DukeEngage participant Brandee Branche looks at the gaps that exist between perception and reality when it comes to migrants and their place in Irish society
I stepped onto the bus, travel pass in one hand and shoulder bag in the other, with a mindset ready for work. The morning had been going smoothly for me, when it was interrupted by a beeping noise from the ticket machine, rejecting my pass. I showed it to the driver, expecting him to waive me on as all other Dublin bus drivers typically did, but this time I faced a series of questions.
“How long have you been using this pass?” he asked. “Since Monday, just this past Monday,” I stumbled, being caught off-guard by the question. He chuckled with scepticism and proceeded to mark my pass with a date before returning the card. I began to walk towards the back when he asked me suddenly: “So where are you from?” He was curious about my accent, I assumed. So I responded: “America, North Carolina.”
At that his nature suddenly changed from scepticism to admiration. He proceeded excitedly: “You’re like those sisters – Venus and Serena! Do you watch tennis?”
What followed was an interesting, unexpected conversation on my way to work, as the driver asked me more about my stay in Dublin and recommended places I should visit, while discussing his life as an Irish native.
As I reflect on my stay in Dublin, for some reason that experience has remained in my memory. Perhaps it’s because within that 15-minute conversation is a whole bundle of questions, misunderstandings, blurred boundaries and confusion.
As I have spent my weeks in the city getting to grips with issues surrounding migrant and refugee communities, interculturalism, integration, healthcare and more, I believe my perspective on these topics as a black American woman is oddly unique, as I have struggled with, embraced and questioned the norms to which I’ve found myself having to adjust.
Within that brief situation on the bus, I picked up on several different things that have consistently occurred during my stay in Dublin. I have often been mistaken for a migrant, and though for some my American accent seems to convince that I am not, for others it’s not convincing enough. There have been so many times where I was asked where I am from by people of all races and ethnicities, then asked where my parents are from, and even my grandparents – all questions to which I could only give a dissatisfying answer to those burning with curiosity that no, I do not know where my African roots lie.
I thought about my experiences back home of being asked of where I am from, and my responses only including American states – there were never any further questions. Yet during this trip to Dublin, I was puzzled by the seeming dissatisfaction of those who could not tie me down to a non-western culture. I began to wonder how migrant communities who were no longer migrants but Irish citizens must feel. I thought about a young man I met from the Islamic Cultural Centre, whose roots were Libyan but who had been born in Ireland. I remember him telling me that although he lived here all his life, he felt as if he did not belong.
I’ve also noticed how quickly the demeanour of my inquisitors will change when they find out I’m not African but actually American. There is usually a more positive, friendly reaction to me when people believe that I am not ‘staying’.
One day towards the beginning of my visit, I had the chance to attend a World Refugee Day event in Dun Laoghaire, where I met a couple of the singers who had performed. Our conversation shifted to talking about racial issues in Dublin, and when I mentioned to the girls how odd and confused I felt about the changing reactions I experienced, they both responded: “Imagine you had to live here with that all the time.”
Something beyond race
I thought about how complex issues of interculturalism could be in Dublin; it was something beyond race. Those here who treated me differently when finding out my nationality were looking at something beyond my skin colour. Even that minor reference to ‘Venus and Serena’ struck me as significant, as I have found that women of colour in American are perceived quite differently around the world – Ireland included. Ask different communities about their perceptions of black American woman and the responses will vary anywhere from Michelle Obama to Rihanna. And why was I being compared to Venus and Serena when I clearly don’t look like a tennis player?
I started to figure it out when on a scavenger hunt with people from other divisions at my work placement. I remember my partner telling me he couldn’t believe I was American, based on the fact that I seemed “too chill” and not loud and crazy like the black woman he knew from television.
Part of the reason why I chose to focus on my perspective as a black American woman in Ireland is that my identity here transcends so many more boundaries than it ever has before. My race screams ‘migrant’ while my accent places me as ‘American’, and my demeanour confuses as I come here not as a celebrity nor a back-up dancer for some hip-hop video, but rather just an American university student.
As I explained it to one of my co-workers, this feeling of not belonging to a particular category, he seemed to be uncomfortable with my observations. He didn’t want to agree with me, yet his response in many ways reinforced what I have seen. He said:
“You have certain people that you do not want to talk to or hang around with. You don’t question their race, you question what things they do. It’s the same way [between native Irish and migrants]. It’s not race; it has nothing to do with being Chinese or black.
“The amazement comes because you don’t bring the fear and frustration that many of the Africans bring here because you were raised in a different environment. It’s all about how you were raised. Some Africans I avoid, not because they come from there, but more so because there is a clash of cultures. You think that they think you’re more like them; but the minute you start speaking they are confused because they’ve already set up in their mind how Africans behave.”
I was surprised, but at the same time not completely bewildered, by my co-worker’s statements. My experiences in Ireland have in many ways reflected the complexities that still exist here when it comes to opening up to difference in Dublin. I have really enjoyed my stay here, as it not only has opened up challenges around migration that have touched me personally, but has pointed to a whole new realm of possibility.
Brandee Branche is a student at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in Ireland as part of the DukeEngage programme.
