#poc profiles

Hey there! Thanks so much for making space for this! I’m a second-generation immigrant, born to two South Indian (Hindu, Tamil, Brahmin) immigrants. I grew up in a part of the United States that had a large Asian American population, but not a huge South Asian population – at least, not until later.

Beauty Standards

Skin color and colorism have been discussed a lot already, so let’s talk about hair! My hair has always been very thick and curly. When I was little, my mom would cut it super short – but then at some point, I put my foot down and insisted on growing it out. From then on, until I learned to do/experiment with my hair myself, my dad would spend half an hour each morning just braiding my hair. For most of elementary school, I was the only non-White kid who had hair like this, and as a result, it became incredibly important to me to straighten my hair at every possible opportunity.

To add to this: in the 90s and early 2000s, one popular perception I was raised on was that curly hair = unclean and unprofessional, at least in the U.S. Unfortunately, I internalized that a little too hard, to the point that, even when naturally curly hair has become more widely accepted, I still struggle to feel comfortable and confident in my appearance when I don’t take that extra time to straighten my hair. I’m working on it, but progress is slow!

Food

I was raised vegetarian (not very strictly) in a region and at a time when vegetarian/vegan options were not super commonplace. I didn’t have a “lunchbox story” because my mother had cousins that also grew up in the U.S. who advised her to send me to school with sandwiches and pasta salads for lunch – though I do remember another Indian classmate who brought roti sabji to school once and the other kids gave him shit for it.

In hindsight, the “Indian” food I used to eat at home was actually a mishmash of cuisines from both North and South India. Dals, roti, and yogurt rice were super common (yogurt rice is currently one of my top comfort foods!), and my mom got into a habit of making a vegetable side dish with every meal (cauliflower, potatoes, and cabbage were especially common). Every so often, we’d also eat dosa with chutneys and sambar – though the amount of time and assembly required meant that we reserved this for special occasions. I also grew up eating eggs, though my parents never did (they’ll eat desserts with eggs baked into them, though). On the day of each new moon since my grandfather died, my parents have also insisted on eating only sattvic foods (though loosely interpreted to mean: just no garlic or onions), though they never insisted that I follow this as well.

I can’t stand most Indian sweets, except for gulab jamun and jalebi. Almost everything else makes me gag. When I was a kid, I figured I would one day acquire a taste for them, but somehow that never happened…? For the most part, my family’s accepted this as a weird quirk of mine, but over the years, there have been some aunties and uncles who said this made me whitewashed and “too American.”

My family also celebrates primarily with food! Birthdays, holidays both American and Indian, even Mother’s Day and Father’s Day meant either going out to eat or cooking a special (frequently non-Indian) meal.

Language

So fun fact: I forgot how to speak my native language! Yes, it haunts me to this day.

Initially, I grew up speaking both Tamil and English. I was also a terribly shy and quiet kid – so when I was in kindergarten, and I was spacing out a lot and not following directions properly, my teacher saw me speaking in Tamil to my grandparents when they came to pick me up at the end of the day, and assumed that I couldn’t speak English. I’m my parents’ first child, and they hadn’t been in the U.S. for very long before they had me – so when my kindergarten teacher brought this up with them, they panicked and insisted on speaking only English at home, just to stamp out any doubt that I wasn’t fluent in the language. (Another fun fact: I had a half-White friend then who also didn’t say a word her first day of kindergarten! Her parents were advised to take her for counseling and speech therapy.)

I don’t blame my parents for this at all – they were first-time parents with a young kid in a new-ish country; how were they supposed to know how to handle pushy, racist teachers? They just wanted me to do well in school, and they did the best they could with what little they knew of how to navigate the system.

Eventually, I reached a point where I could no longer speak Tamil, though I could still understand it. Right now, I can comfortably watch Tamil movies without subtitles and understand all the family gossip, but that’s about the extent of my knowledge of the language. It’s a point of insecurity for me – when so much of culture and identity is supposed to be tied up in language, I can’t help but feel like I screwed up somewhere. I’ve met a small handful of other Desi peers in similar situations, but it still feels incredibly isolating.

Identity issues

My name’s not difficult to say, exactly – but it’s not super intuitive for people unfamiliar with Indian names to get right away. Naturally, when I was younger and living in an area less densely populated by other South Asians, this meant that people were less likely to make an effort to say my name right.

For pretty much my entire life, I’ve had a “preferred mispronunciation” of my name – not the way my name is actually supposed to be pronounced, but if you’re going to mess it up, then I’d prefer that you mess it up in this particular way. Almost every Desi kid I went to elementary, middle, and high school with had a preferred mispronunciation; the only people who didn’t have one were people with really easy to pronounce names like “Neesha.” Heck, we referred to each other by preferred mispronunciations, even though we all knew perfectly well how to properly say each other’s names properly!

Come college, I decided to try introducing myself to people with my name as it’s actually pronounced. It was a strange experience, because I didn’t anticipate how exhausting it would be to have to break down that pronunciation over and over again because it was still difficult for people unfamiliar with Indian names to get it right away. To complicate things even further, I still went by my preferred mispronunciation academically and professionally.

This is by no means a universal opinion, and I don’t intend to speak for anyone but myself here, but: I don’t hate my preferred mispronunciation of my name? At this point, it’s just as much a part of me as the actual pronunciation of my name.

Dating and Relationships

Most of my relatives were connected with their spouses through arranged marriages. They would be introduced through their parents, and then they would spend several months texting, emailing, and talking to each other before announcing to the family that they’d agreed to marry each other. There are some exceptions to this, however: my parents and a few other aunts and uncles met for the first time just days before their wedding; on the flip side, I also have some aunts and uncles who had love marriages. The impression I got was that my parents would generally be okay with me dating and marrying a non-Indian person, but I’d have a fight on my hands with my extended family – though they, too, would eventually come around.

I didn’t know I was asexual until I was in my twenties. Until then, I’d assumed that I was just doing what was expected of me, as a “good Indian girl” – I didn’t date anyone when I was in high school, though I had a few crushes here and there; I dated a White boy when I was in college, and then another Southeast Asian boy after I graduated, but neither relationship lasted for very long. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I got to a point where I was comfortable and confident in my sexuality, where I could say things like: “I could die a virgin and have zero regrets,” and: “I could never get married, never have kids, and I would be totally fine” without feeling like I was doing something wrong.

