OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Oct 9th 2011, 10:30 pm
#9946
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Maybe I can add to this perspective, maybe not...but this has been my real life experiences and the experiences of my children when young. It mattered not that my children were 1/2 English, 1/2 Mexican-American. Their last name was Hernandez and they all had darker skin, brown/black hair, brown eyes and that is what people heard and saw. There were times at school (in the white suburb then of Chicago)..they were called 'spic', 'taco-bender' and 'beaner'...the same thing happened in Texas. And mattered not that most people knew that I, the very white woman, was their mother. When my now adult children tell people they are 1/2 English...most people don't believe them! Again, it's what the eye sees and the last name heard.
Another case in point. When I was Christine Hernandez and working for a temp agency....I cannot begin to tell you the times it was said to me..."You're not what we expected" (this was back in the 60's and 70's). It was most clear that 'they' were expecting, a dark-skinned, brown-eyed, Mexican. And then it would start..."I love tacos"!!, etc.
And I tell you no lie on this one...on one job a woman, just a bit older than I, asked me if Mexican men have sex the same as White men!!!!!!
This is just the tip of the iceberg about what I have heard over the many years. The worst being, when in conversations, people not knowing my last name...the most awful things people would say about 'spics' and 'greasers'. I'd let these people carry on for awhile...then I would say, "You do know my last name is Hernandez and I'm married to a Mexican man and my children are 1/2 Mexican". You could hear a pin drop...silence. Then I would hear..."O! but we weren't talking about your husband and children...just the 'others'". 
On the other hand my Mexican-American sis-in-law was married to a guy of Swedish descent (blonde and blue-eyed)...last name Jensen. They had 4 children. We were discussing discrimination...I told of my children's and mine experiences, she said her children had not encountered this..not in Iowa or in Texas. I can only deduce it was because their last name was Jensen.
Personally, I think Prez Obama is confused about his identity...his blackness, with his whiteness. Still he is an American, who I'm sure is quite educated on the History of being black in America. He surely is the only one who knows how he feels about his 'identity' or what he identifies with, which is his personal right. All any of the rest of us (white people) can do is speculate...and surely have no experience of being black in America. America has always been mired in racism/discrimination, since it's inception. I sincerely doubt that's going away, anytime soon.
You're right, America has always been mired in racism....I feel the UK is a less racist society but of course that's easy to say, I don't know if black or Asian etc people who have experienced both societies would agree. I do remember meeting a black British girl about 25 years ago in New York who told me she thought the US was, in her experience, much more racist than the UK.
Of course it comes down to the history, slavery, etc....all very sad. We can be proud that when Sammy Davis Junior went to the UK with his white Swedish model wife (who towered over him!), he said it was so refreshing that journalists didn't keep going on and on about the race thing and just seemed to take it for granted... whereas it was very different in the States. And of course the experience of black GIs in the UK during world war II was incredibly liberating and eye-opening for them, or so I gather.
There's been plenty of racism in the Uk of course but perhaps less pervasive and less brutal...?
Tina
Oct 9th 2011, 10:45 pm
#9947
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I think Fish is right!! What have you got to lose by trying to find her even if it's just to share nice memories.
And who knows she could be divorced or widowed and lonely.
Just look at Curleytops now married and living in Kent to a guy she went to school with and hadn't seen for years and my friend living over here in Wigan with a man she was engaged to over 30 years ago and they met again on the Friends Reunited website.
The world is getting smaller..............
Edited to add
Wow Rodney I just saw that she was The Love Of Your Life...............
And who knows she could be divorced or widowed and lonely.
Just look at Curleytops now married and living in Kent to a guy she went to school with and hadn't seen for years and my friend living over here in Wigan with a man she was engaged to over 30 years ago and they met again on the Friends Reunited website.
The world is getting smaller..............
Edited to add
Wow Rodney I just saw that she was The Love Of Your Life...............
