gaijin is just foreigner - it doesn't matter if you're mixed race, black, American, Brazilian, it doesn't matter, you're just a foreigner so your colour is no, it’s not important really. So that was kind of a relief for me because I just thought that they may discriminate more because of my colour but I was just a foreigner. They actually thought I was from Brazil, they couldn't believe I was from England.
JW: So the Japanese generally are more accepting of, of foreigners?
LC: My impressions of Japan are through my students so I couldn’t really say about the wider, – the rest of the country – but they seem to be accepting. I didn't have any problems while I was there, it was a good experience, I had a good time there. I know obviously like in every country there are some problems, I think yeah there were a lot of Brazilian people there who were, who worked in factories so I suppose every country has - a group of people that would do particular jobs and so the Brazilians would come to do sort of factory work but they seemed to integrate into the community as well and I saw lots of Japanese Brazilians so there were, like, relationships there as well and mixed race children and, yeah so.
JW: So in Japan you felt very welcome. How do people receive you in Hull?
LC: I think I've had different, I don't know to be honest I don't know how people view me or look at me or -. I think at the moment because we have got a mix of people here, I think a lot of people just assume I'm not English, I don’t, like in shops when usually you get people saying hello to you in the shop, I think they just don't speak to me, they don’t say hello, how are you love or anything like that and I don't know if that's because, you know, we've got lots of Polish and Eastern European people here and they just think she maybe they assume that she can't speak English so I'm not even going to attempt to say anything to her so. I haven't had any bad experiences here, haven't had kind of more, anyone saying anything to me, not to say that people might have said something behind my back or something but I haven't had anything that made me think, oh I need to leave Hull, I need to get away from Hull.
JW: That's good, that's good to know.
LC: Yeah but then I do have a friend say, she said once, she's mixed race as well, and she said she had only one incident as well where someone had shouted something at her and she was with a group of friends and she turned round because they were all thinking “who are they who are they talking about?” and then they realised, everyone realised because they called her a black something and they said “who? Who”? And then they realised “oh they're talking about me, they’re talking about you.” So it's like you kind of don't really think about it, I don't go out every day thinking oh I've got brown skin, I just go out and do what I have to do and then if someone draws attention to it’s like oh gosh yes my skin is different.
JW: So - growing up what were your major influences? Any sort of cultural influences? Political? Any people that have - set you off on a particular track?
LC: I think maybe just the same as everybody else really - I think from my mum she didn't, she didn’t bring anything, it's only recently now that we're getting, understanding more about Barbados and where she came from because it was like she didn't really want to talk about it, didn't want to bring anything that would be different, too different, into our lives, so it was only when I went to my aunt's house that I would have everything that was, you know, I would get the cultural difference there - but things like food, no, I'd just have the same as everyone else, fish and chips, faggots, so shepherd's pie - even music as well was very kind of everyone else was in the 70s and 80s. Yes – no, no kind of big cultural differences I think growing up.
JW: You seem to be quite widely travelled, I mean, worked in Japan and the like - have you got, any - intentions of taking your children back to Barbados and exploring the culture over there?
LC: Yeah we have been back, we did go for a, for a family holiday – but it's so expensive I don't know if we can do it again - so it's kind of like a once in a lifetime.
JW: How old were your children when you went back there?
LC: It was about 2 years ago, so sort of 4, just trying to think of the ages, 4 and 6 still, still quite young.
JW: So it was a kind of a holiday?
LC: Yeah it was a holiday.
JW: Any significant moments?
LC: No, nothing significant, no - just a 2 week holiday by the beach for them really with just people they didn't know but sort of knew they were related to in some way like this is your auntie, this is your cousin once removed, this is so and so. So for them no, no impact really.
JW: So other than meeting family what about the impact of the trip on you? Did you sort of, sort of feel culturally at home in any way or?
