Far away, there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. (Louisa May Alcott)
My name's Natasha and I’m 14 years old and when I grow up I either want to be an extreme sports instructor, a marine biologist or a Charlie's Angel! People at school say I’m not a Muslim. I don't go to mosque and wear a headscarf and I’m not really that religious, so they think I call myself it just because my mum's Muslim. My dad's not because he's white. I consider myself Muslim because I’ve been brought up that way. I believe in the same things, so I eat halal meat – it's been killed in a different way. My English friends eat pig and non-halal food and I don’t. My mum's taught me to check for the vegetarian sign on the front of foods and if it's chicken or something, then to check it's halal, and to check for gelatine. My mum says I should eat halal food, but that she's not going to make me do anything that I’m not happy with, like go to mosque every evening or anything.
When I was about seven, my next door neighbour was Pakistani. She's moved away now. She was a year older than me and she used to go to mosque and she’d wear shalwar kameezes and I didn’t. I guess it did make me think like, ‘Why don't I do them things?’, but then I’ve just been brought up not really religious and we do things that are in my Pakistani culture but are also in English culture as well. When people see you and ask what race you are, they usually say, “Well, you’re obviously English because you’re not really dark skinned.” So you just say, “Pakistani” and they’re like, “Oh, she's half!” But if I had to ever write it down for a form or something, my mum would just say, “Write British Pakistani.” They were just showing me what they both are.