… and then came my mid-20s. By the time I was done with grad school, my family – both parents and extended – started clamping down hard on the fact that I was still single, that I hadn’t expressed that much interest in dating. They felt personally responsible, assuming that they’d somehow given me the impression that because they wouldn’t have approved of me dating when I was younger, that somehow convinced me to never try in the first place. It has been intensely uncomfortable to dance around this topic, and pretend I’m just delaying this part of my life until I pass xyz milestones. 

Realistically speaking: I don’t think I could ever use the word “asexual” to describe myself to anyone in my family, even my parents. My parents at least are pretty open-minded, and they’re making a strong effort to wrap their heads around LGBTQ+ issues, but they’re not there yet. This is not a conversation I’m ready to have with them. A part of me has resigned myself to having to lie about this part of myself when the day comes where my family deems me “too old” to still be single, and… I’m sorry, this is not terribly optimistic. I don’t have an answer for this part yet.

Things I’d like to see more/less of

Just more Desi characters in stories that aren’t inherently about them being Desi! Y'all have no idea how excited I was to see a character named Jeevan Choudhary at the core of a post-apocalyptic story like Station Eleven, playing a pivotal role that isn’t necessarily contingent on him being Desi.

I’d also love to see more loving, supportive Desi parents! It’s so common to see strict parents who want their children to follow a certain path, who then serve as obstacles for those children to overcome as they pursue their dreams – both in Western and Indian media! It would be nice to see the opposite, for once.

I’d also love to see more sci-fi/fantasy stories centered on Desi protagonists – and not as “the smart one” in the group.

I’m a first-generation immigrant, with both my parents being Indian immigrants. My mom immigrated to Canada before she came to America (when she was in her late twenties), and is a Canadian citizen. She was born and raised in Ahmedabad, a city in Gujarat. My dad moved to India when he was in his early twenties. He moved from Ahmedabad to Mumbai in his fifth standard, and moved from a Gujarati-medium school to an English-medium one. 

My dad is more fluent in English than my mom, though they both are fluent and speak mostly without an accent. I speak Gujarati more-or-less fluently, since that’s what we spoke at home, but I can barely even write my name. I’m Hindu, as is my family, and a strict vegetarian. I’m agender, but I use she/her and they/them pronouns. 

Beauty Standards

One of the biggest issues in the Indian-American community is the issue of body hair. I’m AFAB, so I was expected to have smooth, hairless legs and arms. The reality was rather different. Since the age of ten, I had more body hair than the boys in my class. I was mocked and called by the name of a TV animal character, whose name was a mispronunciation of my own. No one ever did anything about it. I was eight. My mother, though she meant well, pushed me into waxing and threading and other forms of hair removal since the day I turned eleven. Even now, as a fully-grown adult with my own apartment and my own life, I can’t bring myself to wear shorts or capris without having spent hours making sure my legs are smooth. Body hair is a huge issue that needs to be addressed more, and not just as a few wisps of blonde hair in the armpit region.

Food

It’s complicated. Growing up, we had thaalis (with roti, rice, sweet dal, and shaak [which is a mix of vegetables and spices]) for dinner almost every night. When we didn’t, it was supplemented with foods like pasta, veggie burgers, and khichdi. We made different types of khichdi each time, based off of different familial recipes that were all named after the family member who introduced them. My mom had to make milder food for my sister, and while my sister loves spicy foods now, I’m still not a big fan. A side effect of growing up in a non-white, vegetarian family is that no one in my family has any idea of what white non-vegetarians eat. Like, at all. It’s kind of funny, to be honest. 

Holidays/Religion

My mom is a Vaishnav, and my dad is a Brahmin, so the way they both worship is very different. My dad’s family places a huge emphasis on chanting and prayer, as well as meditation. They mostly pray to capital-G G-d, as the metaphysical embodiment of Grace. My mom’s family, however, places emphasis on– I don’t want to say “idol worship" because of the negative connotations that has– but they worship to murtis, statues that represent our gods. My mom’s favored god to pray to is Krishna, and we have murtis in our home that she performs sevato every day.

We celebrate Janmashtmi, Holi, Diwali, Ganesha Puja, Lakshmi Puja– too many to count, really. We don’t always go all-out, especially on most of the smaller celebrations, but we do try and attend the temple lectures on those days, or host our own. We also celebrate Christmas and Easter secularly. I didn’t even know Christmas was a Christian holiday until I was in elementary school, and Easter until I was in high school.

Micro-Aggressions

Whooo, boy. Where do I start?

When my sister was in first grade, she had a friend. I’ll call her Mary. Mary, upon learning that my sister was not, in fact, Christian, brought an entire Bible to school and forced my sister to read it during recess, saying that otherwise, she wouldn’t be her friend anymore. Mary kept telling my sister that she would go to hell if she didn’t repent, and that our entire family was a group of “ugly sinners.” When my sister came to me for advice, I told her that Mary wasn’t her friend, that Mary wasn’t being nice, and that my sister wasn’t going to go to hell, and that we don’t even believe in hell. When my sister finally stood up to Mary and told her that she wasn’t going to listen to her anymore, Mary got angry and dumped a mini-carton of chocolate milk on her and told her that “now she looks like what she is– a dirty [the Roma slur term].” Not only was that inaccurate, it was extremely racist, and Mary was only reprimanded for the milk-spilling, not the racist remark that came with it. 

On top of that, since I have long hair, I’m always getting asked if so-and-so can touch it, or what I do to get it so long, or why I allow myself to be “shaped by such backwards ideals of women.” My name is never pronounced correctly, and I’ve been asked to give people my “American name” to be called by instead of my actual name. I’ve been called a terrorist, asked why I wasn’t wearing a hijab (by white people btw), and mocked for my food. I’ve been told that I wasn’t “really Indian” because I didn’t have a dot on my forehead. I’ve been told I wasn’t “really Hindu” because I had milk on my plate, by a white boy whose mom was a leader of a local choir.

