Dean Atta: “You have to be careful about conflating ethnicity and identity”
Dean Atta: “You have to be careful about conflating ethnicity and identity”
The author on how the many aspects of his identity form the way he sees the world
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to author Dean Atta, who is of Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. Dean’s verse novel The Black Flamingo follows Michael, a mixed-race gay teen finding his identity through drag. I’ve been drawn to Dean’s work for many reasons, including the fact that I’ve so rarely read mixed identity explored so authentically as in The Black Flamingo. Dean is also a University of Sussex alumni like me, which is always nice to discover! Read his story below.
How would you define your ethnicity?
I’m Black, of Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican heritage. I’ll call myself mixed-race or mixed in the UK, and biracial in America. But most of the time I say Black, unless I’m really delving into the nuance of the mixed experience.
When I was a child in the ‘80s and ‘90s, the term ‘half-caste’ was still knocking about, but it was on it’s way out. John Agard’s poem Half-caste pokes fun at the term in a really creative way.
I think using ‘half’ chimes loudly with that term, which may be why some people avoid it. I’m not terribly bothered about the word ‘half’ and I wouldn’t feel upset or offended if someone described me as ‘half-Greek-Cypriot and half-Jamaican’.
Have you felt connected to your Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican cultures?
Yes, through food, the arts, hair and language. You’ll see how hair comes up several times for Michael in The Black Flamingo, and it’s one of several cultural signifiers I plan to unpack further in a non-fiction book I’ll be writing over the next few years. There’s also landscapes and how people interact with nature, different qualities of light, colours, textures, people’s body language and how they hold and present themselves.
Spending time with my family, I get to experience their interpretation of their culture, or the parts of it they feel able to share and express living here in the UK. When I visit Cyprus and Jamaica, I get to experience things first-hand, still through the lens of family but also with other people outside of that.
Did you ever feel like you missed out on any aspects of your identity?
I made choices rather than missed out. I had the option of going to Greek language classes when I was a child, but I was more interested in doing singing and dance classes instead. So now as an adult, I’ve taken Greek language classes and I use the app Duolingo to keep up my learning. I’ll listen to Greek music and will watch Greek films, but I still speak to my Greek-Cypriot family in English. I think I’d need to move to Cyprus or Greece or have a Greek-speaking boyfriend to immerse myself in the language – I did consider that when I was single...
I also think you have to be careful about conflating ethnicity and identity. I understand identity as the fact of being who you are. I think the only part of my identity that I’ve ever felt curtailed from expressing is my sexuality when I’m in places where I feel unsafe to make it known that I’m gay.
Have you ever felt too much, or not enough?
Like protagonist Michael, I’ve been told by Black friends that I’m not Black. I try to be aware of my privilege as a mixed person when I’m in Black spaces, and in the world in general. I don’t bemoan being mixed. I know that any anti-Black racism I experience is likely to be worse for quote-unquote ‘fully Black’ people.
How does your mixed identity interact with your gay identity and your drag?
It’s all one. I’m Black and mixed and gay and male and a poet and a drag performer and I was raised Christian – and I could go on. It all influences everything I do, whether I choose to lean into certain things or push against them. They’re all interacting in my psyche all the time.
With drag, I decided to have fun with it all. I decided early on that I’d come onto the stage in a pink outfit and I’d leave the stage in a black outfit – I just had to decide what would happen in the middle part. That middle part became a performance in which I talk to the audience about representation of Black and mixed people in the mainstream and fetishisation of Black and mixed people. Some mixed people who’ve seen the performance tell me they think it’s about rejecting Whiteness and embracing being Black.
Has poetry helped you explore your mixed identity?
Poetry has been everything to me, outside of my family. I met most of my friends doing poetry. I met my boyfriend when he was in the audience at one of my poetry performances. I think being a poet is the biggest part of how I relate to the world.
I also know that on the page I can decide which parts of my identity I reveal to the reader. I can also write poetry and fiction in the voice of characters who do not share the same identity as me. That’s been really fun for me lately, taking the time to write from a different perspective. It adds something extra to how I see the world.
Do you ever feel frustrated at the generally narrow definition of what it means to be mixed?
It’s only narrow if you accept it as narrow. As a child, my understanding of mixed was simply having one Black parent and one white parent. Over time, as I’ve met more people who have a different story. it’s broadened my understanding. I think if someone finds the term useful or empowering for them, that’s great, and if someone else doesn’t want to be called mixed and has a different way of describing themselves, that should be respected.
If you could describe your mixed experience in one word, what would that be?
Privileged.
Next week, I’ll be talking to Vince Macauley, head coach of the London Lions. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday!
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi Indian (by way of East Africa) and my dad is White British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.