#browntourage

Bay Area based Kohinoorgasm just released the video for this freedom fyre track called “Azaadi is Freedom is Fate”. Check out her interview with Browntourage where they talk all about Brown goodness.

“There is definitely a motif with hair, femme-ness, and POC identity. I wanted the music video for “Azaadi Is Freedom Is Fate” to focus on a site of expression, and I felt like hair was a site for expression that a lot of my friends and I could expound upon. Whether we are using our hair or hairstyle to establish our freedom of expression, or whether our hair or hairstyle is being policed by others, it is a site at which our freedom is observed.” [Rookie]

Making Noise with Brown Noize — a webseries about immigrant youth in Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Shoutout to Sofia for submitting this bomb show! This one is for the ones in the middle because we see you, we hear you, we’re here for you. -> www.brownnoize.com

Firstly, thank you for all the work you do with browntourage. it is so important to have outlets like yours-we can only continue to create if we have spaces like this to share and talk about our collective experience. the submission is of a pilot episode of a web series we are creating about to children of immigrants navigating life in New Zealand and trying to actualise their dream of creating a TV show about the immigrant experience. it’s all very meta and we hope we can get enough traction to secure funding from New Zealand on air. 

arohanui,

Today I came to realize that at the age of 20, I don’t know how to pronounce my name.

I was never told how to pronounce it, I only knew that I was a set of four letters: Z A R A. “Sarita”, “Sara”, “Sarah-Lee” and sometimes “Zar-uh” followed by a confused look.

I chose Zara. “Sarah with a ‘Z’” I said. I figured it was less exotic. It was an imitation of my fellow classmates “Sarah” or even the wildcard (in my town) “Sara.”  The reason behind this was simple: I was embarrassed of my name. I didn’t want to inconvenience the mostly white teachers and kids my age whose names were always so easy to pronounce; “Ashley” “Erica” “Lisa.” They always struggled so hard with the Z and A so close together (common sense in my young PoC mind), so I made it simple for them.  “Sarah with a Z.”

I felt a greater embarrassment in admitting to my mama that I didn’t know how to say my name. How to really say it. As a result, I was given the freedom to choose my own identity. But in the process I lost the soft rush of a silky s, a breathless a and an r that was barely there. Instead I chose something sharp and angular, a name that was more...relatable, I thought.

But I didn’t know I was leaving my language behind. My mother’s heritage as a proud Middle Eastern-Latina, my grandfather’s lost Arabic tongue. I didn’t want to be a cultural anomaly. I made myself into an American package. Now I’m Zara.

At times, I regret the decision. But I get it. I was a kid, I didn’t know there was such a thing as “erasure” or “internalized self-hatred.” But I know better now. Rebuilding my identity and learning to love myself was a struggle, to say the least. But I’ve come to the point where I finally embrace my heritage, love my dark skin and celebrate being a strong woman of color. I suppose what I wanted to relay in this essay is that erasure is real. We learn from others but the real harm comes when we do it to ourselves.