Nicole Ocran: “Mixed people aren’t always confused about their identity”
The podcaster on the joy of being mixed and the lack of nuanced representation
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week I’m speaking to blogger, podcaster and all-round ray of sunshine Nicole Ocran, who is of Filipino and Ghanaian heritage. Nicole co-hosts the Mixed Up podcast with Emma Slade Edmondson, discussing mixed identity and experiences, and our conversation was an important reminder of the need to see people like ‘us’ to help settle our sense of identity.
How do you define your ethnicity?
I always say that I’m Black (Ghanaian), half-Filipino and mixed-race.
Has your identity as a Black woman changed over time?
In America, I was so aware of the fact that I was mixed, but I was always considered ‘the Black one’. I leaned into the fact that I was mixed to assert my Filipino heritage, which people didn’t always see.
In my younger years, I was so aware of the fact that being Black wasn’t something people particularly liked – it was hard to deal with that. When I moved to London, I reconnected with my Black British cousins, which allowed me a space to reaffirm myself in that way.
There’s a lot of pride in the Black British community with where people come from, which I didn’t really experience with African Americans. I think that’s because people in America don’t know where to trace their heritage back to.
Do you think a mixed community is needed?
Yes, definitely. I wish I had these spaces growing up, but I’m grateful for them now. I can reflect on how I clearly wasn’t alone in how I felt. We are so different within the mixed community, but we have all these common threads keeping us together.
Is it important to create space for those who don’t have white in their mix?
I think it’s important for the conversation around mixedness to be more nuanced. There’s still a lot of colourism and racism within our community, so there’s something to be said for these offshoot groups.
When I was younger, I didn’t see anyone else with my mix, so I was blown away when I saw actress Asia Jackson’s hashtag #MagandangMorenx, which means “beautiful brown skin” in the Austronesian language Tagalog. She’s also Black and Filipino, so it felt like she was holding a mirror back at me, celebrating Black and dark-skinned Filipinos.
Have you found any other representation that resonated with you?
Not really. Growing up, there was nothing on TV that spoke to me. It either veered towards being Filipino or being Black. Even the show Mixed-ish was about a Black and white family, so that storyline was different to my life.
Coming across women like Tracee Ellis Ross, Yara Shahidi and Amandla Stenberg has been affirming for me. I did a deeper dive on mixed celebrities, and found out people like the singer Her and actor Darren Criss were mixed. I found the representation I was hoping for later in life.
How would you like the conversation around mixed identity to change?
I’d like to move away from this narrative that mixed people are confused and that’s why we always talk about our identities. In reality, it’s because we’ve not had the space or time to articulate ourselves.
So much of my life has been spent with other people trying to fit me where they want me – I find a lot of pushback when I affirm that I’m Black and mixed. I want us to be able to speak on our own experiences and come up with a language of how we want to describe ourselves.
I think what we’re all looking for is great resources and people we can relate to and identify with. We’re waiting for someone to be like, “here I am, I’m exactly like you”.
Does security in your identity come with age?
I think you care less. As a teenager, I don’t know if I struggled because I was mixed or because it’s just the place I was in then. You just want to be accepted. I loved indie music and musicals, which isn’t something you associate with ‘being Black’. I got one comment about it and it stuck with me my entire life. But now I realise that nobody is thinking about you in that way.
Tell me about the Mixed Up podcast!
Emma and I started it in 2019. When we met, we felt like kindred spirits. We shared so many experiences of straddling two worlds and thought, ‘we have to do something about this.’ We wanted to make something we’d have appreciated hearing when we were younger, looking into race, identity and how these things have shaped us over time. It’s amazing that despite how different cultures can be, they’re so similar as well. We want to explore that.
Have you gained from the podcast?
Absolutely! It’s become my own form of therapy, providing me with so many refreshing conversations about things I could relate to and things I’d never thought of before. Sometimes we don’t agree on the podcast, and that’s so helpful to me; it allows me more opportunity to grow and experience a new way of thinking.
If you could describe your mixed experience in one word, what would that word be?
Joyful!
Next week, I’ll be talking to Michelle Elman (@scarrednotscared), author of The Joy of Being Selfish. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox next Monday!
Enjoy Mixed Messages? Consider supporting me on Ko-Fi so I can continue to grow this newsletter!
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.