One day last December I was shopping at Toronto’s Kensington Market and saw a car with a sticker of the Danish flag on the back. As I stopped to look more closely, a young mulatto girl came up to me and asked, “Can I help you?â€
Curious to know what her connection to Denmark might be, I said, “I noticed you have a sticker of the Danish flag on the back of your car.â€
“My mom’s Danish,†she replied.
“Oh, I’m of Norwegian descent. Our flag is just like yours except that it has a blue cross.†(Denmark’s flag is red with a white cross, Norway’s red with a blue cross outlined in white.)
Just then an older White woman who had apparently been listening to the conversation walked over, smiled, and started talking to me in what must have been Danish (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are so similar they’re often called the dialects of the Scandinavian language). I apologized and told her I didn’t speak Norwegian.
I wished a Merry Christmas to the mother and daughter, and we parted ways. I felt somewhat ashamed of myself for automatically presuming that the girl was NOT Danish. After all, thanks to some Italian and Irish ancestry I’m hardly the typical blond-haired blue-eyed Scandinavian. But as I pondered the matter further, I realized there were a number of mixed-race Scandinavians in my midst. A children’s group to which I once brought my daughter included a small and very pretty mulatto girl with a Swedish mother. My best friend on a summer exchange program to Quebec was a young woman whose mother was from Sweden and father from Egypt (for the purpose of this essay, I’ll go by the Canadian government’s current classification of Arabs as non-White, even if some of them are physically indistinguishable from Greeks or Southern Italians). My family is no stranger to interracial relationships either. A cousin of mine married a Black American man and has two biracial sons. My own daughter is part Native American on her Nicaraguan father’s side, though like most Latin Americans he has Spanish ancestry as well.
Scandinavia boasts several well-known individuals of mixed heritage in its ranks. Among them are singer Neneh Cherry (Swedish mother, African father), Kersti Bowser (a Black-Swedish model who joked she went to tanning salons to “keep her Swedish side in checkâ€); and Rikke Roenholt (Danish mother, Ghanaian father), a runner who will be representing Denmark in the 2008 Olympics. Famous White Scandinavians who have been involved in interracial unions include Icelandic singer Bjork (had a relationship with a Black man named Goldie which caused an anti-miscegenation fan of hers to commit suicide on videotape), Swedish actress May Britt (wife of musician Sammy Davis Jr.), Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren (ex-lover of Grace Jones), and Denmark’s Prince Joachim (formerly married to a woman of Austrian and Chinese descent).
Any discussion on mixed-race Scandinavians would be incomplete without a mention of Greenland. An overseas territory of Denmark, Greenland was colonized by that nation in the 1700s. Most Greenlanders are of mixed Danish and Inuit descent. Recent genetic studies have shown that as with Latin America, Greenland’s present population resulted from unions of European men with native women. However, while colonization in Latin America led to an almost complete Westernization of that region (most Latin American mestizos, like my daughter’s father, speak Spanish as their first language and don’t identify at all as Indian), Greenlanders have kept much more of their original culture. For example, Greenlandic, an Inuit language, is the mother tongue of most Greenlanders, though many know Danish too. On the other hand, the bulk of Greenland’s population belongs to the Lutheran Church, as does Denmark’s.
At an individual level, the degree to which mixed-race Scandinavians retain their culture varies. My above-mentioned friend in Quebec, for instance, spent long periods of time as a child in Sweden and spoke fluent Swedish. In contrast, my grandmother, whose family came from Norway, married a non-Scandinavian man and didn’t teach Norwegian to my mother, so I am unfortunately unable to pass the language on to my daughter and any other children I may have in future.
One “marker†of Scandinavian heritage is Lutheranism, even if not all Scandinavians are Lutheran and many of those who are are not particularly religious. Here again, families differ. Though her father was Muslim, my Swedish-Egyptian friend was raised Lutheran. However, a Finnish-Canadian colleague married to a Filipino woman was bringing up his children in his wife’s Catholic faith. I myself have had my daughter baptized in the Lutheran Church. While the principal reason for doing so is to share my personal faith with her, an added bonus is the “link†it provides to her Scandinavian ancestors.
On my kitchen wall is a picture of a girl in traditional Norwegian dress. My mother remarked that she might make a similar costume so that my daughter could be a “little Norwegian girl†for Halloween.
“But she’s already a little Norwegian girl!†I protested.
“With those big brown eyes [courtesy of her father]?†my mom responded, and we both laughed. Speaking of whom, here is the most recent picture of my “little Norwegian girl.â€
Now I would like to include an interview with a real-life mixed-race Scandinavian – writer Heidi Durrow, author of the book Light-skinned-ed Girl. Check out her website at www.heidiwdurrow.com – and read her answers to my questions.
Q: From what I understand, your mother is Danish and your father African-American. How and where did your parents meet?
A: My parents (my mother is from Herning, Denmark and my father was originally from Texas) met on an American Air Force base in Germany. My mom was working as a nanny to an American family – she wanted to practice her English while she earned some money to go back to school.
Q: Where were you born?
