Twins with Different Skins: Race, Ethnicity and Family Lineage

‘Dad, which box do I tick?’ asked my brother when he reached the ethnic monitoring section of his first job application.

‘Which category best describes your ethnicity?’

It’s an easy question for many people, but one that’s never sat comfortably with me, because I tick a different box to my twin brother. 

Born in 1984 in northern England to a white mother a…