I grew up in a town where only 4-5% of the population was South Asian, and there were a total of five South Asians in my grade level. The school administration consistently and intentionally placed us in different classes, and I never made a friend that was South Asian until 7th grade. When I came to the school, I was placed in ESOL without even being tested, while also being in the Advanced Readers class. The school didn’t even care to look at my school records before placing me into ESOL based on the color of my skin. 

Things I’d Like to See Less/More Of

I’d like to see less of the “nerd” stereotype, of the “weak, nonathletic” stereotype. I’d like to see less of the “prude” stereotype, of the “I hate my culture/feel I don’t belong” stereotype. I’d like to see less of the “rebellion” stereotype, of the “my parents are so strict and I hate them” stereotype. I never want to see the “unwanted arranged marriage” trope. Ever.

I want to see bulky, tall Indian characters. I’d like to see Indian characters confident in their sexuality, whether that’s not having sex (for LEGITIMATE reasons like risk of STDs, general awkwardness before and after The Deed, and wanting to wait, not “oh my parents said so and also I’m sheltered and innocent”), or having a new sexual partner every night.

I want Indian characters (especially children/teens!!!) proud of their culture and their heritage and their religion, whether that’s Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, or anything else. I want to see supportive Indian parents, I want to see more than chiding Indian grandmothers and strict Indian fathers. I want to see healthy arranged marriages, or healthy mixed-marriages. I want to see mixed Indian-POC couples, I want to see queer Indian couples.

I want to see body hair on female-presenting characters, I want to see more of India that isn’t “bustling market with the scent of spices in the air” and “poor slums rampant with disease” and “Taj Mahal”. I want to see casual mentions of prayer and Hinduism and Indian culture (a short “My mom’s at the temple, she can’t come pick us up” or a “what is it? i’m in the middle of a holi fight! eep! ugh, gulaab in my mouth” over a phone call, or a “she won’t answer until 12– she’s in her Bharatnatyam class/Gurukul class/doing seva/at the temple” would suffice). I want to see more Indian languages represented than just Hindi. There’s Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Nepali, and Kashmiri, just off the top of my head. The language your character speaks depends on the place they come from in India, and they might not even speak Hindi! (I don’t!)

I hate that Indian culture is reduced to “oppressive, strict, and prudish” when it's so much more than that. I hate that Indians are stereotyped to the point where it is a norm, and the companies reinforcing these stereotypes don’t take responsibility for their actions and don’t change. I hate the appropriation of Indian culture (like yoga, pronounced “yogh”, not “yo-gaaa” fyi, the Om symbol, meditation, and Shri Ganapathidada) and how normalized it is in Western society. 

This ended up a lot longer than I had expected, but I hope it helps! Good luck with your writing :)

Read more POC profiles here

WWC Recommended Resources for USA: Race in LA

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We get many questions on WWC asking how to portray racism and experiences with race for BIPOC in America. Many of our followers are understandably curious about experiences of which they have no personal knowledge. However, there is a limit to what our small team of moderators can tell you because race is personal. It is a phenomenon transformed by the prism of individual memory and environment. To that effect, we often recommend that people consume media about race from a wide variety of perspectives.

Speaking as someone from Los Angeles, a diverse city with many diaspora, a large mixed-race population and numerous complex stories about race and identity, I often find that while my personal story on race may overlap with others, but is never quite the same. Thus, I would like to recommend for your reading pleasure from Southern California Public Radio’s LAist: Race in LA

Prompted by the Texas El Paso Shootings in 2019, this weekly essay series contains the stories and histories of ordinary Los Angeleno residents as they talk about how race and racism continue to impact their lives despite living in an American city known for its diversity and visibility in popular culture. The series was launched after the murder of George Floyd in the spring of 2020 and is ending its run this summer. The current archive contains 58 essays.

Though specific to a city in the United States, I believe these essays can facilitate conversations on race that many of us will never hear because our social circles are often restricted to those we resemble. More importantly, these are real stories written by real people and vetted by real journalists.

For authors looking expand their understanding of the human experience, I hope you find it useful.

- Marika.

I’m a biracial college grad who grew up in a very white, rural area in the northeast US and within the last four years made the realization I’m trans ( or masculine-aligned agender but that’s for another time ). My mother is black and my father is white.

Beauty Standards

Beauty standards haven’t really been something I’ve paid attention to growing up, mostly because dresses and skirts always made be uncomfortable and I didn’t like the weight of makeup on my face. I am very stubborn and so I stuck to not wearing them as much as possible, even getting into arguments with my mother about wearing a dress to a funeral when I had nice dress pants and a blouse to wear instead.

My mother did have a bit of an obsession with my hair growing up; she loved my curls to the point that if I mentioned cutting them she adamantly said no. My hair isn’t the usual tight black coils but rather “banana curls” as my mother described. It was only in my senior year of high school that, out of the blue, she told me if I wanted to cut my hair I could.

Culture / Family Life / Identity Issues

This is the biggest struggle I find I deal with and sort of ties in with like four topics, so this section will be long. I don’t have any attachment to a culture, not even the African-American culture developed in the US. I grew up in a very, very white area and until 5th grade, went to a private religious school where as far as I can remember, I was the only PoC in the whole (under 100) student body.

Both of my parents have no siblings and due to some things, I only actually met my dad’s extended family three or so years ago when we went for a visit aside from phone conversations I had with his father when he was alive. My mother’s parents were gone before I was 5 and she didn’t really have any extended family aside from a couple of cousins up in New York who I saw every so often when I was really young. I had an “aunt” who my mother knew for many years along with her son whom I consider an uncle, but that’s about all the extended family I have. My (half) brother is 13 years older than I, so by the time I was 7 he was out of the house and visiting only a few times a year. So even despite not being an only child, I was raised like one.

Even in the public school I went to, there weren’t a lot of BIPOC and the few that showed up in high school in my small grade and I didn’t really talk. My university had a majority white student body and I found I couldn’t quite relate with the BIPOC community, mostly because it felt like you had to choose between the BIPOC community or the LGBTQIA+ community and most of my classmates, because of my major, and friends were part of the latter.

