Making myself whole: connecting my Grenadian-Caribbean heritage with my Indian upbringing

“Mixed-race people do exist, and we come in all different shades and colours.”

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Words by Nia Deo, edited by Shayma Bakht

A few years ago, I was getting my eyebrows threaded by an Indian “auntie” when she stopped and asked my mother, “what made you want to adopt?”

Taken aback, we swiftly left the salon, in shock by the sheer ignorance exhibited by someone clearly out of touch with the 21st  century. We live in an era bursting with multiculturalism, hybridity and diversity. Yes - my features may favour my Caribbean side a little more than my Indian side, but mixed-race people do exist, and we come in all different shades and colours. Asking a stranger such an invasive question about their race can induce feelings of being othered. An issue which many people with a dual heritage, like myself, have to deal with day-in and day-out. 

Recently, when placing our weekly shop on the conveyor belt, the cashier saw my mother and I standing together and remarked, “You’re paying separately, aren’t you?” This same scene has played on repeat throughout my life, ever since I can remember. The supermarket assistant could not compute the obvious- that I’d been calling the woman I was standing next to ‘mum’ for the past five minutes. She still chose to look at us and assume we were just friends, which is odd considering the obvious age gap. 

 I’ve spent a lot of my life questioning whether I should try and mould myself into a singular racial identity. Am I a black woman? Am I an Indian woman? Where do I belong? I guess this internal interrogation stems from the complete absence of my Caribbean father, and not knowing anyone with the same cultural or ethnic mix as me. 

This identity anxiety was perpetuated further when I reached the coming-of-age moment of filling out my own forms and applications. I can never find my ethnicity on the sheets of paper, and I am left with no other choice but to ink a hollow ‘X’ in the ‘Other’ box. 

 Jean-François Staszak, a professor at the University of Geneva, explains that ‘otherness’ is the result of a discursive process by which a dominant in-group (“us” or the Self) constructs one or many dominated out-groups (“Them” or the Others) by stigmatising a difference – real or imagined – presented as a negation of identity’. He explains this can become ‘a motive for potential discrimination.’ 

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How could I ever understand myself if this society continues to hurl microaggressive acts of marginalisation at me on a daily basis? How can I pinpoint my identity if it continues to be absent from something as simple and essential as a medical form tickbox?

 I am blessed to have been raised by a loving family who have never made me feel like an ‘other’. In fact, they’ve always encouraged me to explore the other half of myself. They remind me that oversights, on material things like government documents, do not define who I am. 

My mum has spent the twenty-four years of my existence sharing and reading Black literature with me, telling me how to look after and embrace my curly hair, as well as educating me about Grenada, the island country in the Caribbean where I originate from. This is something that I am incredibly thankful for. 

The Indian part of my upbringing is filled with fond memories of sitting and praying in the Gurdwara with my Grandma who places my chunni back on my head whenever it accidentally slips down; learning how to make Chole and Sabji; and annual family trips to India, where my Masi and I would say ‘yes’ to every single elaborate Punjabi party just so we could feast on mountains of aloo paneer tikkis. 

 On reflection, the identity problem I experienced while growing up was rooted in the incessant need to pick a side instead of appreciating all the rich and multifaceted sides of my identity. 

I recognise now that there is no point in trying to choose one identity over the other.  I exist as a mixed-raced woman and absolutely love my ethnic duality. I am both a Black and an Indian woman. I no longer feel like I have imposter syndrome when I explore one part of my racial heritage in a bit more depth than the other, because I embrace and accept who I am as a whole. 

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