So many white kids, English kids - we had no culture.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
As kids, we had no clue about the racial stuff that seemed to preoccupy adults. We just enjoyed our life as kids.
My culture comes from everywhere. I'm sick of this notion of nationality, that if you're brought up in the same city or same country you're the same. Even three kids brought up in the same family with the same genes, they are not the same. Just consider a human a human.
I grew up in an all-white community.
Children are all foreigners.
I grew up in an environment in Birmingham that was really multicultural, with black kids, Irish kids, Indian kids.
It was pretty awful for us children because we never really knew the local children. Mother was keen for us to learn languages, so our travels took us to France and Italy, as well as the West Country.
I grew up on the coast of England in the '70s. My dad is white from Cornwall, and my mom is black from Zimbabwe. Even the idea of us as a family was challenging to most people.
I was born in America but all of my friends' parents, everybody's parents, including my own, had come to America from Europe. Many people in my neighborhood hardly bothered to learn English.
I was born in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1948 but grew up in a black neighborhood. During elementary and middle school, I commuted to a bilingual school in Chinatown. So I did not confront white American culture until high school.
As a child, I experienced black culture as many people did in America: on the TV, radio, and stages.