When I studied abroad, I became good friends with a BIPOC queer group, especially with a black individual from NC. But sometimes they would make references to me and such that I wouldn’t understand and at one point this individual said “How do you not get that, you’re black!” I had to pull them aside and explain my environment growing up and thankfully, they understood immediately and apologized. But it was alienating, and exacerbated the feelings I have of “I don’t belong anywhere”.

I’m not light skinned enough to pass as white, but I don’t have the experiences of growing up in a black community to connect with other black folk. I just feel like I stand alone in that respect.

Micro-aggressions

I don’t know if this counts as a micro-aggression, but the thing that comes to mind immediately happened when I was 14. I had an online friend and we had been voice-chatting for awhile. One night I turned on my camera and the first thing out of their mouth was “You’re black? You don’t sound black!“ 

I don’t speak/use AAVE because I didn’t grow up around people who did, and don’t have any sort of understanding about it, etc. This also adds into the whole identity crisis thing.

Misconceptions

I am frequently assumed to be Hispanic and, on one occasion, Indian. I’ve had people ask me if I’m Mexican outright. At one point I worked in a nursing home and the dementia unit had a lot of nurses who spoke Spanish due to some of the residents forgetting English. One of these nurses spoke to me in Spanish. I gave him a blank look and he sorta paused and went “You don’t speak Spanish?” I was also on a train once and an older Indian gentleman was standing near me? Or took the seat next to me and I believed he asked me if I was Indian outright.

I don’t have enough Workplace experience to make it it’s own category, but I once worked in a Dunkin Donuts with a primarily Indian and Haitian staff and I had these older POC women repeatedly asking me “Where are you from?” when I started. I told them “oh, the western part of the state” and they did the “but where are you from.“ I don’t know, I’m sorry.

Also as a kid my dad picked me up from school and this one girl asked me if I was adopted lmao. Nobody ever thinks biracial.

Self-esteem

I have pretty low self-esteem. While I don’t necessarily think I’m ugly, my struggle with my identity both gender and racially make it hard to be confident and outgoing, at least with strangers. I dunno, existing is hard sometimes.

Things I’d like to see more of

More mixed kids in stories and media as main characters or main supporting characters

More interracial relationships of all kinds, not just black & white.

I don’t know if it’s right to ask for this, but also.. more small families. 

More people whose families are like mine: just myself, my parents and my brother, with an occasional family friend showing up for holidays. All these stories with plenty of cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents always make me feel alone and like I missed out on a lot.

I am a first-generation American, with both my parents being Taiwanese immigrants. My mother and father are both highly educated and are currently American citizens. At home, you’ll probably find a Taiwanese talk show or a Chinese drama serial blaring on the TV; my father has a slight grudge against the English language. I was raised speaking Mandarin Chinese and am passably fluent with a slight accent, although my reading level is barely at elementary-school. I’ve gone to Chinese school since I can remember, and grew up in a Chinese church. Simply put, I’m just an average ABC kid living a quiet life. 

Language

Being able to speak Chinese has been a real sore spot my entire life. From going to only speaking Chinese as a wee five-year-old to having to take the kindergarten class as a second-grader in Chinese school was a significant thorn in the side of my ego for quite some time. The environment I grew up in very much encouraged being “cultured”. While unspoken, Chinese kids that can’t speak or have a severe accent when speaking Chinese are very much judged. I actually love the feeling of being able to speak Chinese at a near fluent level; I just wish I could read and write fluently as well. The sheer complexity and history inherent in the Chinese language frustrates a bookworm like me, knowing there is an entire world of wonder that I can’t fully access. It’s the fact that I can only understand about every fifth word whenever I open a Chinese novel that really grinds on my gears. 

Religion

There is actually a significant Chinese/Taiwanese Christian immigrant community. My church is non-denominational, and it actually has the words “Chinese Christian Church” in its name. Taiwanese and Chinese culture is woven into the fabric of our church, which results in some interesting situations with some of our pastors that are ABCs or white. 

Food

Taiwanese street food is the best. In an environment rife with competition and plenty of eager customers, there is just so much good food. The recent trend with bubble tea is both beneficial and frustrating to me. Beneficial because there is more access to bubble tea (I absolutely refuse to call it boba), frustrating because so many people are unaware that it is a Taiwanese invention. My favorite dish finds its roots in Mainland China: Beef noodle soup. My mom cooks it with tomatoes, which makes a huge difference in the way the soup tastes. In general, I would say that in America, we don’t eat classically pure Taiwanese cuisine; the only thing consistently Asian on our table is the omnipresence of white rice. I’ve eaten grilled steak with white rice before. 

Identity Issues

My primary identity issue is that of a different trope from the “banana” one; I’ve always felt that I would never be Asian enough. The idea of being able to speak and read Chinese fluently, to understand what life in a Taiwanese city is like, that has always been an underlying complex of mine. I’ve always had some strange ideal of trying to become a “Taiwanese” person, and I constantly compare myself to people I know in Mainland China and in Taiwan, even though that is simply impossible. It’s to the point that I get a guilty thrill when transfer students ask me what region of China I’m from when I speak to them in Chinese. This weird, inverted superiority complex has decreased over the years as I’ve improved in my language skills and also learned to appreciate more of the benefits of growing up in the U.S. But it’s still there, always lurking. 

Things I’d like to see less of

Racism in my community is a real thing; a lot of Asian immigrants (and subsequently their kids) are unabashedly racist and stereotype with no shame. It is a strange, sad phenomenon born out of ignorance and tribalism. My peers and I have to be more adamant about holding ourselves and others accountable in regards to these narrow-minded, limiting mental blocks. 

More nuanced coverage of China in western media. There seems to be a significant misconception that Chinese people are either poor, brainwashed commies with no conception of what fReEDOm is or they are rich, trashy brainwashed commies with no conception of what fReEDOm is. If more people actually started talking to people from mainland China, I think they’d find they’re really just normal people with their own thoughts on what democracy and government is.

