The importance of celebrating diversity

My name can be a bit of a give-away, and if your assumption was that I have a non-UK heritage you would be correct - but I do consider myself to be British, although not just British. Thankfully, I'm now rarely asked to provide my ‘Christian' name and people generally no longer ask me where I come from either. But as a child and younger adult, questions and assumptions such as these had the consequence of making me feel somehow ‘other' from the mainstream of society.

As a child, I often didn't feel like I really belonged and there were not many role models I could look up to who had a similar background to me - especially given that I am of dual heritage. When you don't see your identity out there, and people casually assume that you're not one of them, you start to seek identity elsewhere. For some that can lead to negative or destructive identities and this is something that concerns me as increasingly xenophobia appears to be more prevalent in popular media.