“You look exactly how I’d expect an English and Algerian person to look.” These were words spoken by a colleague that I’d waited my whole life to hear. That feeling of joy, acceptance and relief confirmed it: I was done with justifying my mixed heritage to people.

I’ve spent years feeling pressure to explain the way I look. My mum is white and my dad is from Algeria. Whenever I’ve brought up where my dad is from, I’ve heard the same seven words: “You don’t look like you’re from there.” As a teenager growing up in Newcastle in the 00s, the only way I knew how to respond to these words was to awkwardly agree with them. The person who made the comment would then walk away and carry on with their life, unaware that they had delivered a monumental blow to my sense of identity.

It’s only now, at 32, that I’m realising just how much those moments have stuck with me. Each ‘minor’ incident has stacked up to become a huge tower that overshadows an essential part of who I am.  

Why do those comments hit so hard? I think it’s because each time someone says I don’t look like I could have an Algerian parent, it hammers home a feeling of not being enough: that I didn’t inherit ‘enough’ of the other half. The conversation feels like a video game in which I need to earn back points to ‘make up’ for looking disappointingly British. My dad lives in Algeria and I have three half-brothers there – those facts seem to be worth a decent score. I don’t speak Arabic – that loses me points. All the while, someone is analysing my face and I’m left to wonder what I’m missing. What exactly are the features I’m lacking to conform to their idea of what I should look like? Is it darker hair, a more typically ‘Arab’ nose, browner skin or more eyeliner? Or is it another feature that contributes to the narrow and stereotypical idea of what it means to look Arab? 

There have been days when I’ve wished I had these features. Then there are days I feel so lucky to have naturally curly hair and to be able to easily tan to a golden brown. Sometimes, I wish my tan was permanent, which leads to more internal conflict when I know that people who have brown skin – people who look very much like my Algerian family – have so recently and historically been targets of racism because of it. Being identified as a white person is a privilege, especially in times like these.

When I’ve noticed someone blatantly sizing me up, I’ve heard my voice saying, “Well, my mum is really white.” Or I’ll find myself getting my phone out, feeling compelled to show someone a photo of my parents so that they can solve the mystery of how my dad can be North African and I can be white.  

There are times when I’ve felt guilty for opting for lighter balayage, asking myself if I should be choosing a hairstyle that makes me look more Middle Eastern instead. I’ll always remember a flight from London to Algiers: a man that my siblings had been chatting to made a point of telling me that he didn’t like my blonde hair. His issue wasn’t a preference for balayage – he didn’t agree with me dyeing it at all. 

It’s bizarre how much of my identity appears to be tied to my hair – I once joined a video call with a client I’d worked with for years, but I’d never seen in person or on screen, only to be told: “Oh, I thought you’d have long dark hair.” Neither dark nor light, my natural brown hair lies somewhere in the middle. Surely, I’m not only a black box dye away from acceptance? It can certainly feel that way on a surface level, but someone’s heritage cannot be boiled down to a few tell-tale features of what others perceive they should look like.

It seems to me that our mind upholds typical ideas of what someone from another country is ‘meant’ to look like. When that is challenged, we don’t have the social tools to respond. Well, I’m over it. I no longer want to spend time bracing for people to say something uncomfortable about how I look. I’m tired of apologising to strangers for how I don’t look. Women are always dodging or internalising criticism for our looks, and this is yet another circle to manage in my Venn diagram of female appearance: look less tired, look more mixed.

Listen, I get it; we can’t all get these responses right and we can’t all have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the myriad ways a person can look when gene pools are blended – even the best technology can’t mimic the biological creativity of making humans. But what continues to amaze me is how sure people are of the aesthetic they associate with Algeria, when this is not a well-travelled part of North Africa. The people I see in Algeria look so vastly different that they could be from several different countries. While much of the country will identify as Arab, there are both Black and white-skinned Amazighs (Berbers) who are indigenous to North Africa. In the Saharan south you might meet a Black Tuareg, while in the northern mountains, where my dad’s family originate, you could find a white Kabyle person with red hair and green eyes.  

Unlike neighbouring countries such as Morocco and Egypt, I can almost guarantee that the people I’m speaking to haven’t been on holiday to Algeria. I’m guessing they don’t happen to have an English Algerian friend either. Even I can only name one Algerian actor and people very rarely see the country in films or on TV shows. So, when you say I don’t look like I’m from there, what did you expect?  

“What did you expect?” is precisely what I’ve vowed to start responding with when I’m on the receiving end of “You don’t look like you’re from there” comments. The goal is to relieve myself of the duty of justifying 50% of my DNA to random people, and instead direct the question back at them. If we all paused to think about what we expected someone to look like, we might be gently nudged to consider what harmful assumptions we’re carrying around. Research shows that the human brain is constantly trying to categorise people to store information and better predict their actions. We’re biologically inclined to put people in boxes to make it easier to understand them. But we don’t all fit neatly in, especially mixed people. With a 61% increase in people identifying as ‘mixed/multiple ethnic groups’ between 2011 and 2021, this is the UK’s fastest-growing demographic. I’m hopeful our ability to navigate conversations around mixed ethnicity will grow with it.

At 32, I’m no longer justifying or making excuses for the way I look. I will no longer spend time asking others to believe me about my own identity when who I am is not up for debate, and it’s certainly more than skin deep. If I could send one message to people who are blessed with having mixed heritage, it would be to never apologise when you turn out to be more than someone expected because you are more than meets the eye.  

Images: Sophia Haddad