Things I’d like to see more of

Sincere, genuine representation of Asian-Americans, be they Indian or Chinese or Korean or Japanese (read: Fresh Off The Boat? Nice try, but it ain’t cute now in 2020). Media purporting to represent us is chock-full of stereotypes and caricatures to the extreme; they attempt to both appeal to white people and Asians and fail miserably on both ends.

I’m usually a lurker on this blog but, I’ve decided to send in a POC profile - mainly because it’s so rare for me to see someone like me represented in the media. In fact, I’m not certain I’ve ever seen someone Bangladeshi represented in mainstream media 

Beauty Standards 

Colourism is a very big thing still in the Bangladeshi community. My parent’s generation, despite liking to think that they’re very open minded still fall into the trap of the narrow minded view so present in the older generations. I’ve always fallen on the fairer side and as I grew up and developed mild iron deficiency, people would comment on how beautiful my skin was (and some people use the Bengali word for beautiful as being synonymous for fair), whilst my younger sister who is on the darker side but very rarely gets such comments. 

Clothing 

On a day to day basis, I wear casual English clothes or more casual Asian clothing around the house. But, for special occasions where I’m going to be with other Bengali people, I do tend to wear traditional clothing. Essentially, all the women in our house have two wardrobes; one with English clothes and one with Asian clothes. Although, nowadays, the English wardrobe seems to be growing more and more packed. A quick thing - traditional Asian clothes, especially those that are very flashy and embroidered, are heavy and so people don’t tend to wear them that often. 

But - it differs between person to person. My mum wears English clothes around the home but her older sister wears a saree - a plainer saree but a saree none the less. 

Culture 

Culture is an odd one for me because I’ve never felt as if I belonged to either one. Growing up, I didn’t fit into the typical English stereotype because I wasn’t Caucasian and I grew up bilingual. I’d also hear all these bad things about Bangladesh, and the experiences others had around me would mould the opinion I had of a country my family still refer to as their motherland. But, as I’ve grown older and actually started to make opinions for myself, I’ve begun to accept that I can be a part of both, I don’t need to be one or the other. 

Dating and Romance

In my family at least, ‘dating’ is done with the intention to marry. It all remains very chaste - with very little/no physical affection - until after marriage and almost all dates are with chaperones. The only ones that happen without chaperones are those in secret or those happening after the engagement. Nowadays, I feel like love marriages are the norm and most couples meet through being introduced by other people. 

Food

Food is a big part of our culture. In fact, if you’re invited to someone’s house, or if you pop in for five minutes, it’s considered rude to not sit down and have a cup of tea or even to have an entire meal. Food is one of the ways that we show affection for each other and, especially for important days like Eid, food plays a central role. Eating a meal together on a festival day like Eid is one of the few days of the year when all the adults and all the children gather together and spend time together. 

In my home at least, rice and curry is a staple. As Bangladesh is mainly riverine, fish is an important part of the diet. In fact, there’s a saying that if you can’t eat fish, you’re not really Bengali (which makes things a bit awkward for my uncle who is allergic to fish) and in some families there’s a tradition of a new bride cooking a fish curry on the second day of marriage. I’m not sure why, but it’s a thing. 

Home/Family life/ Friendship

I could talk about family for ages … 

My family is on the big side with my Mum being one of eight and my Dad being one of six. I’m one of three, but all of my cousins are considered like siblings - because we were raised as siblings. The familial bond is an important one and it’s often one that’s a burden to bear. For instance, as I’m the oldest granddaughter/niece/cousin I’m called affa by every cousin younger than me (Affa meaning older sister) and this burden is quite a heavy one to bear. It means that when the cousins experience any issues, they run to you to sort it out whether it’s something small or something big and it’s a burden I don’t mind shouldering. After all, it’s one I’ll likely have to carry for the rest of my life. 

Everyone older than you is treated with respect - even if you don’t want to respect them at all. For some reason, it’s an important thing.

Friendship between Bengali girls is … something else. Often we’ll break off and have our own conversation in Bengali as if it’s some sort of secret code and this usually comes in extremely handy when discussing secret birthday party plans in front of the person whose birthday we’re planning. Personally, my parents have never been strict that I can’t have any male friends - I honestly don’t think they care but I know of other parents who insist that their daughters can’t have male friends. 

Language 

To me particularly, the language was an important thing. I grew up bilingual because my grandparents lived with us and they couldn’t communicate in English. But, I don’t remember ever making the effort to learn it - it was something I picked up. I certainly can’t read or write in Bengali but I can speak it. However, this ability doesn’t seem to have transferred to my sister and most of the younger cousins. Most of my younger cousins can’t speak Bengali and so struggle to communicate with our grandparents and it’s sad to say but this isn’t strange at all. Many of the new generation British Bangladeshi’s can’t speak the language and in fact, they don’t care to learn it because they don’t see it as being worth passing along. 

Religion

As a Muslim woman, I find myself being constantly policed. Whether it’s by the media or by those around me. There seems to be a misconception that if a woman wears a hijab (the head covering) then she is the epitome of all things chaste and virtuous - but that’s not always the case. There are so many hijabis I know that don’t pray five times a day or keep their fasts or they drink etc. In fact, I’ve met a lot of muslim women who don’t wear hijab but their niyyah (intention) and their behaviour is inline with religion - my sister being an example. 

The basic 5 pillars of islam, the first of which is the shahadah which is the declaration of faith. This is whispered by father’s into their children’s ears at birth and is the last thing whispered into someone’s ear as they pass away.

The daily prayers are the second - with 5 prayers throughout the day and this is something I know many people struggle with, but I personally think that faith is a personal thing - you alone know your struggles. If you are praying 5 times a day and you are ridiculing someone who only prays once, you may think you’re doing the right thing. But for all you know - that person who prays once a day may be someone who reverted to the faith (revert being what we call converts) and they may be on the road to accepting Islam. Your two minutes of ridicule may even turn someone else away from peace they were hoping to find in Islam.

Zakat is the third which refers to giving alms to the poor and this is often done in the month of Ramadan. 

Fasting in Ramadan is the fourth pillar and during this month, Muslims fast from sun rise to sunset and we’re not allowed to drink or eat anything. (And yes - this includes water. Not even water? Is a question we always get)

The final pillar, the fifth refers to Hajj which is the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca. Everyone who is able to afford the trip and can make it, should complete it at least once in their lives. All my family who have been, have said that it is the most peaceful time they’ve ever spent in their lives. 

