Polish | Nepalese
I definitely feel more Polish than I do Nepalese, however, due to the colour of my skin, which while it is not a darker shade of Brown, is seen by the wider Polish public as definitely *not* White. I tend to feel like an imposter in my cultural identity.
My Mum is Polish and my Dad is Nepalese. They met while they were both working as journalists in Radio China in Beijing. When we were still living together (my parents separated around nine years ago) the Nepali side of my culture, so visits to Hindu temples, puja, was all experienced through my Dad and the Polish side of my culture through my Mum. My Dad never really took to Polish culture and didn't bother to learn the language in the 13 years my parents were together, and he didn't have to since we lived in Nepal. My Mum on the other side was thrown into a foreign culture and for the first few years did her best to understand it and learn the culture. The food at our house was predominantly Nepali as my Dad wasn't a fan of my Mum's cooking so my brother and I grew up eating that. As a child, I spoke fluent Nepali but my parents never placed any significance on the language as in their experience, English was the gateway language to education and success. In hindsight I really regret they did that since over the years my interest in South Asian studies has grown very significantly. On the other hand, my Mum as a somewhat cultural patriot made me sit down every weekend as a child and go through all the textbook material my friends back in Poland were learning at school so the Polish stuck. Overall, I don't think my parents ever gained a larger sense of admiration for the other partner's culture and they tended to raise me in two different, wholly separate identities. I think that's why when I moved to Poland when I was eleven to live with my Grandmother, it was so easy for me to lose touch with my Nepali roots.
I've always been incredibly proud of being Polish. I think it's because of a certain sort of ingrained racism that was thrusted on me as a child, I don't know from where though. I went to a British School in Kathmandu until I was twelve years old and I remember feeling out of place with my Nepali classmates at times because I didn't speak Nepali as well as they did and so in a way I pandered to all the White kids, embracing my Polishness. It seemed like the only ‘claim to fame’ I had amongst them as a child from a lower socioeconomic background. They had ski trips to Belgium, weekends at the American embassy. I had Poland. The promised land where I went on holiday every other summer. That of course all broke down when I made the decision to move to Poland at eleven and I realised that I was being treated differently because of my darker skin. Some children taunted me at the beginning because they thought I was Romani. And so a campaign launched within me between the ages of eleven and sixteen to make myself seem as European as possible. I avoided the sun so that I could be lighter, I cut off my waist-length, thick, Black Nepali hair, I dyed it lighter colours, and for a period of time, I plastered my face with a pharmacy skin foundation that was made for someone much lighter than myself. I completely detached myself from any assumptions that I was anything less than a whole Polish person.
I think every partner I've had in the past has been from an entirely different cultural background. However, I find that I tend to click a lot better with partners who have a shared experience of a mixed upbringing and therefore stay with them longer. My parents definitely weren't raised in environments where interracial relationships had EVER happened before, however, they seemed not to give enough of a damn to break contemporary Polish and Nepali conventions and get married (in a Hindu ceremony to my Polish Grandmother's dismay). When it comes to my Grandparents, my Nepali Grandparents are quite high caste and I don't think there have been many cases where anyone in their families had gotten married outside of their caste. My Mum recently told me that while they didn't completely understand her, they weren't openly hostile to her. I don't really know much about their private opinions since I last saw them when I was eleven. On the other hand, my Grandmother definitely would have disapproved at the beginning as she is an incredibly devout Catholic. But for her, I think it might have been more of a case of my Mum marrying someone who was not only from a different religion but was HINDU. While she is quite prejudiced against refugees, immigrants (and whoever else the Polish right-wing media is spreading negative propaganda about), I don't think she ever cared that much about the colour of my Father's skin. So all in all, I think in the case of my family, it was more of a case of culture shock than it was a matter of an interracial relationship.
There have been a lot of challenges regarding how I perceive myself and how I don't necessarily fit into the typical standards of a Nepali person or a Polish person. I still get Polish people asking me where I'm ‘really’ from, even though I speak fluent Polish and spent a sizable amount of my life there.
An issue I didn't have before, however, is something I came across in the UK. As Poland and Nepal are both quite racially homogenous (at least the environment I was brought up in Nepal was), I had never really had the opportunity to meet non-mixed people of colour and so I find myself questioning whether I'm ‘Brown’ enough to join ethnic minority societies and protests in the UK. There's just a lot of new experiences I've yet to navigate my way through. It's odd identifying as ‘not-White’ for all of your life and then suddenly finding out you might be ‘too-White’ for some people. Especially as I don't really feel like I know much about my Nepali side.
However, a turning point for me was meeting a lovely person who was also mixed Polish-South Asian and having the opportunity to talk about all the common experiences we shared and that really made me appreciate how special we are and how our upbringing really enriched who we are as people in the end.
I lived in Nepal for eleven years, I've been living in Poland for eight years, and I've been studying in the UK since 2017. While I was in Nepal, I'd visit Poland once every two years (or whenever my Mum had enough money for the trip), however, since I moved to Poland in 2012, I haven't visited Nepal a single time. I feel conflicted about reconnecting with my Nepali family since, firstly, I don't have a very good relationship with my Father, and secondly, I know that the Nepal I would learn about would be through the eyes of my Brahmin family. I vehemently oppose the casteist approach my Nepali family has towards Nepali society in general. I'm trying to figure out how I could exist in Nepal within the existing social structures without contributing to them or figuring how to use the privilege I have never identified with to better Nepal for everyone. I long to move back at some point, even if for a short while.
I definitely appreciate my background more and embrace it wholeheartedly now. It's given me a lot of empathy and a sense of attachment towards cultures which aren't necessarily perceived positively by Western society (just as I wasn't perceived positively as a Brown child in Poland), which is why I've developed interest in the modern Persian-speaking world. As a child, I think it just made me very confused and ashamed at moments but I didn't know how to deal with it otherwise. As I get older, I think that my outlook on being mixed can only get more positive.
The student body is definitely very open to discussion and understanding. I don't think I've ever felt actively discriminated against because of my gender, cultural identity, or sexuality. Coming from Poland, the amount of support I get as a bisexual woman from my college, university, and fellow students is astounding. One of the highlights of my first year at Cambridge was being involved in a student written play about a queer, mixed woman. The fact that the platform exists for such ventures is amazing to me. There's still a lot of work to be done in the university representation wise, however, I'd say it is considerate enough for now.
I was in isolation March through July in my accommodation at Cambridge and while I had a few friendly faces around it definitely took a toll on my wellbeing. Now that I'm back home, since I live a distance away from the nearest city where all my friends are, I'm still struggling with being on my own. However, I'm taking things one step at a time and trying to be kinder to myself.
As the majority of the protests for racial equality at the beginning were mostly centred around BLM, I felt a bit out of place speaking up for a community to which I don't belong because I understand how annoying it can be at times for people to claim your suffering and at times misrepresent it. However, at the same time I was so glad to see the discussion about race unfold in the UK, and in the context of the Cambridge theatre scene where POC are unfortunately incredibly underrepresented. While some protests cropped up in Poland, I feel that as such an extremely racially homogenous society, Poland still has a long way to go when it comes to tackling issues of racism. Recently an issue that's cropped up is the use of the word ‘murzyn’ to describe Black people and it's astounding to me how many people rush to defend the use of the word because it's what they were brought up with. It truly shows how ignorant certain groups of people can be to the discomfort and hurt POC experience in Poland.
If I had the opportunity to be reborn I'd like to be a cat. Our cat is currently living the high life, coming and going as she pleases, getting all the love in the world even if she is quite mean at times.