Eva Verde: “I write for all the brown faces in all the white spaces”
The author on the empowerment of age and family and floodlighting nuanced identities
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to author Eva Verde, who is of Black and white heritage. After reading debut Eva’s novel Lives Like Mine (out now), I related so much to the subtle, and not-so-subtle, racism levelled at main character Monica and wondered how I’d deal with a husband who told me to ignore his family’s racism. It’s a thought-provoking read and one I know you will all love – make sure to get your hands on it after reading Eva’s story below.
How do you define your ethnicity?
My mum is white and I didn’t have any clue about my dad’s heritage until I did a DNA test at 28-years-old.
I would describe myself as mixed-race. It’s an easy response that can be a conversation opener or it can be enough of an explanation. It really depends on who I’m talking to.
Did you ever speak to your family about your father’s ethnicity?
My mum was a single parent until I was about five, until she met my stepfather, who is white. He’s my dad, and I now have three sisters, so I’m the only brown person in my family. It didn’t matter until we moved to Essex, it was like I’d stepped out of a spaceship. You could see people trying to fit us together as a family. It wasn’t until then that I paid my ethnicity any mind. It really took its toll being the only brown kid in my school – it was really isolating.
It didn’t feel easy to bring up the subject of my biological father. I don’t know whether that was my own insecurity or whether I worried about upsetting my parents. I didn't give it any more thought until I had my own baby, and they were saying “he’s got his grandfather’s eyes and his brother’s nose.”
I did the DNA test with my family knowing about it and found out I’m Cape Verdean, Polish, Spanish, Brazilian… You can kind of make out the slave journey from Spain and Portugal down to Cape Verde, then across to Alabama. I don’t know if it made any difference to who I am as a person, but it was just nice to know.
How have you introduced that heritage into your own family?
It was nice to tell the kids their heritage, and we’ve made our own traditions. I have felt disconnected from my heritage sometimes, but I think writing helped me with that. There’s no finer therapy than working through your own pain like that. I’ve come to terms with my feelings now, making peace with worrying about other people’s opinions of me. Do they really matter?
Do you think that peace has come with age?
I think it’s a mix of age and having your own family. You just think, ‘why should I put up with that anymore’? It’s not even race-related, just life in general. It’s quite empowering to say ‘no’ to things that you don’t want to do. Age brings a lot of self-acceptance.
Have you encouraged your children to love their looks?
My eldest daughter is white-passing, with frizzy blonde hair and dark green eyes. Then I have twins, one of whom is pale like her dad, with big brown eyes, and her sister looks just like me. They don’t look like siblings, which is an idea I examined with two characters in Lives Like Mine.
My daughter who looks like me is connected to her heritage more than I ever was, and I’m glad I’ve given her the confidence to do so. Growing up, I didn’t have anyone to show me the way. Even though I identify as a Black woman now, I’ve had a real disconnection from my cultural heritage and don’t feel like I belong anywhere. You’re sort of on your own, with only part membership. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve accepted that it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to fit, I can just exist. We’re all so unique, we can embrace all the good things in the unique mixtures of who we are. It’s glorious.
Can having a mixed parent affect how mixed children understand their identity?
I think a lot of these thoughts and feelings are quite lost on our parents. No matter how loving and kind and understanding our parents are, they will never really have any sort of perspective on what life is like for you. I think my parent’s generation faced more racism than we do today. Each experience is very individual, but it doesn’t have to be negative. That can be quite freeing, you can make sense of your own perspective at your own pace.
Did you connect with anyone mixed in the public eye growing up?
I’d watch MTV in my teens and think ‘oh, I can work this look.’ I’d get told I looked like whoever was on TV the day before, like Divine, a sex worker Hugh Grant had an rendezvous with many moons ago. It was never someone positive. It wasn’t until I discovered music, like Mariah Carey or pop group 5 Star from Essex – they were EVERYTHING to me.
Now, I love author Katy Massey. She’s a fantastic mixed-race role model and has been hugely inspiring to me as a writer. She’s a couple of years older than me and in a different place, so I really admire her writing and ease at talking about herself. Where I’d usually go into a panic of how to respond to questions like, ‘where are you from?’ she’s very self-accepting and has such a lovely presence. I met her through Kit De Waal’s anthology, Common People, which we both contributed to.
How would you like the conversation around mixedness to develop?
I think we need to throw light on the gaps we live in and encourage this nuanced conversation. I just worry that it’s a phase. I hope it’s normalised and that those gaps are floodlit. We need to keep the conversation going and not get complacent. Noone’s experience is identical.
Has it been interesting or important for you to be around mixed people?
When walking into rooms, I’ve always felt drawn to people like me. You feel a bit more at ease and protected, which I hadn’t always been aware of. My husband said to me, ‘you know all your friends are mixed, right?’ I hadn’t even thought about it or done it intentionally, but perhaps it was my subconscious. My best friend is Irish and Mauritian, we’ve been friends since we were 11.
Can you tell me about Lives Like Mine?
A very early version of Lives Like Mine was a short story, and when A mixed friend read it, she told me I was over-explaining every element of the story. It completely changed the dynamic of the book, and I began to tell it from my own eyes, rather than another person’s. My book is for all the brown faces in all the white places.
I needed to make it as authentic as possible. I’d been inventing all these situations with blatant racism, and it was jarring. So instead, I used the stacks of stuff that’s happened to me and my friends, like the looks across the table and thee understanding of things that other people would miss unless you’re a person of colour. You think, ‘do I have the energy to challenge this? Is it worth it? Am I being paranoid? Maybe they just don’t like me.’
That over analysing all the time is so tiring, always trying to read the room and guess what people think of you, particularly after Brexit. People felt emboldened to make comments that you can’t unsee. It makes you sad to think of times you’ve spent with people then to see opinions like that. My humanity is not a topic for debate. I worry that we’re sleepwalking into disaster.
What’s the best thing about being mixed?
The fact that I can write my own story and have grown in confidence to do that. Having kids helped, writing helped, just surrounding myself with good people and being able to listen to their stories was amazing. There’s an awful lot of people with a very similar setup to you, and there’s great comfort in finding your own tribe. My tribe is anybody different. The more embracing and kind we are, the better the world will be.
How would you define your mixed experience in a word?
Conflicting, I’ve felt at odds a lot of the time. I’m always wondering how I’m supposed to feel, how that person views me… Now, I can just be quiet and realise that I’m ok as I am.
Next week, I’ll be talking to the author of The Black Flamingo, Dean Atta. 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.