Half black and half white

Markle is descended on her mother's side from enslaved Africans, and on her father's side from European settlers. She described her heritage in a 2015 essay for Elle magazine: "My dad is Caucasian and my mom is African American. I'm half black and half white... While my mixed heritage may have created a grey area surrounding my self-identification, keeping me with a foot on both sides of the fence, I have come to embrace that. To say who I am, to share where I'm from, to voice my pride in being a strong, confident mixed-race woman.".