Who are you? Give us an overview of your ethnicity/heritage?
My name is Maya, pronounced My-ya. I am a 23-year-old gay woman. I am a retail manager with a major love for makeup, fashion, and all types of music. I was born in Australia and raised by my single caucasian mother who is of Australian descent. My father who I did not have much to do with growing up is of Jamaican descent, making me proudly half afro-Caribbean.
How did you come to Australia or were you born in Australia? Please share your experiences.
I spent the first 21 years of my life living in a town called Cockatoo, up in the Dandenong ranges. This is a predominately white country town and back then I was probably 1 out of 5 kids in my school that wasn’t white Australian. Despite the fact, I always had an awesome group of friends.
My heritage and the fact I was brown skinned with a big head of curls resulted in a lot of racial slurs throughout my school years. I remember the first time I experienced racism, I was in prep. A girl in my class would chase me at recess chanting, “You’re an aboriginal, you’re an aboriginal!”. She was relentless and it got to the point where I went home to my mum and asked her, “Mum, am I an aboriginal?”. It’s apparent to me looking back now that because we were in such a sheltered secluded area of Victoria, this young girl wasn’t aware of any other races that weren’t Indigenous Australians.
At 17 years old, I even had a senior citizen yell derogatory terms at me as I passed him on the street. Having these experiences really ingrained a sense of defensiveness and I feel it also resulted in me not exploring my sexuality for a long time as I didn’t want to feel like an outcast.
Name one thing you really passionate about and why?
I am extremely passionate about equality for all races, genders, sexual orientations and all mankind. I think knowing what it feels like to be a minority is where this passion stems from.
Describe a few things you find fascinating about Australia’s multicultural society
Growing up I didn’t realise how many people there were out there that were like me or had similar experiences to what I had. Specifically, people of mixed backgrounds – everyone has a different story to tell.
I enjoy walking around Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs where I live and hearing people speak different languages, wearing different types of cultural attire and co-existing happily as one community. That is one of the things I love about multi-cultural Australia.
What kind of experiences have you had in relating with people whose backgrounds differ from your own?
As a mixed-race woman, I have found it difficult at times to connect with people and find my place in society as you can often feel like an outcast on either side of your background. In saying that, meeting people from all different cultures and walks of life can be incredibly comforting and heart-warming, especially when you get to share your experiences.
What did you learn from this experience?
Some of these experiences taught me that although we have slowly made progress we have a long way to go as a country when it comes to being educated about accepting other cultures. There is a certain normality in being a bigot in this social climate, especially when the media channels are using racial profiling to put fear into the community.
What does a commitment to diversity/multiculturalism mean to you?
It’s all about LOVE! But to be able to love and care for each other we need to be having important conversations and calling out offensive or ignorant speech. I believe if you don’t speak up when people try to bring down anyone for who they are culturally, then you are contributing.
Follow Maya @ghett0.fab