Things I’d like to see less of…

Muslim girls being ‘repressed’ by wearing the hijab and having a curfew and being secretly rebellious once they leave the home.

 Yes, I have a curfew but mostly it’s because my parent’s are terrified after hearing of all the stabbings and the acid attacks that happen to hijab wearing Muslim women

The overly strict father figure who is unreasonable and adores sons over his daughters. 

My father was on the strict side yes, but I realise now, after growing up and talking to him that it was all shaped on his own experiences. Yes, he might not have let me play in the streets until late like other kids but it was because when he was young, if he stayed out too late the racist teens would approach the Bengali children and attack them. My father was strict, but in the way that other parents in his position will be. (If anything, my mother is stricter … and the worst thing she does is text me a list of chores that she wants me to do whilst she’s at work)

That brings me onto the next point; the mother who stays at home being uneducated and relying on her husband for everything. 

There’s nothing wrong with that - but the issue comes when this character is used to put down Bengali women, to try and show how much better Caucasian educated women are. 

Another thing I absolutely can’t stand is the idea of a Bengali girl falling for some plain, boring Caucasian boy and he removes the wool from over her eyes, teaching her how repressed she was and how she should embrace this Western lifestyle. When a boy tried that on me in my first year of uni, I walked away from him the moment he told me that he has a hijab kink because Muslim girls are and I quote ‘untouched and I can teach them everything’.

Things I’d like to see more of…

Supportive family units. 

Whilst I might fall out with my parents every now and then, as is natural, they still support me. My father and I often head out for little ice cream cafe dates and my mother is teaching me to cook (although her cooking style tends to be put enough of this in and enough of that - there’s no measurements of anything) and my siblings and cousins and I gather as a whole every weekend. Those of us that live close enough to anyway. The 20+ of us that do gather, take over a house and all between the ages of 21 and 5 tend to be unruly and can go crazy but it’s a dynamic no one seems to want to represent.

The educated hijabi. 

Goodness, I can’t stand seeing the trope of a girl wanting to marry and pop out babies and etc - yes, it’s a valid trope but again, so many people use it to show how backwards we are. My eyes are even rolling now - Bengali Muslim girls are amongst some of the most driven people I have met and this is usually because the older women in our families weren’t given these opportunities and most people instantly assume that we’re not going to get far. 

Casual mentions of Islam - religion is a big part of a character. 

But I hate it being a controversial thing especially since Islam literally translates to ‘peace gained through submission to Allah’ and newsflash, Allah is the arabic word for God. That’s it. Why can’t we have characters who have to be home before sunset because they need to pray? Or hijabis needing to go shopping for a new headscarf or even phrases like 'this top would be so cute if it weren’t see through’ or 'if only this dress was floor length and then I wouldn’t have to wear leggings with it. I hate having to wear leggings in the heat’. These are things I regularly say! 

Wooow, this is long and I kind of ended up rambling. But I hope it helps someone! 

Hey, I live with a Japanese mother and a Polish dad in the Northeast US. My mother has lived in the US for 20 years, and both of my parents are nurses; I speak Japanese with my mother. When I was 8, I was diagnosed with autism, which frankly explains a lot. I have also been masculine presenting ever since I can remember (my parents have tried a lot to get me to try anything else, which has not worked), and am attracted to women.

Beauty Standards

I always wanted to look like a Disney prince, my standards were Humphrey Bogart movies that my dad showed me, Hirai Ken, who was a Japanese singer that my mom liked, and perhaps most fucked up of all, Groucho Marx. Honestly, even being AFAB and pressured to a certain degree, my parents were so busy with dealing with symptoms of my autism (ie, frequent meltdowns, refusal to socialize, difficulties with authority, taking me to get evaluated) that I either never felt pressure about my looks, or was oblivious to pressure due to my inability to recieve social cues. However, aside from this, I don’t know if had any reason to recieve pressure: while not white passing, I am light skinned, thin (? I’ve been described as “built like a tank”), and have features that’d be seen as conventionally attractive. My parents have always wanted me to grow my hair out, but I’ve always kept it at like, disheveled crew cut to chin length. Aside from that, I’ve always liked being muscular, and really like building upper body strength; whenever I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve worked out my arms, shoulders, etc. 

My sister is darker skinned than I am, has features that she has a lot of insecurity about, and has said she envies my features. With that in mind, either I haven’t received pressure in terms of my cultural beauty standards, or I was oblivious. 

On really special occasions, I’ll cut my mom some slack and let her put some makeup on me for a day. 

Clothing I dress like a dude going to an informal job interview. My mom and dad have expressed a lot of wishes for me to present more feminine, I used to get bullied for not presenting feminine, but I never really stopped dressing like this. On family holidays, or more formal events in Japan, my mom had my sister and I wear a kimono or a yukata. 

Culture My mom celebrates Hinamatsuri, where we just… put up the dolls, eat chirashi, have a good time. We also celebrate Shogatsu, which is literally the New Year, and on that morning we eat osechi. My mom used to have a big get together every year with all of her Japanese friends, where a bunch of Japanese ladies partied, ate food, drank alcohol, and live streamed this big music show thing that Japan has every New Years. I still don’t really know it, because the kids, including me, just goofed around, watched cartoons upstairs, and stole food. They’re really warm childhood memories, and I remember being really happy. My dad is culturally Catholic and celebrates Christmas and Wigilia; I like the beet soup, my sister hates the beet soup. Both of my parents put a lot of effort into the holidays they do celebrate, but they don’t celebrate a lot.

Daily struggles Middle school, or as I like to call it, that time I learned that people didn’t like me. I grew up around a lot of hicks, and I did get kind of picked on in elementary school, but kids mostly left me alone. In middle school, I was on the receiving end of a bunch of shit both stemming from the fact that I was the only racial minority, and the fact that I was so blatantly autistic. All I ever talked about was birds, and I got (weirdly) a lot of Pearl Harbor/Hiroshima jokes, because hicks are not creative, and threats to leave dead birds on my desk.

