As the millennials and Gen Zs of today, we’ve navigated our childhood and teenage years learning about a predominantly white history that supposedly shaped the Britain we live in.
Read More“Your bag with its spindly stick figures, painted in red on the canvas-white, remind me of home. Or what was once home. Maybe you think of home too? Thank you for sharing your past with me.”
Read MoreThis bicultural middle becomes a site of continuous accommodation - a common struggle that unites various communities of Asian Britians.
Read MoreI often pondered why it was that people continued to tell me that I was lucky to have ‘escaped’ my beautiful island homeland. They just assumed I was another poor, brown faced migrant.
Read MoreNeedless to say, this struggle is not India’s alone. Much of the colonised world suffers similarly. It is why Westerners forget that Africa is a continent, for instance.
Read MoreI empathised with the outrage Jess felt when her traditionally-minded Asian family made sweeping judgements based on little information or logic
Read MoreIf white is a blank canvas, a slate clean of connotations, brown is one stained with the shadows of the people who came before you and the expectation of who you are supposed to be.
Read MoreI threw myself into the traditions of Mauritian weddings as my cousin got married, and my judgement of how young she was, to be committing so early, crumbled away like the henna drying on her hands.
Read MoreIn the months since, I’ve had time to reflect on our friendship and I’ve realised that there were always issues that I ignored.
Read MoreThe reasons to visit the sub-continent are many and various but, in my opinion, they ought to be despite the markers of poverty, not because of them.
Read Morewhat did I really know about my own culture, the Indian-African-British culture that I was born into?
Read MoreTime and time again I fail to understand why ‘the freedom to make your own choices’ is such a faraway concept.
Read MoreDuring my recent visit to India, it was obvious from the endless stares that I was identified as a foreigner, and was stopped in the street many times by people trying to take a photo of me because I was born with lighter skin than average for a south Asian.
Read MoreI believed I was both Pakistani and American, but others did not agree; I believed I was a Muslim, but I didn’t 'look' Muslim.
Read MoreAccording to my family back home, two of the most disgraceful things someone could do are, one, fashion, and two, being American.
Read MoreI say England and people think I’m trying to deny my roots, which couldn’t be further from the truth, or say India, and incite confusion because of my lack of residence.
Read MoreI never wanted to feel like the odd one out again, I never wanted to feel like a foreign body, I just wanted to fit in like everyone else did.
Read MoreIf it’s your calling to preserve a particular custom or a way of life, I respect that. The moment, though, it becomes a taunt or an obligation, your stance becomes a rigid ‘my way or the highway’.
Read MoreNot fitting the mould is complicated enough, without having your community bash it too
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