Oct 9th 2011, 10:46 pm
#9948
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Sally,
I do not agree with everything you saY all the time, but on this subject of mixed race and especially if the father was black, I totally relate to every word you type here, you have completely nailed it!!!! thank you Sally for finding the words to describe what the black person goes through in America,
even if he or she is only a third or even a quarter black, ---- people can see the features and then the prejudice towards that person is absolutely no different whatsoever to that of a full blooded black African American ---- if indeed one exsists any more,
Hally Berry and all the other stars and personalities that are black but mixed blood including President Obama I have always regarded him as black although I knew he had a white mother, his wife is black and so are there two lovely girls,
A few months after I came home Obama was on TV and I was telling my Mum how wonderful it was to see all the black people in America unite and they were so happy and proud that for the very first time in history America has a black president, well there he was on TV ----- and my Mum said well he's not really black is he, he has a white mother and his skin is very light so you can imagine It really is useless to try and explain the way everyone sees him in America --- as black, so I always just shut my big mouth cause the more I talk the more I loose the battle,
Rodney.
I do not agree with everything you saY all the time, but on this subject of mixed race and especially if the father was black, I totally relate to every word you type here, you have completely nailed it!!!! thank you Sally for finding the words to describe what the black person goes through in America,
even if he or she is only a third or even a quarter black, ---- people can see the features and then the prejudice towards that person is absolutely no different whatsoever to that of a full blooded black African American ---- if indeed one exsists any more,
Hally Berry and all the other stars and personalities that are black but mixed blood including President Obama I have always regarded him as black although I knew he had a white mother, his wife is black and so are there two lovely girls,
A few months after I came home Obama was on TV and I was telling my Mum how wonderful it was to see all the black people in America unite and they were so happy and proud that for the very first time in history America has a black president, well there he was on TV ----- and my Mum said well he's not really black is he, he has a white mother and his skin is very light
so you can imagine It really is useless to try and explain the way everyone sees him in America --- as black, so I always just shut my big mouth cause the more I talk the more I loose the battle,Rodney.
I'm not disagreeing with Sally about the way even people just partly black are considered black in the US and treated as such by those who are prejudiced...I absolutely agree with this, and it is terrible, and I believe that by speaking about mixed race people as mixed race, which they are--or "half black, half white," or whatever phrase one prefers-- we can go some way to fighting against this racism and prejudice!
If people who spring from the union of black and white are willing to talk about it, and indeed proudly claim it, it goes some way towards showing that "black" and "white" are not so different, not alien from each other, not "other"--they marry and have children and in the end are just people! It should be just matter-of-fact and normal to say, "Yes, my dad's white and my mum's black" (or vice versa), "so I'm a mixture."
Just as Chris Winter's reply to people who were insulting hispanics, saying actually I am married to a Mexican and my children are half -Mexican, showed them that people do intermarry, the mexicans are not "other," and etc etc.
But I am outside these situations so of course I do not really know what it's like to be inside them. I do know that if my husband were black and we had children together, I wouldn't like them to call themselves "black," and I bet he wouldn't like them to call themselves "white".
Anyone read the fascinating story in one of the UK magazines a week or two ago about a family where there was a set of fraternal twins with the same parents--black father and white mother--where one twin looked "black" and the other looked "white" ? Because the black father had white blood in his heritage....The prejudices the kids underwent were interesting--and it was the whiter-looking of the twins who suffered more from racism in school...
Tina
Oct 9th 2011, 10:50 pm
#9949
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
A bit warmer today here in Gloucestershire. A glimmer of sunshine in the morning, and the wind has died down!
It's lovely to be here...English newspapers, magazines, books are what I especially enjoy about being here. The light, the sky, the green....
Tina
It's lovely to be here...English newspapers, magazines, books are what I especially enjoy about being here. The light, the sky, the green....
