Julia #mixedmonday

Hi, I'm Jhulia (she/her). I live in Bristol and immigrated to the UK from Brazil to study a master's in Public Health and advance my career as a health researcher. I am the first person in my working-class family to go to university and study abroad, which has only been possible through my parent's efforts and government-funded scholarships. This allowed me to gain more agency in my life and dream + build a life that moves away from only surviving and towards finding joy in new experiences and places. I'm queer, neurodivergent, and my interests include poetry, yoga, crochet, plant-based cooking (+ animal liberation!), and political art. Throughout my life, I have been involved in community-centered projects (guided by the principles of popular education and intersectional feminism) and want to continue to dedicate my time and energy to anti-colonial alternatives toward the liberation of all oppressed people!

How would you describe your ethnicity?

I identify as an Afro-Brazilian/Black woman. I was born and grew up in a favela (which can be described as low-income area away from the centre) in Recife, Pernambuco (located in the Northeast of Brazil) in a working-class family. Both my parents are Brazilian, my mom is white and my dad is black. In my extended family, different people identify as either white, black, or mixed. While I don't know much about my family's ancestry, there seems to be some indigenous influence as well. Growing up I experienced racism disguised as 'compliments' which put me in the position of an 'other' while also denying my black identity. It was very common to hear comments that insisted that I wasn't "really black" and "maybe only indigenous", because of my "good" hair texture. This is very representative of the racial dynamics in Brazilian culture, co-existing with the fact that Brazil has the largest Afro-descendant population in the Americas and the second in the world.

Has your mixed-ness influenced your career in any way?

I'd say that it became even more important to me to reaffirm my identity as a Black woman the more I progressed in my career and found myself being the only non-white person in most spaces. I am in the field of health research and my interests are related to my experiences of racial, gender, and class discrimination. I am currently researching the under-representation of ethnic minorities in randomised controlled trials in the UK and hope to do a PhD to carry this out.

If you could describe your mixed identity in one word, what would it be?

Resistance - this word represents my mixed identity as I believe that it symbolises what being an Afro-Brazilian woman is in a society that results from a colonial project that thrived on the erasure and violence towards our indigenous and African people in order to conform to white European standards.

What is the best thing about being mixed heritage?

Building communities with other marginalised people and understanding that centering and finding joy in our own experiences is a powerful act.