LC: No, no, not at all, no. I think for all of us we didn't even this that was the second time I'd been there, the first time I went we stayed when I was 11 we went - we stayed in a family, yeah, our grandmother's house and even then I felt different and you know I remember someone shouting at my mum in the street like, “Hey English woman” and I was thinking how can they tell that she's English because you know she's got black skin like everyone else. I was like an 11 year old then – how can they? - is it the way she walks? Is it what she's wearing? You know how can they tell that she's English - and I couldn't understand that as an 11 year old but maybe as an older person I can see there will be like subtle things that would make someone shout out - not being like American or English or something. So and this time that we went recently - it was just a holiday and again, you know I was an English person on holiday in Barbados.
JW: What are, what is the general character traits then of the people from Barbados if you had to sum them up?
LC: Quite abrupt in their manner, quite direct, thinking are you being rude or – they're all just very abrupt in their manner but they enjoy, if I think about my mum, they enjoy having a party, enjoy having people round, socialising, with good food, good, alcohol and music. Music is important as well. I can't say for the whole country but if I just think about my family, sort of hard working, good music, good food.
JW: What are your ambitions for the future?
LC: Ah good question.
JW: You're so content in your job now you don't want things to change?
LC: No, I do want things to change and things are changing at the moment anyway. So I'd like to study more, I'd like to visit other places – I’d like to yeah travel more as well.
JW: Where do you want to be travelling to?
LC: I'd like to go to Russia. I've got an ambition to go to Russia. That seems like a really bizarre place to want to travel but when I was an undergraduate I studied Russian literature. I just really enjoyed finding out about the history and - the people. Obviously it was Russian literature of the sort of the 19th century, it wasn't - contemporary literature so but I did have an opportunity to visit Russia, to go through on the Trans Siberian Express train - but because I was pregnant I was a bit scared. I thought I think I'll just fly back to the UK. I won’t to go on the train and so I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't do that so I kind of would like to go back.
JW: What - message would you want to give to your younger self if you could sort of go back in time or pop a letter in the post to you as a young teenager just exploring the bigger world? What would you want to say to yourself?
LC: Mmm, I think – I think that something that's quite – stark in our family is the thing about travel so obviously - my mum travelled from a younger age to another country and I've travelled and I kind of want to I wish I kind of had the opportunity to go to America as well when I was about 18, just to be like a nanny or something like that, but I didn't take that opportunity. But I think just jump at the chance to, to travel because it's something that's still in me, I want to do that still and I want to pass it on to my kids as well. I want them to see - other cultures and visit other places. So if I was talking to my younger self would have said, you know, just go to America, you should have gone then.
JW: What do you think travel does for a person?
LC: You just get to see, just I mean, you go to some places and you just think this is the same as back home but like you just meet different people and that's and that’s fun. I think it's fun to meet people who are who are a bit different to you or do things differently to how you do things. I know some people go on holiday and they, they like to go to the same place, eat the same food and just have just this bit of beach, this bit of music playing, drink this wine and whatever but I think it's good to, to see other places just experience a different way of life and that's what I want to do more of. I want to do more of that.
JW: Well that's good, thank you very much for chatting with us. I hope you do get out there, travel a lot and have that fun that you want.
LC: Thank you.
JW: Thank you very much.
LC: Thank you.
Interviewer: Jerome Whittingham
Date: 11 October 2016
JW: So first and foremost then, can you introduce yourself to the people that are listening?
LC: Hello my name is Liz. - Liz Cagney.
JW: Liz Cagney, what do you do then Liz? What’s your…?
LC: - I teach ESOL, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and I’ve been doing that for about twelve years now, but I have taught - abroad as well. I’ve taught - ESOL abroad.
JW: Okay, perhaps we can come onto that a little bit later then. So what’s your connection with Africa?
LC: - My connection is - through my mother. My mother is from Barbados - but we’re not quite sure what the connection is, like which part of Africa she will have come from originally.
