Where do we belong?
Being brown outside of India ain’t no joke.
The Indian diaspora is now present all over the world, including Malaysia, thanks to the British. Whilst the colonisation that led to this may not be relevant to you, it has determined my entire life and fate.
I was born and raised in Malaysia, which is a wonderful country, just to put it out there. However, the circumstances of being brown in this country, or even in a large multicultural country like the United States of America leads to an identity crisis so ingrained within nearly every Indian raised outside our motherland.
Throughout the years, I have found myself being neither here nor there in terms of culture. I do not wholly identify with the cultures of the West, my own traditional Indian culture or even the Asian cultures of the East which I have been exposed to growing up. Some of us are just lost, without a single, wholistic culture to identify with and no one to speak our mother tongue with, leading to us forgetting it completely. In fact, I fluently speak Mandarin now which was a result of a sorry attempt in my childhood to fit in. I always found people to be more receptive of me when I speak in their language. In a way, I believe that these experiences have shaped me into the unique individual that I am today but it was a challenge getting there.
Growing up as a minority was a challenge because some of us used to be bullied in our childhood for “not being alike to the majority”. I remember once, a friend of mine who was also brown was ridiculed at school for having visible hair on her hands and legs. She immediately waxed her hands and legs the following day. Why is it that we have to conform to the identity of the oppressors? Many whom I know have also been bullied for the colour of their skin, being called “blacky” so callously. I will not forget some of the racist “jokes” which were spouted without second thought and the people who used make such jokes who try to reach out to me now to be friends. How unfortunate is it that such people will never realise their mistakes since none of us within the minority bother to speak up?
When I flew off to study in the UK for four years, I found an entire brown community there, leading me to finally feel a semblance of belonging. Ironically, I felt less of a minority there as compared to in my own country where Indians were supposedly one of the three main races. It was liberating to see several faces and cultures which I could identify with and food being served that were similar to that of the kitchen tables in our own homes and languages being spoken which were so close to our own mother tongue.
My life in the UK led me to realise that some brown people have it harder than others. Specifically those who are both brown and Muslim, raised outside of their home countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan or India. With the rampant rise of Islamophobia in the Western world, they are scorned for practicing their beliefs and nobody really takes the time or effort to understand them. Being a Hindu, I had it somewhat easier as I am still able to eat pork and do not wear a headscarf. It appears to me that humans have the tendency to shy away from matters that they do not understand.
These cumulative experiences have made me learn to speak up on the behalf of minorities when I come from a standpoint of privilege. So if you also come from a position of privilege and have that one friend who is a person of colour being treated disrespectfully, perhaps try and speak up on their behalf. Do try to leverage on your privilege to make our lives more comfortable. It helps us to know that we are accepted and belong, wherever we may be. You never know, you may also make a lifelong ally in the process.
P.S. These experiences are unique to me and I acknowledge that many other minorities may have faced various other such experiences depending on their own circumstances. Just know that you are not alone in facing these and I hope that this article gives you the courage to express your own experiences.