Jenanne Fletcher, George Harrison, David Douglas James Chan and Richard Milner on the lack of appropriate terms to describe people’s varied backgrounds and cultures
As someone raised in England by parents of Iraqi and Scottish heritage, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Laila Woozeer (As a ‘mixed’ person, the language to describe me isn’t fit for purpose, 30 August). I get the “Wow, what a mix!” comments too, as if I’m some kind of exotic experiment. I have often been confronted with reductive choices in diversity sections on official forms, to the extent where I’ll just choose “mixed other”. But rarely is there an opportunity to specify what the “other” is, and the chance to redefine this space is lost.
While the mainstream portrayal of ethnically diverse families is thankfully broadening, the unique experience resulting from the meshing of cultures is still underrepresented, and we lack adequate language to label ourselves. We are of course more than the sum of our identities, but language is a vital piece of the jigsaw as it affords greater visibility and hopefully an enhanced understanding. Oversimplification benefits no one.
Jenanne Fletcher
Leeds