JW: Right, OK, yeah.
LC: I just don’t know what that connection at all is. Obviously I’m mixed race so there is a connection - But I remember reading - an author whose names escapes me now, but she said that - she didn’t know who had, what her connection was, until she went to - the country. She went to an African country and she saw lots of people who just looked exactly like her, and then she realised, “My God, this is where I’m, I’m from.” - So I just think my connection is really the UK and Barbados, but I know it’s much wider. - And I don’t know if that’s got something to with me wanting to travel as well, maybe. I did want to find my doppelganger. I want to say “Oh my God, you just look like me. This must be where I originally come from.”
JW: Do you think we’ve all got that sort of innate need to, to know more about our identity?
LC: I think so.
JW: So - does your mum still live in Barbados?
LC: No, no she came to the UK when she was about sixteen, and - and she, she moved to Birmingham to be with her sister and - that’s where I was born, in Birmingham.
JW: What prompted the move at sixteen years old for your mum?
LC: I think she just had aspirations to sort of travel and, and to visit other places, and my auntie’s husband at the time saw that, saw that she wanted to, to visit other places, and so he invited her, or they both invited her over to the UK, and when she came she loved it, and so she signed up for a nursing course and then decided to stay in the UK as well.
JW: How big was the family back in Barbados when she…?
LC: Oh gosh - I think seven brothers and sisters, but they all kind of, some stayed in Barbados, some travelled to America. Only my mum and my aunt, her elder sister, - came to the UK. Everyone else stayed, sort of, in the Americas.
JW: So did your mum then work in nursing?
LC: Yeah she’s still working in nursing now yeah. She actually retired but loves it so much she kind of went back again.
JW: So what are your very earliest memories?
LC: So, very earliest memories in Birmingham would be of - lots of family, lots of my mum’s side of the family, not so much my dad’s side of the family. Maybe going to church - and seeing everybody knowing everyone, because I think they all, even though - my mum and my auntie came over, and they were from the same family, lots of other people came over from Barbados and they would know different people from different parishes in Barbados so there’d be - there’d be like a connection with - with, with Barbados, even though they were in Birmingham in the UK.
JW: Do you feel as though you’ve grown up then surrounded by West-Indian culture?
LC: When I, when I would go to visit my aunt’s house, yes. But then when we go back to our house and, and the routine of our life, our life was very different to my aunt’s house ‘cos my, my dad was white.
JW: Can you give us examples of, of the differences?
LC: - Well yeah my, we went to church, the church that was near our house, just always felt very cold and damp, and - very formal. But the church at my aunt’s – in my aunt’s area was very colourful, people were singing and there was lots of laugher - people would dress up - put their best colourful clothes on. So I would just, just those little things I noticed were very different as a child.
JW: Anything different in the, the sort of, the actual house setting, the difference between your aunt’s house and your mum’s house, your house?
LC: - Just some of the - decoration that she would have, sort of chintzy ornaments of horses and figurines and things like this, but we didn’t have anything like that. And - actually we, - my dad wasn’t religious but my mum was religious, but we didn’t really have anything like that in the house. But at my aunt’s house there would be like a prayer or, stuck on the wall or some kind of reference to God or Jesus - around the house, but not in our house.
JW: So is religious identity really strong back in Barbados?
LC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, - and, and it’s something that I couldn’t relate to growing up. I could kind of see it. I could see that my cousins and my aunt, my uncle, this was their life, and I enjoyed stepping into that and - it kind of always felt warm and cosy. But it, it wasn’t part of my, mine and my sister’s identity. I wouldn’t say that we were practicing Christians. We don’t, we don’t go to church now. But I could definitely see that in, in the community there.
JW: So how much of an influence do you think - that -West-Indian heritage has had on you?