A: I was born in Seattle, WA at the Swedish Hospital . Both my brothers (one older and one younger) were born in Herning. I am jealous of this to this day – but tease them that they cannot ever be President of the US because they were born on foreign soil. Silly, right?
Q: Do you speak Danish fluently? If so, is it your first language (meaning the first language you learned as a child)?
A: Yes, I would say I’m fluent in Danish – though each time I’ve gone back as an adult I hear more of an accent developing –an unintelligible one at that—a strange mixture of American and ???? Also, my language is kind of dated and I sound like my mother from forty years ago – I haven’t updated my slang-and I haven’t updated my accent to go with the Copenhageners –but they are kind to me when I go and don’t make fun of me –heee hee.
Q: Have you spent long periods of time in Denmark?
A: As a child we spent long summers and holidays there. Recently, I received a grant from the American Scandinavian Foundation to do research for a book I’m writing. I spent a month in Copenhagen in a little apartment I rented. I spent time at the libraries and doing interviews and also with my family. It was an amazing experience to be part of Danish life for so long as an adult on my own terms.
Q: Would you say that when growing up your father’s or your mother’s background had the greatest influence in your home?
A: My mother’s background was the most important. We spoke only Danish with my mother until I was about 11 or 12. When my dad would come home from work, we would speak English around him but if he wasn’t in the room it was Danish again. We ate Danish food, celebrated holidays the Danish way – and I think were raised with a Danish sensibility – the bad part: Janteloven – but also something more intangible that I think people here would say is European but to me seems specifically Danish.
Q: Were you raised in the Church of Denmark (the Lutheran Church, that is)?
A: I was christened Lutheran, but did not have a confirmation. It was a great wish to have one as a child, but by the time I was 14, we were in the US and it would be another several years before we could AFFORD for me to travel to Denmark again.
Q: How do you identify ethnically now?
A: My ethnic identification has gone through many changes. For the last long while, I have embraced saying that I am biracial and bicultural – African-American and Danish. I think this specificity annoys some people – some who think, get over it you’re black since you don’t look white and also those who think: but you’re American and that whole Danish thing is just quaint. I am tired of thinking what they are thinking and just say what is the truth now.
Q: Do you find that racism is widespread in Denmark? Have you ever encountered racism in that country?
A: I feel lucky not have experienced racism in Denmark. I was either too ignorant to recognize it or I have been shielded from it. That is not to say that I haven’t been privy to people making comments about me. Comments like “there are more and more of THOSE people coming†– an overhead remark when I had lunch with a cousin – I assume they thought I was Arab? Turkish? A foreigner who was now living in Denmark? There is a lot of discrimination against them. It’s disturbing. My brothers have experienced racism, I think – but those are their own stories. I think ignorance about racial difference is widespread in Denmark, unfortunately. It’s a small land and for a long time they haven’t had contact with “others†– but I think it is changing. There are more and more mixed-race Danes who are in the media and I think that makes it all less strange.
Q: In the past few years the Danish government made news because it tightened its immigration laws, making it more difficult to obtain political asylum and bring foreign-born spouses to that country. As a person of part non-European ancestry, what did you think of these new laws?
A: The new anti-immigrant laws are disturbing and not at all Danish – Danes have always been and I believe will again be free-spirited and forward-thinking in regards to race. That’s my belief.
Thanks for the thought provoking article.
I wonder just how many of us are truly “racially pure” if the truth were know? My mom took an interest in geneology as a retirement project and she found all sorts of interesting ancestors on both sides of the family but it kind of destroyed the old family joke about being half-Scottish, half-Irish and half-crazy… thereby larger than life!
Thank you for the compliment, Mac. That’s a kind of hard question to answer, though, because many people who are in reality mixed race either don’t know about it or deny it. For example, in Latin America many people (including my daughter’s father) are actually mixed European/Native Indian but identify as White, not only because being White is a matter of social privilege but also because culturally most Latin Americans are almost completely Westernized. On the other hand, many Blacks in the United States may actually have White ancestry but identify as African-American because they feel a sense of belonging to that community.
So the sense of identity & belonging to an apparent cultural group is more important than the reality of genetic heritage, at least on a social level.
There may have been a time when being white represented social privilege but I’m in Vancouver where white is very close to being a minority but close isn’t enough…
According to the rules of Political Correctness, whites are the only group which could possibly be racist so rather than being an advantage to be identified as white, it represents a significant disadvantage unless one is lucky enough to be homosexual or to have some means of escaping the stigma of being a WASP.
Between my own mixed heritage and my wife’s completely different mixed heritage, I think it’s safe to say my kids are Heinz 57 but healthy, happy and too smart for their own good. Racially, they appear to be Caucasian but that can’t be helped, I suppose…
I added faux tags to indicate I had tongue in cheek about the middle two paragraphs but they didn’t come through…
A friend of mine was born of what was at the time a mixed marriage in Quebec – Francophone mother, Anglophone father. Apparently his maternal grandmother made sure that he was raised Catholic (he himself is now “lapsed”). So the definition of “mixed” can vary according to time and place.
There’s mixed and then there’s mixed! We used to call a Protestant marrying a Catholic a mixed marriage in the Maritimes where I was raised. They could have lived next door to each other all their lives but the religious difference was enough to call it mixed. Silly, really.