Tina
Oct 9th 2011, 10:58 pm
#9950
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I would love to find her, but I do not know where to start, I do know her parents address in Windang, and they may be still alive but it would be a long shot if I wrote a letter to them, but maybe I can do it, of course tone it down and just explain that after all these years I would just like to contact her to find out how she's getting on or something like that,
Oct 9th 2011, 11:00 pm
#9951
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I would love to find her, but I do not know where to start, I do know her parents address in Windang, and they may be still alive but it would be a long shot if I wrote a letter to them, but maybe I can do it, of course tone it down and just explain that after all these years I would just like to contact her to find out how she's getting on or something like that,
http://www.peoplesearch.com.au/
Oct 9th 2011, 11:11 pm
#9952
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I love it here, Tina loves it here, so does easterndawn/pegie ---- where are you? and Barb would love it here too if she could get a Job soon always remember ---- if your wanting to come back home, --- no time is ever the right time ---- just do it if your circumstances permit
Oct 9th 2011, 11:23 pm
#9953
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Name change of the forum
MOVING BACK TO COLORFUL UK - Part II
MOVING BACK TO COLORFUL UK - Part II
Oct 9th 2011, 11:24 pm
#9954
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
You could start online with an Australian people finder... check her parents names and then her maiden name to see if anything comes up, particularly in that area of Australia.
http://www.peoplesearch.com.au/
http://www.peoplesearch.com.au/
Well I will see you all in three days, I need a break
and my Mum is leaving same day tomorrow on the coach with her club to Devon for five days 
Rodney.
Oct 9th 2011, 11:26 pm
#9955
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
About the black GI's...don't know how liberating that was. My mother would tell me that during the war, that was the first time she saw a black man/person, ever. Mom said she found them 'curious'. And how her mother (my nan), would tell my mom and her sisters, they better not ever date one. Then again my nan was, I imagine, a prejudiced person, often quoted as saying..."Beware the yellow race".
My own mother was quite prejudiced against black and Asian. Was a hoot when my mother acquired Chinese neighbors here in Chicago, a few years before she passed away. Unbelievable the stuff she would come up with to justify her unjustifiable hatred.On a lighter note....my eldest daughter today was asking me about "British Citizenship by Descent"...Hoo-ray!!
At least one is thinking about it. Conversation including a maybe on her part, a visit to England in the near future with me (part of my 'bucket list' LOL!). Made me so happy just to hear one of my children also contemplating. Chris
Oct 9th 2011, 11:37 pm
#9956
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Thanks for your response Tina. Is much easier for me talk about this now...then I would have been able to 30 or 40 years ago.
About the black GI's...don't know how liberating that was. My mother would tell me that during the war, that was the first time she saw a black man/person, ever. Mom said she found them 'curious'. And how her mother (my nan), would tell my mom and her sisters, they better not ever date one. Then again my nan was, I imagine, a prejudiced person, often quoted as saying..."Beware the yellow race". My own mother was quite prejudiced against black and Asian. Was a hoot when my mother acquired Chinese neighbors here in Chicago, a few years before she passed away. Unbelievable the stuff she would come up with to justify her unjustifiable hatred.
On a lighter note....my eldest daughter today was asking me about "British Citizenship by Descent"...Hoo-ray!! At least one is thinking about it. Conversation including a maybe on her part, a visit to England in the near future with me (part of my 'bucket list' LOL!). Made me so happy just to hear one of my children also contemplating.
Chris
About the black GI's...don't know how liberating that was. My mother would tell me that during the war, that was the first time she saw a black man/person, ever. Mom said she found them 'curious'. And how her mother (my nan), would tell my mom and her sisters, they better not ever date one. Then again my nan was, I imagine, a prejudiced person, often quoted as saying..."Beware the yellow race".
My own mother was quite prejudiced against black and Asian. Was a hoot when my mother acquired Chinese neighbors here in Chicago, a few years before she passed away. Unbelievable the stuff she would come up with to justify her unjustifiable hatred.On a lighter note....my eldest daughter today was asking me about "British Citizenship by Descent"...Hoo-ray!!
At least one is thinking about it. Conversation including a maybe on her part, a visit to England in the near future with me (part of my 'bucket list' LOL!). Made me so happy just to hear one of my children also contemplating. Chris
Also thanks so much for sharing with us your experience with your Mexican/American Husband, and the discrimination and attitudes and darn right prejudice that you both had to endure,
Take care,
Rodney.
Oct 9th 2011, 11:50 pm
#9957
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I've been reading all your stories and just wanted to say 'thanks' for sharing them. I think all the people who were in a mixed race family really did 'blaze the trail' for others coming after them. Chriswinter and others; so brave! I know of couples in the USA who still struggle with second looks and rude comments.
