Roots

Mangrove. Edward Montserin 2011.

The aerial roots of the mangrove always impress me with their tenacity.  They seem determined to maximise their absorption of the nutrients they need, at the same time as reaching out and providing a habitat for various species of swamp animals. They stabilise themselves and settle in to where they happen to be located.

When we think of our roots we tend to be defining ourselves and pinholing ourselves almost. I guess it can be reassuring to know where you've come from, to have a whole land mass to claim your own from the time your predecessors set foot in it. My Trinidadian side, for example, has a direct lineage from a freed slave via one of the first black police officers, then one of the first black district commissioners, which has created a certain pride (and dare I say arrogance) within the family. In a world where race so often appears to define your chances of success, my family succeeded despite being of the original underclass, therefore showing us to have seriously strong roots!!

When you come from more than one place, however, trying to decide where your roots are can be destabilising. My daughter now, born in England to two mixed race dual nationals has bouts of anxiety about where she belongs.  We moved to Trinidad from the UK when she was six.  She went to a predominantly white, wealthy, primary school and unfortunately never fit int too well.  I will never know if it was to do with race, or just lacking the cliquiness of our not knowing at least 50% of the school population for several generations as is the norm for most of the school's students' families. She then went to a predominantly black secondary school, with the majority of the students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, where her straightish hair, brown skin, half English/half private school accent meant she was classified by most of the school population as white, and therefore not allowed to have an opinion on certain racially sensitive subjects.  When this reached the classroom I actually felt compelled to move her to school with a wider range of students!  But the damage was done.

She now is determined to go back to England, to check out her British roots, as she's been 'branded' English, to see how it feels not quite fitting in there. On top of this the rootlessness has made her desirous of travelling constantly, possibly in the hope of finding somewhere new where she can throw out some roots and feel that sense of belonging she is apparently not getting from Trinidad.

I, on the other hand, feel pretty rooted in Trinidad.  It has taken time, and there are still social and cultural practices I'm a little slow in getting, but I was born here, so maybe that knowledge helps, and I have my family name which many people know and accept as local. As I've retained my English accent, although not as crisp as it used to be, people do treat me as a foreigner, and sometimes treat me as if I've just jumped off the plane...but still this is home - I genuinely don't want to live anywhere else!

But even growing up in London, I always felt I belonged there too.  Other than a little paranoia at having 'bushy' hair, (causing me to wake up with a start at times to obsessively smooth it down), didn't go through a lot of the mixed raced angst my peers seemed to have experienced.  Mummy was English and I lived there, that was it. I left because it was cold and expensive.  And damn hard work. But not because I didn't belong...

So I think, the trick is, like the mangrove, to throw out your own roots and root yourself to wherever you want to be.  History is a wonderful thing, if it can serve you. But at the end of the day you belong inside your body...anything else is really just superficial.