My kids take mixed to a bit of an extreme. My side is about 90% Scottish/Irish mix plus native and Belgian (not all of the voyageurs were French). My wife’s family is a Hungarian mix of Jewish, Roma and who knows what else. That part of eastern Europe gets pretty confusing when you try to trace bloodlines… especially since WW1.
As I suggested in my first post, I expect the vast majority of us would be surprised at just how diverse our family tree is if the truth were known…
Indeed, Mac and Emilia. My “second mother” still speaks of the strife she faced when entering her mixed marriage. She is from Poland and her husband’s background was all the way over in Scotland. Seems like nothing today, but it was a big deal in the 70’s. I’m the product of a once-forbidden marriage myself, actually. At one point, upper class Caribbeans didn’t much care for working-class Canadians (probably is still that way but of course the families came around).
Mac, how did you discover your ancestor was Belgian rather than French? A very interesting story.
Also, Cynapse, exactly what is your racial background? I know you said you have African, East Indian and Portuguese ancestors, but in which percentage and on what side?
I had a long explanation here but decided to remove it. Between both lines there are representations of the following (in assumed order from most dominant to least):
West African
East Indian
Northern European (Scottish, Dutch)
Amerindian
Southern European (Portuguese)
See your email for better details.
Emilia Liz, my mother got interested in genealogy about 15 years ago while helping her favorite granddaughter with a school project. She started researching our family (naturally) which she’s traced back to Clanranald in Scotland, over a thousand years in some cases.
One of the characters who showed up in the family tree was Balthazar Muttart who was either Belgian or Alsatian (depending . He came to Louisbourg under contract with the French but ended up fighting for the English (under General Wolf) at the Plains of Abraham before settling back in the Maritimes.
Mom also found native ancestors in both her family and my father’s family… enough so that my parents and my sisters all have food fishing licences. Apparently, if we were “adopted” we could get status but I’m not really interested in playing that game.
Oops! Never proof-read your own material… That should say “Belgian or Alsatian (depending on the source)”
To Mac, very interesting family history. About your previous comment about Catholics and Protestants being divided in the Maritimes, a friend from Nova Scotia who is Scottish Catholic told me in his day (which was not so long ago, ’50s and ’60s) Catholics would not sell houses to non-Catholics, let alone marry them. He told me of an older uncle of his who in his youth was a heavy drinker but then “got religion” later in life (became a devout Catholic). Anyway, once there was a fire in the town in the Catholic area but didn’t do much damage there. The uncle said that the Blessed Virgin (the Virgin Mary) had made the fire go into the Protestant area. So not much solidarity between the two groups there! I’m sure it has changed now, however.
I just thought I would throw myself in the mix of “mixed” people. I was adopted from a Native Canadian family into a Danish family. I lived in Denmark as a child and then moved back to Canada. I speak Danish and we go back to Denmark every few years to visit. I am totally not your typical looking Dane, no one ever expects me to blurt out in Danish when they see me. People who don’t know me are always surprised, ” Oh you don’t look Danish” which is very tiring after 36 years of that. I am proud of my Native Saulteaux and my Danish, I would have liked to learn a bit more of my Native side though, but I can’t complain about growing up Danish, I will always be Danish and Canadian, we still have all the traditions and the food, and what we don’t have in Canada we stock up on when we go back to visit Denmark. It has never been a huge issue until the last few years when I found out that some “family” here in Canada appeared to have issues of their own, which in turn became mine, about the whole adoption and race issue. But them aside, I know how lucky I was to have the best Mor, Mormor og Morfar, og Farmor og Farfar in the world. I have taught my son both sides of his heritage, so he gets the best of both.
Thank you, Suzanne, for your comments. I am happy you felt at home in a Danish family. I think as more people like you, or my daughter, emerge, maybe the idea that all Scandinavians are blond-haired and blue-eyed will go by the wayside.
By the way, I made a wonderful Danish dessert called Veiled Farm Girls with cream, apple sauce, and bread crumbs. It’s in a great Scandinavian cookbook called Kitchens of Light. It has a number of good recipes, so you should check it out.
Hey Mac, Balthazar Muttart is an ancestor of mine too! It’s been a while since I heard the story, but evidently his daughter married a PEI Mc(or Mac)Williams. Cheers, cuz!
Joe McWilliams
Alberta, Canada
Cheers back at cha, cuz!
I am an ex U.S Air Force veteran. During my time in Germany, I visited Copenhagen often. During one of my visits, I began a relationship with a girl. This was many years ago and I often wonder if I fathered a child during that time. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can find out if I did?
If you know which city she lives in, you could look in their phone book under her last name and try calling.
Thanks, Emelia! That’s a great idea. Now, I just have to find a phone book from Copenhagen. I don’t know if she is still living there, but it’s a start. There maybe members of her family still living there and maybe one of them could help me locate her. Thanks again.
Sorry for mispelling your name, Emilia!
Don’t worry! I’ve seen Emilia spelled “Emelia,” “Amelia” and “Emiliya” (from Eastern Europe).