Laila Woozeer: “Oppression is built into our language”
The writer on an existence crisis, a dangerous lack of representation and intersectionality
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to writer, musician and performer Laila Woozeer, who is of mixed white American, white European and Mauritian Indian heritage. Laila’s memoir, Not Quite White, is one of the most relatable I’ve read on the mixed experience, spanning representation, beauty standards, fetishisation and so much more. I was excited to dive into this conversation with them – read it below.
How do you define your racial identity?
I just say mixed. I have a problem with language like ‘dual-heritage’ or ‘biracial’ because for me, I’ve never felt like two things. I feel like we use it to mean one heritage from each parent, which I don’t have. I don’t mind other people using terms like that because we’re so deprived of language – we can’t identify ourselves, the oppression is built into the language. If someone finds the term ‘mixed heritage’ makes sense for them, you have that! Whatever helps you to understand yourself is valid.
Having read Not Quite White, you’re very diligent in looking for representation in any kind of media. Do you think that experience benefitted you?
Adults these days don’t have the same issues of not seeing any representation. I was genuinely struggling – I didn’t know what kind of person I was supposed to be. Seeing someone like you can be extremely validating. Through that, I noticed that the representation I saw wasn’t in the UK, that I’d been strategically excluded and systemically left out. That’s not fair.
First, I didn’t think I was supposed to exist, then I had this moment where I was like ‘I exist and I’ve been left out.’ If I had known how I came to be here and the impact of colonialism, I don’t think I would have had half the issues that I did.
In terms of connecting to my heritage, I don’t have much family here in the UK. I needed to feel some sense of belonging to something bigger than me, because I couldn’t find a culture, community or place that I belonged to.
Did your family ever speak to you about your mixedness?
They didn’t explicitly talk about it, which I don’t begrudge them for. I can’t see why they would have been aware that they needed to talk to me about it. My mum’s white and my dad didn’t grow up here, so they didn’t share the experiences I have.
People said my mum was devastated when she read the book. I had to tell her that I didn’t blame or resent her. I don’t see how, as a white person new to living in this country, how she would have had the tools or knowledge to have these conversations with me. Now, there are so many books and Instagram accounts to help parents.
I think these core issues of wondering what it means to be mixed will come and go within a generation, because post my generation, immigration and assimilation isn’t a thing that people’s parents went through. The younger generations are less bothered about that because they’re facing different issues. It feels hopeful that people aren’t going to have to do the same kind of searching for themselves or questioning their identity.
Is there a stereotype of what it means to be mixed?
It’s a stereotype that makes no sense. People being described as ‘looking mixed’ is problematic. We exist within a white supremacist society that’s trauma focused, so white people are control of the narratives we see. We’re not going to see a happy-go-lucky story of a mixed kid growing up super happy, but these people exist.
I think the conversation needs to be pushed further into intersectionality. More complex identities exist and need to be acknowledged. My mixedness doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Right at the end of the book, I see how my identity doesn’t apply to my ethnicity alone, but also my gender, sexuality, friendships, how I process things, my creative output… all of these things converge together. I think part of why our generation has a lot of these issues is because things were addressed one issue at a time. Younger people see things more intersectionally, like Chella Man. He’s never talked about his mixedness out of context with his transness.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
My heritage and family feels like this ongoing conversation. I described it in the book as a constellation, this huge, miraculous, incredible, amazing, diverse, wide-ranging thing, and I'm just some speck in the middle of it. It’s the greatest honour to be this speck of dust in that miraculous arrangement and convergence of people that had to happen in order to create my extremely bonkers all-the-way-around-the-world family.
Can you sum up your mixed experience in a word?
My experience is immutable, and the word for the book is ‘radiant’.
Next week I’ll be talking to artist Niall Singh. 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 (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.