LC: - I don’t think that much, I would say - because we only kind of stepped in and would step out again, so weekends we’d go there and then come back. I mean even, I mean Birmingham is very multicultural, but the schools that I went to - I would be the only, sort of, mixed race girl there. There would be like one mixed race girl, one Chinese girl and one Indian girl. It just felt very, that sort of looking at school photos, you’d just see that it was a very - yeah it wasn’t a mixed community that I lived in. But if I went to visit my aunt’s, obviously I would see more people that were like me - but not in the area that I lived in Birmingham. So I wouldn’t say that it was - wasn’t something that I thought about. But funnily enough I am thinking about it for my own children now.
JW: Right.
LC: I kind of think about their identity because my partner is white, and so are my children. I’m quite - I want them to realise that they come from mixed heritage even though they may not look- so mixed. But I want them to be aware of that so I, I try to go to Birmingham a lot so they can be with their grandmother and they can see their cousins, so that they know that, you know, this is where they come from.
JW: And what do they think of that?
LC: They’re quite young, so they don’t really think about the fact that I have a different colour skin to them. - I suppose we only talk about hair. They notice that in Birmingham everyone has black hair, but in Hull everyone has blonde hair. So it’s like, “Right, ok,” but that might just be the school they’re attending at the moment. So it’s just hair at the moment, not skin colour.
JW: So tell me something about your mum’s ambitions for you, when you were growing up? What did your mum want you be, you to be achieving in life?
LC: Well she’s very strict about education, and that was really important for me to achieve, and I think there was very strong work ethic when I was - growing up. So, not so much she wanted me to achieve at school, but, but then start work at maybe sixteen like maybe she did, because she didn’t, she, later she went onto university, but because she’d come to England and started working at sixteen, I think she maybe wanted me to follow her, her path as well. Before she came to the UK she was actually working in a factory when she was about fourteen - because - my grandad had been injured, because he was preacher as well, he, he worked in a factory, but he was a lay preacher, so he would go ‘round -preaching to people and I think he’s been attacked - one day, so he was off work for a while and even though my mum was the youngest of seven, she was the one who took the initiative - the initiative to go and work and give some money to my grandmother. But going back to your question, I think she just wanted me to just kind of do well at school and then maybe be a nurse like her, which I didn’t really want to do.
JW: So was your mum’s - you know ambitious streak, - hardworking streak, was that, was that just her character or was there something of a - a Barbadian - sort of influence to that.
LC: Maybe, maybe in the family yeah I think so. It was just in the family. I’m not sure about in the rest of society but definitely in that family.
JW: How close do you feel with your wider family? Do you keep in touch a lot, or…?
LC: - I do more so now, so again going back to that thing about saying about my children, I kind of feel that it’s really important for them to, to know - that you know your life is much bigger than just Hull and, - and Birmingham as well. You’ve got family - in Barbados and in America and Canada as well, so, I do keep and touch, and obviously Facebook as well. - It’s great to see what everyone’s doing.
JW: Yeah - how would you go about - describing - oh no let’s go back, let’s go back even further - what brought you to Hull?
LC: Okay, - my partner’s from Hull. My husband’s from Hull. - His family’s originally from London but they came to Hull to study - and they stayed, and then I met my husband in London and we were both to university together. Well, he was at art college, I was at another university, but we’d kind of meet at the same parties and - and then we lived in London for a while and then we, I went to teach abroad. I went to Japan and - got pregnant, so we decided to come back to the UK, but then we just thought; where would be a good place to base ourselves for a short time before we go back to London. So we thought we’ll go to my partner’s mum’s house - we’ll stay there for six months - So we came back to Hull, but we’re still here fifteen years later.
JW: And how do you describe Hull then to your wider family when you’re chatting to them on Facebook and they’re asking you about it?
