Ayesha curry is a Canadian chef and entrepreneur who is married to NBA player Stephen Curry, but who are her parents?
Ayesha Curry’s mother is Carol Alexander and of Jamaican-Chinese descent and her father, John Alexander is of African-American and Polish descent. She was born in Toronto and her family moved to North Carolina when she was 14 years old alongside her four siblings.
Ayesha may not have any formal professional chef training, but that hasn’t stopped her from becoming an actress, cookbook author, and cooking television personality.
From humble beginnings where Ayesha struggled to connect with her four different ethnic identities, she has found her place in the world and now has three children of her own.
From Canada to America.
After moving to the United States from Canada, Ayesha says that she has to choose how to identify from mixed-race roots.
Coming from Toronto which was much more accepting of different cultures Ayesha said she was confronted by classmates who labeled each other more than she was used to.
“Everyone was from a place other than Canada and that’s how you identified yourself, not black or white. I identified as Jamaican because that’s where my mom came from,” she says of her childhood in Toronto, where her neighbors were mostly Asian and Indian. “In the states I’m simply ‘black.'”
Once her family moved to North Carolina she felt like she had to decide which group to associate with based on her roots. “I just want my community to embrace all shades because we come in so many different shades. Melanin is not one thing; it comes in so many different shades,” Curry continued. “I love my melanin.”
Ayesha’s father has kept a low profile in the light of his daughter’s success. In 2016 he made headlines however when he was detained by security at Quicken Loans Arena, prompting Ayesha to tweet: “Police racial profiled my father and told him to remove his credentials and tried to arrest him”.
Later that evening, Ayesha deleted the tweet explaining that she tweeted in the heat of the moment.
Self-Made Success
Ayesha Curry is undoubtedly a very busy woman. As well as owning three restaurants, selling her Homemade Meal Kits in California whole food stores, completely selling out of her Cookware Line and being an ambassador for CoverGirl and the Honest Company, she’s also executive producing and hosting Family Food Fight which will be screening on ABC.
As well as being a Mom, Ayesha is trailblazing the path for women of color, to become powerful players in the food industry. Ayesha says that many people don’t take her seriously and think that her success is because of her pro-athlete husband.
“They think this is something I’ve obtained because of my husband’s income. That’s not true. He hasn’t invested a dime in my restaurant business.”
One of Aysha’s role models is her own mother. “I watched my Mom be a working mother my whole life. I’ve never known anything else other than strong women in powerful positions.”
Ayesha grew up watching her Mom run a salon from the basement of her home. Her babysitter would cook different types of appetizers and cuisines for the customers, inspiring Ayesha to create a cooking video on Youtube.
Her Youtube Channel now has over 570k subscribers as she posts about cooking, parenting, and her day to day life.
Her parents and siblings live nearby and her older sister is the primary nanny for her children. “I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing if I didn’t have my village helping me.”