Visibility of Race

Although not spoken about as frequently as the experience of not being seen, the participants all had times when their racial mix had been seen by either their therapist or other people and this seemed to foster hope.

Lara said that her mixed race experience had been a thread throughout her therapy work, which suggested it had been ‘seen’. Norina’s therapist spoke about the impact of her mother being Thai: ‘I remember sometimes in discussion, she’d go ‘oh it was a very different culture that your mum was brought up’ and, yeah, she did acknowledge it sometimes actually. Because I remember her bringing up comments and things like that, that did acknowledge it, you know – but not very often.’

Having said that she was not sure if her therapist saw her racial mix, Kim admitted that ‘we spoke about the fact that I’m mixed race on a couple of occasions... She seemed to understand something about the complexity around how I see myself but I felt that she had read the literature and assumed that my experience would be the same, I felt missed by her I guess and that contributes to feelings of hopelessness.’

So even though Kim’s therapist made some attempt to acknowledge her racial mix, it seems to have been done in a way that did not suggest her therapist really empathized or understood as her focus seemed to have been on the theoretical experience.

Angela had had a positive experience of her racial mix being seen in her therapy as the ‘racial thread is very much picked up and goes through our work’ and both she and her therapist raised it in the room. This is ‘because I feel she knows so much about the tensions – the racial tensions in my world, she’ll be fine about bringing it up. She often brings it up and I feel fine about bringing it up. I’ve never felt like ‘ooh I

best not say that’ – I’ve always felt absolutely fine about saying something that could be, you know, quite, you know, controversial.’’

Kim was the only participant who spoke about how her looks had been seen as attractive which was a positive things for her. She recalls that ‘when I was in Thailand I was always being told I was pretty and... because it was quite fashionable over there to be sort of mixed race – so anything to do with my appearance I’ve My own experience was that my first therapist would often say ‘‘Oh I suppose that’s the Chinese part of your father or that’s the Chinese influence in your family’ and he’d say things like that which I don’t feel any other therapist had been – the word brave comes to mind.’ For some reason I felt it had taken courage to be explicit and I knew that my therapist taught in Japan and so I felt he had more experience of cultures that were not his own. Although he spoke explicitly about my being mixed race, I also felt that he would ‘take everything and hold it very subtly because he never really said that’s what he was doing explicitly’. This contrasted with my second therapist who did not say anything explicitly about my racial experiences: ‘Maybe I need someone to explicitly say something, or have needed? Yeah, I think there is, because I could guess that she got it but I don’t know (R: Hhmmm) so it’s nice to have that verbal acknowledgment, I think – that’s hopeful for me as well.’ This sentiment was echoed by Kim and Norina who both said it would have been ‘helpful’ to speak about their mixed race experience with their therapists.

I also spoke more generally of the relief I had felt when people see me fully even if they did not know much about the cultures from which I come:

‘...even people saying ‘I don’t know anything about your culture’ but the fact that they might know, that they might acknowledge it exists brings like a (sigh), because I don’t have to pretend so much any more if you’re seeing that in me, then you don’t have to pretend, I don’t have to pretend. Thank god for that. Again it’s like dropping that weight.’

In referring to ‘that weight’ I was making the link between being seen and the lightness that is often felt when I do not have to try and fit in – a lightness that is echoed by earlier examples of lightness related to hope.

never particularly felt like insecure or upset about it.’

Ironically, being seen was not always recalled as being a positive experience.

Having mentioned elsewhere in her interview the importance of feeling safe, Angela recalled the lack of safety she had experienced when she was made to feel very different as a child:

‘...people would chase me down the street – I was very unusual to them and they had never seen anything like me – and that was really very terrifying. Really terrifying. Um, and it happened, you know I used to go back quite a lot and it happened a lot. Happened all the time actually. Even when I went back when I was 18, I was chased, well I wasn’t chased but I was in a su-, you know, a shopping mall and these young boys were really fascinated and they just sort of followed me up and down the escalator and it felt very very scary.’

The fear was exacerbated by Angela feeling like her mother did not see or understand her experience – telling her ‘just ignore it’. This made her feel hopeless and full of ‘despair’. There was also a sexual element to Angela’s experience when she recalls old men in Malaysia being ‘lecherous’ when she was young which felt

‘dangerous’ to her. She remembered: ‘these horrible old Chinese men were seeing me – and I think being seen by my parents would have been safe and being seen by these other people who were strangers to me was unsafe – and so I think it’s about feeling... it’s about safety.’ Because neither of her siblings elicited this reaction, she said she ‘felt very very sort of, very lost, very like I couldn’t turn to anyone’ which

‘was very very shaming’. The repetition of ‘very’ illustrated the depth of the impact on Angela.

Lara was the only other participant who raised the issue of the way in which Asian women are sometimes stereotyped: ‘A part of me gets irritated and annoyed when I’m stereotyped or seen in a stereotypical way of how Asian women are perceived.

For example, being meek, submissive or subservient.’ This misconception has led her to be firmer with people when ‘negotiating deals, contracts’ as she feels she has to prove that the stereotype is incorrect.