Gigi Hadid vows to teach her daughter about her different heritages

Gigi Hadid wants to teach her daughter about her heritages.

The 26-year-old model has nine-month-old daughter Khai with her boyfriend Zayn Malik, and as both she and Zayn are mixed race, Khai has several different cultural backgrounds in her family.

Gigi’s father is Palestinian and her mother is Dutch, while Zayn was born to a British-Pakistani father and an English mother, and Gigi has said she and the former One Direction star constantly discuss their rich heritage.

She said: “We think about it and talk about it a lot as partners and it’s something that’s really important to us, but it’s also something that we first experienced ourselves. Because both of our parents are their own heritage. We are that first generation of those mixed races, and then that comes with that first generational experience of being like, ‘Oh damn, I’m the bridge!’ That’s not something that my parents experienced or that they can really help me through. It’s something I’ve always thought about my whole life.”

And Gigi also spoke about her experience with her own cultural background, as she admitted she sometimes feels “too white” to properly discuss her Arab heritage.

She added: “In certain situations, I feel – or I’m made to feel – that I’m too white to stand up for part of my Arab heritage. You go through life trying to figure out where you fit in racially. Is what I am, or what I have, enough to do what I feel is right? But then, also, is that taking advantage of the privilege of having the whiteness within me, right? Am I allowed to speak for this side of me, or is that speaking on something that I don’t experience enough to know?”

However, the model and the ‘Pillowtalk’ hitmaker, 27, are determined to make sure their daughter is confident and proud of her background.

Speaking to i-D magazine for their The New Worldwi-De Issue, she said: “[Khai] will grow up feeling out the way that she can or wants to be a bridge for her different ethnicities.

“But I think that it will be nice to be able to have those conversations, and see where she comes from [with] it, without us putting that onto her. What comes from her is what I’m most excited about, and being able to add to that or answer her questions, you know?”