LC: - Well they’ve been, I mean, well, one of my cousins - came over from Barbados. She came, came, had Christmas in Hull, I think she had two Christmases in Hull actually. Usually she goes to New York, but she came to Hull for a change, and they like it here, they like it. I mean we, we take them out. I mean when we get together it’s very, there’d be about fifteen or sixteen of us altogether, so we just all congregate together, enjoy ourselves, and then maybe meet up with some other friends as well. So over Christmas we’re kind of based in the house really. We’d visit the parks - and they liked it when they've come over. They've enjoyed their time here.
JW: Your mixed race makeup – what are the differences you've noticed about how people accept you in Hull in comparison to what you might have experienced in Japan?
LC: Well that was one of the questions that I asked, I asked the interviewer when I had, when I went for the job in Japan, I was worried about being accepted as a mixed race person and the interviewer said you'll just Gaijin you'll just guide Gaijin is just foreigner - it doesn't matter if you're mixed race, black, American, Brazilian, it doesn't matter, you're just a foreigner so your colour is no, it’s not important really. So that was kind of a relief for me because I just thought that they may discriminate more because of my colour but I was just a foreigner. They actually thought I was from Brazil, they couldn't believe I was from England.
JW: So the Japanese generally are more accepting of, of foreigners?
LC: My impressions of Japan are through my students so I couldn’t really say about the wider, – the rest of the country – but they seem to be accepting. I didn't have any problems while I was there, it was a good experience, I had a good time there. I know obviously like in every country there are some problems, I think yeah there were a lot of Brazilian people there who were, who worked in factories so I suppose every country has - a group of people that would do particular jobs and so the Brazilians would come to do sort of factory work but they seemed to integrate into the community as well and I saw lots of Japanese Brazilians so there were, like, relationships there as well and mixed race children and, yeah so.
JW: So in Japan you felt very welcome. How do people receive you in Hull?
LC: I think I've had different, I don't know to be honest I don't know how people view me or look at me or -. I think at the moment because we have got a mix of people here, I think a lot of people just assume I'm not English, I don’t, like in shops when usually you get people saying hello to you in the shop, I think they just don't speak to me, they don’t say hello, how are you love or anything like that and I don't know if that's because, you know, we've got lots of Polish and Eastern European people here and they just think she maybe they assume that she can't speak English so I'm not even going to attempt to say anything to her so. I haven't had any bad experiences here, haven't had kind of more, anyone saying anything to me, not to say that people might have said something behind my back or something but I haven't had anything that made me think, oh I need to leave Hull, I need to get away from Hull.
JW: That's good, that's good to know.
LC: Yeah but then I do have a friend say, she said once, she's mixed race as well, and she said she had only one incident as well where someone had shouted something at her and she was with a group of friends and she turned round because they were all thinking “who are they who are they talking about?” and then they realised, everyone realised because they called her a black something and they said “who? Who”? And then they realised “oh they're talking about me, they’re talking about you.” So it's like you kind of don't really think about it, I don't go out every day thinking oh I've got brown skin, I just go out and do what I have to do and then if someone draws attention to it’s like oh gosh yes my skin is different.
JW: So - growing up what were your major influences? Any sort of cultural influences? Political? Any people that have - set you off on a particular track?
LC: I think maybe just the same as everybody else really - I think from my mum she didn't, she didn’t bring anything, it's only recently now that we're getting, understanding more about Barbados and where she came from because it was like she didn't really want to talk about it, didn't want to bring anything that would be different, too different, into our lives, so it was only when I went to my aunt's house that I would have everything that was, you know, I would get the cultural difference there - but things like food, no, I'd just have the same as everyone else, fish and chips, faggots, so shepherd's pie - even music as well was very kind of everyone else was in the 70s and 80s. Yes – no, no kind of big cultural differences I think growing up.
JW: You seem to be quite widely travelled, I mean, worked in Japan and the like - have you got, any - intentions of taking your children back to Barbados and exploring the culture over there?
LC: Yeah we have been back, we did go for a, for a family holiday – but it's so expensive I don't know if we can do it again - so it's kind of like a once in a lifetime.
JW: How old were your children when you went back there?