In high school, I was no longer bullied because I became violent and started intentionally playing up that persona so that people would leave me alone, which stopped in freshman year. Sophomore year onward, no one really talked to me, and I didn’t talk to anyone back. I thought this was normal and okay for me until I made friends in college.

Nowadays, in my workplace, it’s just day to day tasteless shit. I work as a line cook in a seaside restaurant, and line cooks are going to be line cooks. “Sorry I don’t speak Asian,” “Do you eat X,” nothing downright horrible, except those couple times where it was like, “You’re like a mix of Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima.” I don’t really get massively upset about it, but when I chose my crowd, that shit isn’t going to happen.

I get fetishized by people due to my race, which sucks, but I’ve been told that I come off as so brusque that it turns people off. And I don’t mean Stoic Asian Brusque, I mean crotchety old man who complains until people go away.

Dating and Relationships I’m attracted to women, but I don’t date, I don’t like dating, I’ve just started acclimatizing to having an actual social life. I am sexually active, and I never felt any insecurity about it. Sometimes my parents make snide remarks about it, but even then, I honestly just never could find it in me to care. 

I’ve never felt insecure about my attraction to women; it’s just always been something I was aware of, and my parents know. They don’t really care, but they both don’t really want to talk about it. Sometimes I wish I could talk about crushes and stuff, and on occasion I feel like I’m missing out on the whole “Talk to parents about your romance life” thing, but it’s no big deal. Food Uh, fish, rice, vegetables, sometimes mixed all together. Sesame oil, teriyaki, soy sauce mixed with some kind of oil, a lot of stuff. My mom mixes Japanese mayonaise with ketchup and dips raw vegetables in them. I do that with cauliflower. Also, she likes celery dipped in miso paste mixed with mayo, my sister likes cucumbers soaked in soy sauce. I have no goddamn idea if this is ordinary.

We go out for sushi on special occasions. Home/Family life/Friendships My family is isolated for a number of reasons; for various personal reasons, neither of my parents are in any real contact with their extended family. My mother is an introvert, and feels that she doesn’t always connect to her Japanese friends, and my father is a grumpy shut in. I have a very close relationship with my mother, though; she vents to me a lot, she accepts me in all regards, and she’s the most stable person in my life. She put a lot of time and energy into teaching me Japanese, tons of effort into making sure I got support for my autism (it didn’t work well, but she probably just, drained herself over me). My dad and I are very similar in personality, and so we’re very abrasive towards each other, but good friends. My father was physically abusive to me when I was younger, but he also essentially tutored me. 

My sister and I are polar opposites; she’s academically driven, I’ve always been hyper focused on one subject, capable in others but had ADHD/autism related problems with attention and motivation. She’s feminine presenting, I’m masculine presenting. She’s motivated, I’m like a garden slug with four limbs. She’s socially adept but highly anxious and dances around topics that upset her, I’m completely socially inept, but relaxed and blunt. She’s active in the community, I’ve just stopping being a shut in. I love her to pieces, even if she is pretty Type A. She’s got an amazing sense of humor, gets heated about defending her family, IDK everything about my sister is great. We’ve fought a lot, we’ve had a lot of funny moments.

Identity issues I know that my sister is insecure about her position among other Asian Americans, but a lot of my lack of issue flat out comes from how much I’ve isolated myself due to bullying. I don’t have a social frame of reference because I was deprived of one, and I’ve continuously deprived myself of one because I don’t really know how to go about getting one.

I still get anxious when I have to actually bring up how I was targeted for the things that made me different, because for a long time, it felt like acknowledging the lack of control I had in those situations. Being targeted for things that I couldn’t help made me a pretty angry person, but as of about a year ago, I feel like I’ve started to confront how that anger wasn’t unanimously a strength, and recognizing how my coping mechanisms affected me.

However, I also villainized myself a lot. I didn’t want to acknowledge my lack of control in being bullied for my race and disability, and through high school I started considering myself a naturally “bad” person, and after becoming violent stopped people from bullying me, I sort of developed this Scary Persona so people would unanimously leave me alone. I used that to justify acting violent, standoffish, loudly negative, and irate to most people. I also justified cutting myself off from people I liked to “protect” them. It took a lot of introspection to start recognizing that my anger based coping mechanisms weren’t a complete strength, but also that I wasn’t bullied because I was an inherently bad, dangerous person.

However, as a result, coming to terms with the fact that I was just targeted for my race and disability, not because I was scary and A Bad Person, has both made me more nervous and allowed me room to try to lower my defenses, and be more bubbly and friendly again. Micro-aggressions Assuming that my mom is homophobic, assuming my mom has an accent, assuming I’m an exchange student, getting mistaken for other Asians, people thinking I’m a tourist, “What are you,” “Wow your eyes are big for an Asian,” your general cuisine jokes, “Your English is AMAZING!” Misconceptions I’m a lot stronger than I look, mostly because I’m on the short side, and wear clothes baggy enough that my shoulders tend to get concealed. I know the misconception of Asian people being physically weak, so it’s always a little funny whenever I’m in a situation where I can startle people in that regard. I have been mistaken for an exchange student a loooot, to the point where people have remarked at how amazing they thought my English was. I may be good at math, but I hate it. I’m a Latin language major, I love Renaissance art history!

I’m not pale as shit because I’m half Japanese. I’m just like that.

Self Esteem Honestly, in spite of everything, I never felt bad about myself as a person. I’ve always liked how I looked, presented, and how I acted. I’m coming out of an angry period in my life. My racial identity was never something I resented, because I love my mom, I love my culture, I love my looks, but the bullying that came as a result made me paranoid, closed, and socially isolated.   Things I’d like to see less of

If you aren’t an LGBT+ Asian person, can we please lay off the homophobic Asian parent trope?? Maybe it’s so personal for me because my mom has been such a pillar of support in my life, and because I’ve basically never seen a supportive Asian parent on TV in regards to that, and I’m not saying whether it’s truly prevalent or not, but the Homophobic Asian Parent thing is so deeply saturated in media about us that if I have to see it again from someone just using it as a plot device, I’m going to blow a fuse.

