Scottish | Bangladeshi
I’ve always found it challenging when asked to identify myself. Choosing a word or ticking a box feels over simple. Identity to me is ever changing and boundless. My Mum was born in London and her side of my family originated in Scotland. My Dad is from Bangladesh. Though when he was born, the state was called East Pakistan; Bangladesh became independent in 1971. My Father’s Father was born in British-ruled India in the 1920’s, well before the partition of India in 1947. So, although generations on my Dad’s side of the family were born in the same geographical location, their nationalities varied over time, revealing the complex history of South Asia.
My parents combined their cultures in the same way that any two parents will bring different life experiences and perspectives to the family they create, my parents brought theirs. Only their experiences came from opposite sides of the world. Growing up, everything was normalised for my brother and me. We’d celebrate both Eid and Christmas. We’d spend some holidays with extended family in rural villages in Sylhet, surrounded by rice fields and other holidays with our Grandparents and cousins in the UK. Speaking to my Mum in more recent years, I realise that it’s no coincidence that my brother and I have a circle of other mixed-race people around us. My parents understood the importance of normalising mixed families when I was growing up and how valuable it was to have friends who had similar experiences. I understand from my parents that there were far fewer mixed couples when they met in the 1980s. I imagine there was some solidarity between different mixed couples at the time.
There were a couple of instances in school that I can identify as being pivotal in finding my sense of belonging. Something I had been searching for, unknowingly, for much of my school-hood. The first was being given a book by a family friend, also of mixed background, called ‘Hapa’. It shows portraits of, and writings by people of Asian mixed heritage in the US. I was exposed to this whole community who shared some of the thoughts and experiences that I had had. The second was in a school poetry workshop when I was in my early teens. With the guidance of our tutor, who was mixed Bengali and English, I was able to explore, relive and perform my experiences of being a White-passing school girl with a Brown Father and White Mother. Being given the space to navigate my emotions, feel frustrated, feel lost, feel determined; and then create a spoken word performance from it, was powerful. The whole process was amazingly and unexpectedly valuable for my sense of identity to this day. It also gave me a new appreciation for the arts in their ability to evoke emotions and help console.
Something I still don’t know how to react to, is when people don’t believe me. They’ll ask where I’m from, I’ll tell them, then they tell me ‘You can’t be!’. I fully appreciate that it might be a surprise, but it becomes quite tiresome. When I was younger, this disbelief was often isolating. I’d be told time and time again with each new encounter, ‘You didn’t get much Bengali-ness did you’ or ‘I thought you were pure White’ or ‘What religion does that make you?’ or even ‘Are you parents still together?’. There’s so much wrong with all of these statements, clearly. But to hear that when you’re growing up, as you’re trying to figure out who you are, is especially disorientating. When asked these days, I say I’m from London.
When people ask me which ‘side’ I lean more towards or which ‘culture’ I connect more to, I struggle. Because until these were specified by others as two separate things, I had experienced my upbringing as a ‘culture’ in its own right. The fusion of Bengali and British didn’t occur to me as a fusion. It was just normal. Eating fish curry and rice with my hands one day and then a roast dinner with all the trimmings on another was normal.
We’d go as a family to Bangladesh regularly when my brother and I were growing up. We have lots of relatives there and I always feel at home amongst them. There is plenty of confusion when we walk around central Dhaka as a mixed family. But to be honest, the stares were just as common when I’d go shopping at the Halal butchers in East London with my Dad, so I was used to it.
Having a sibling to share my experiences with has been extremely important. Until recently, we hadn’t sat and discussed our individual struggles with identity at all. But I think that while having all those questions whirling round my head growing up, I took comfort, albeit subconsciously, in knowing my brother was just like me.