Although I'm only forty I think this thread has such interesting and kind people on it. My heart also aches for Jasper and his Australian girlfriend...I bet she thinks about him often...
Although I'm only forty I think this thread has such interesting and kind people on it. My heart also aches for Jasper and his Australian girlfriend...I bet she thinks about him often...
Oct 9th 2011, 11:56 pm
#9958
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
I read an article about the prices of homes with communting distance of London and how these area homes are more expensive because of demand I thought you would like to see where they are. Personally I would avoid these areas. Mainly because of house prices.
http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/ar...utertowns.html
http://moove2london.co.uk/wordpress/...s-commute-lond
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/h...ml/region9.stm
http://www.distance-calculator.co.uk...reat%20Britain
This is a link to place for retirement:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/...r-country.html
http://www.homesandproperty.co.uk/ar...utertowns.html
http://moove2london.co.uk/wordpress/...s-commute-lond
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/h...ml/region9.stm
http://www.distance-calculator.co.uk...reat%20Britain
This is a link to place for retirement:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/...r-country.html
Oct 10th 2011, 12:25 am
#9959
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Race and gender and nationality assimulation is very basic.A person will indentify more with a particular ethnicity based on acceptance.If president Obama is more comfortable saying publicly that he is African American, its because at the end of the day,African Americans share his similar experience, background, and tend to embrace him more unconditionally. Doesn't mean other ethnicity don't love and support him. Millions do.
There is a unwritten understanding among all ethnicities, that you give less conditional support to people of your own nationality and or ethnicity.There are people that would vote for a black,asian, or latino only if that canidate is viewed as being many times smarter than the white canidate. People often don't want to admit that fact,but nevertheless it is very true. Obviously, Obama cares about all ethnicities. I believe he fully undestand who and what he is. He just does not spend much time thinking about it. He has the belief that people should be evolve enough not to care about such things in 2011. I like to think I have learned more about myselve and other races after having dated a few African Americans.
There is a unwritten understanding among all ethnicities, that you give less conditional support to people of your own nationality and or ethnicity.There are people that would vote for a black,asian, or latino only if that canidate is viewed as being many times smarter than the white canidate. People often don't want to admit that fact,but nevertheless it is very true. Obviously, Obama cares about all ethnicities. I believe he fully undestand who and what he is. He just does not spend much time thinking about it. He has the belief that people should be evolve enough not to care about such things in 2011. I like to think I have learned more about myselve and other races after having dated a few African Americans.
:
Personally, I think Prez Obama is confused about his identity...his blackness, with his whiteness. Still he is an American, who I'm sure is quite educated on the History of being black in America. He surely is the only one who knows how he feels about his 'identity' or what he identifies with, which is his personal right. All any of the rest of us (white people) can do is speculate...and surely have no experience of being black in America. America has always been mired in racism/discrimination, since it's inception. I sincerely doubt that's going away, anytime soon.
Personally, I think Prez Obama is confused about his identity...his blackness, with his whiteness. Still he is an American, who I'm sure is quite educated on the History of being black in America. He surely is the only one who knows how he feels about his 'identity' or what he identifies with, which is his personal right. All any of the rest of us (white people) can do is speculate...and surely have no experience of being black in America. America has always been mired in racism/discrimination, since it's inception. I sincerely doubt that's going away, anytime soon.
Oct 10th 2011, 12:25 am
#9960
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Re: OVER 50's+ MOVING BACK TO THE UK - Part II
Thank you bandrui, I have bookmarked the site, and I will be looking in to this, but now Im afraid I have to go to bed cause its after midnight and I have to be up early in morning cause Im going on a nice train trip to Shropshire to visit one of our friends on the over 50's thread, can you guess who that gentleman is?
Well I will see you all in three days, I need a break and my Mum is leaving same day tomorrow on the coach with her club to Devon for five days
Rodney.
Well I will see you all in three days, I need a break
and my Mum is leaving same day tomorrow on the coach with her club to Devon for five days Rodney.
While the Mum's away, the boys will play. 