Submissive, quiet, stiff Japanese AFAB people. Even stoic. I like relaxed, suave, lazy, or visibly angry, impulsive, irate Japanese representation, and that doesn’t even mean disconnected from the damn culture. 

We don’t all speak with an accent.

Sometimes English is the first language. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes you learn both at once and are at ease with both. Linguistic nuance would be appreciated.

Asians being an auto genius at everything.

Things I’d like to see more of

Japanese AFAB people being allowed to be angry. I mean scary angry, I mean massive, terrifying, monstrously angry. Not Dragon Lady graceful, I want to to see us knocking shit off tables, punching holes in the drywall, I want terrifyingly flawed. Don’t let other prejudice get involved, either; if your angrier characters are all inexplicably darker skinned, or not thin, that’s suspicious.

Not all of us are waif thin. I am pretty broad shouldered. In a similar vein, not all Japanese people are the same skin tone. There’s a tone of physical diversity.

Japanese AFAB Byronic Heroes! 

Japanese GNC people, particularly AFAB! Butch lesbians, NB people, transmasc Japanese people.

Japanese characters who express those without feeling isolated from their own culture! Japanese characters who love their culture without falling into the stoic stereotype, just being a person interacting with it. 

Happy Japanese LGBT+ people, or at least Japanese characters who aren’t that conflicted about that aspect of their identity. Bonus if they love their parents, and vice versa!

I’m a grad student and aspiring author living and studying in California, and am a white-passing Latina. I was born to a Mexican mother (who is somewhat Americanized) and a white father from the Midwest. For about half my life, I never questioned my identity as Mexican; I just was. That changed when I moved to a suburb where the majority of the population was either white or Mexican, and it was very black/white. Still, all my life I grew up speaking Spanish and English, eating Mexican food, and performing some Mexican traditions like making tamales for Christmas and las posadas.

Daily Struggles

The university I attend is in a majority-white, conservative area of California, and, because I’m white-passing, I hear so many racist comments. Sometimes, people even try to make racist jokes in front of me (I usually never hang out with them again). They think because I’m white, I’ll understand their views on deportation or immigrants, but I don’t. Thankfully, I do have friends who know I’m Mexican American (or of Mexican descent, if you want to phrase it that way), and they treat me as Mexican.

It’s also such a struggle being taken seriously by some members of the Latinx community. I’m told I look too white, and I’m self conscious because I have a bit of an American accent when I speak Spanish now. I’m really into the #ownvoices movement, but find it hard to connect because many talk about skin color and I’m, at best, tan.

Dating and Relationships

I’m in my 20s now and I can say I’ve never dated anyone. It doesn’t help that I’m completely oblivious to all flirting, and I identify as ace. It was hard growing up, and is even now, because as the oldest out of my cousins, everyone expected me to date and it… just didn’t happen. While my family and extended family is mostly Catholic, they’re all fine with LGBTQ+ people and are very open-minded. Still, when they come over for holidays and ask me where my boyfriend is, it gets very awkward. My grandmas, especially, has accepted I will probably never marry, but she still wants me to have kids so I’m not “lonely.”

The only cool thing about coming out to my parents and brother (who are the only ones who know) is that my mom is now telling me family stories about how her father’s sisters never married, or wanted to, either. She thinks maybe they were ace, but since that’s not a thing in Mexico, they just called themselves spinsters and lived with their brother.

Holidays/Religion

We celebrate the usual Catholic holidays like Christmas, Lent, and Easter. I’m not Catholic anymore, which was hard when I told my mom, but I still like the sense of tradition and comfort it brings me. Now I’m more “spiritual” I guess, if you had to label it. I’ve been teaching myself tarot and dream interpretation. I’m still very drawn to Mary of the Seven Sorrows and the Sacred Heart imagery though. I’ve even considered getting tattoos of one of them.

Identity Issues

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t really have any identity issues until around 8th or 9th grade. My family moved to this different neighborhood beginning my 6th grade year, but it wasn’t until 8th grade I noticed anything different. As much as I’m ashamed to admit, I became one of those girls who said she wouldn’t date Mexicans because they reminded me of my cousin. The first time I said that to my mom, I got a full-blown lecture. After that, I never said it again. Thankfully, I’ve learned better and got rid of this idea before it stuck.

In high school and college is when my identity issues really hit hard. High school, I was surrounded by people of various cultures, so it wasn’t as noticeable, but I did feel a small sense of disconnect. I was reading and writing stories with white people in them, people who looked more like the ones I saw everyday than myself.

In college, it was somewhat liberal and this was around the time that #ownvoices was taking off. There were so many people who were proud and embracing of their culture and it really opened my eyes to both micro-aggressions and connecting to a culture. Since then I have struggled with how to identify myself. As an aspiring author, I want to write #ownvoices too, but I’ve had some people tell me I might be “too white” and “too Americanized” to do so. It really hurts, because deep down I really feel Mexican but don’t feel proud to show it because I’m not the right kind. This has really affected my self-esteem, especially in telling others I’m Mexican. I look nothing like my cousins, who are darker than I am. It just feels like I’ll always be the “guera.”

Things I’d like to see less of

feisty latinas - I’m feisty myself, but I feel this trope has been overused as sexist and exotifying. Show me people who are human.

the mistress/latin lover - I hate this with a passion. Not only is it bad representation, it literally only shows Latinx as sexy objects instead of people.

the maid/gardener - another trope I highly dislike. True, many Latinx do work working class jobs, but that doesn’t mean all of them do!

making it in america - there are a lot of families trying to make it in America, but this trope is used a lot as a cheap plot and for cheap emotional thrill. I’d like to see more Latinx families just living a normal, middle class life.

Things I’d like to see more of

Latinx in fantasy!! - I would be so excited if I saw more Latinx-based fantasy. Not just the characters, but the culture and landscape too. I feel like some people are so dismissive of landscape because they think Mexico is all desert, but that’s not true!

Latinx as main characters in YA - I know there are some books out there, but I’m still disappointed in the selection of Latinx characters in YA. And when I do see them in shows or books, they’re usually the sidekick.