LC: It was about 2 years ago, so sort of 4, just trying to think of the ages, 4 and 6 still, still quite young.
JW: So it was a kind of a holiday?
LC: Yeah it was a holiday.
JW: Any significant moments?
LC: No, nothing significant, no - just a 2 week holiday by the beach for them really with just people they didn't know but sort of knew they were related to in some way like this is your auntie, this is your cousin once removed, this is so and so. So for them no, no impact really.
JW: So other than meeting family what about the impact of the trip on you? Did you sort of, sort of feel culturally at home in any way or?
LC: No, no, not at all, no. I think for all of us we didn't even this that was the second time I'd been there, the first time I went we stayed when I was 11 we went - we stayed in a family, yeah, our grandmother's house and even then I felt different and you know I remember someone shouting at my mum in the street like, “Hey English woman” and I was thinking how can they tell that she's English because you know she's got black skin like everyone else. I was like an 11 year old then – how can they? - is it the way she walks? Is it what she's wearing? You know how can they tell that she's English - and I couldn't understand that as an 11 year old but maybe as an older person I can see there will be like subtle things that would make someone shout out - not being like American or English or something. So and this time that we went recently - it was just a holiday and again, you know I was an English person on holiday in Barbados.
JW: What are, what is the general character traits then of the people from Barbados if you had to sum them up?
LC: Quite abrupt in their manner, quite direct, thinking are you being rude or – they're all just very abrupt in their manner but they enjoy, if I think about my mum, they enjoy having a party, enjoy having people round, socialising, with good food, good, alcohol and music. Music is important as well. I can't say for the whole country but if I just think about my family, sort of hard working, good music, good food.
JW: What are your ambitions for the future?
LC: Ah good question.
JW: You're so content in your job now you don't want things to change?
LC: No, I do want things to change and things are changing at the moment anyway. So I'd like to study more, I'd like to visit other places – I’d like to yeah travel more as well.
JW: Where do you want to be travelling to?
LC: I'd like to go to Russia. I've got an ambition to go to Russia. That seems like a really bizarre place to want to travel but when I was an undergraduate I studied Russian literature. I just really enjoyed finding out about the history and - the people. Obviously it was Russian literature of the sort of the 19th century, it wasn't - contemporary literature so but I did have an opportunity to visit Russia, to go through on the Trans Siberian Express train - but because I was pregnant I was a bit scared. I thought I think I'll just fly back to the UK. I won’t to go on the train and so I'm kind of kicking myself that I didn't do that so I kind of would like to go back.
JW: What - message would you want to give to your younger self if you could sort of go back in time or pop a letter in the post to you as a young teenager just exploring the bigger world? What would you want to say to yourself?
LC: Mmm, I think – I think that something that's quite – stark in our family is the thing about travel so obviously - my mum travelled from a younger age to another country and I've travelled and I kind of want to I wish I kind of had the opportunity to go to America as well when I was about 18, just to be like a nanny or something like that, but I didn't take that opportunity. But I think just jump at the chance to, to travel because it's something that's still in me, I want to do that still and I want to pass it on to my kids as well. I want them to see - other cultures and visit other places. So if I was talking to my younger self would have said, you know, just go to America, you should have gone then.
JW: What do you think travel does for a person?
LC: You just get to see, just I mean, you go to some places and you just think this is the same as back home but like you just meet different people and that's and that’s fun. I think it's fun to meet people who are who are a bit different to you or do things differently to how you do things. I know some people go on holiday and they, they like to go to the same place, eat the same food and just have just this bit of beach, this bit of music playing, drink this wine and whatever but I think it's good to, to see other places just experience a different way of life and that's what I want to do more of. I want to do more of that.
JW: Well that's good, thank you very much for chatting with us. I hope you do get out there, travel a lot and have that fun that you want.
LC: Thank you.
JW: Thank you very much.
LC: Thank you.