By Ahmed Sharma | South Asian American Advisory Board
When Ronnie Chieng jokingly said back in 2022 that Indians are not Asians, it sparked controversy over who gets to decide how people identify. And former President Donald Trump’s comments regarding Vice President Kamala Harris as “misleading” people about her own identity seems to have re-opened Pandora’s box, if you will.
In front of a panel of Black journalists in Chicago, Mr. Trump said, according to NPR, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
The conversation surrounding Black identity alone is a heavy topic and one deserving its own article. However, when it comes to discussions about self-identity, it seems as though Ms. Harris is being challenged simply due to her existence. In the book, “Both, Not Half,” Jassa Ahluwalia shares his own experience growing up British and Punjabi and embracing the duality of both ethnicities.
Similarly, more ethnically diverse individuals in the U.S. often have found themselves faced with either choosing one identity or (like Ahluwalia) embracing both because of the privilege of growing up with a balance of both respective cultures. And while at the end of the day, it should be nobody else’s business how you identify, these conversations still happen.
“You can’t have concepts of purity or racial hygiene without attendant notions of impurity and contamination,” Ahluwalia writes. “If you’re trying to construct a world around strict racial division, the very existence of mixed heritage kids poses a threat.”
Growing up in a diverse city like Houston, it’s not uncommon to find mixed individuals. I have two siblings whose children are Pakistani and Mexican. It used to raise eyebrows for people who are unfamiliar seeing mixed children. However, there’s a higher chance of Millennials from mixed backgrounds and this trend is expected to continue.
Even Jon Stewart riffed about mixed races when defending Kamala Harris’ ethnicity.
“Two races?! In one person?!” Stewart said in feigned outrage. “If these people ever saw a Pizza Hut/Taco Bell, they’d lose their minds.”
As someone who has studied the history of race in the United States, I’ve always found it fascinating how there are people who fume at this country’s obsession with race. The short but real reality is everything the U.S. stands for has to do with race and religion. That’s why historically when people benefitted from racial passing, it was a means of survival. Growing up Post 9/11, I really tried to hide from any and everything that would make me seem different. Even not going by my real name for most of my life.
One of my closest friends, Zenoor, who still refers to me by my previous moniker, understands the struggle of self-identity growing up Pakistani and Dominican. Despite having a more South Asian appearance, he considers himself more Hispanic or Latino because he is much more well-versed in Dominican culture.
“My first language was Spanish,” Zenoor said. “I didn’t learn English until I was like 6 or 7 years old.
“I went to a Spanish-speaking school, I also grew up in Dominican Republic,” he continued. “I grew up mostly with my mom and she and her family members can only speak Spanish. So I do know the Hispanic culture more.”
This is not to say he shies away from his Pakistani roots. He just argues one needs to understand why they are embracing one or both cultures.
“I had to kind of choose a side because I don’t know the Pakistani struggle; having two Pakistani parents, culturally, speaking the language,” he explained.
Zenoor’s experience is not uncommon. Historically, South Asian immigrants were placed in a position where they were unsure if they were White or colored. In Bengali Harlem, Vivek Bald explains how South Asian immigrants who settled in the U.S. and passed for colored, tended to blend in with their “new” ethnic identity.
Those who are fortunate to have grown up with both cultures, like Houston Councilmember Letitia Plummer. Her mother is Yemeni-Persian and her father is African American and despite embracing her ethnic background, this didn’t stop people from raising their eyebrows.
“Whenever I would go to school, everyone thought that my mom was actually my nanny,” she explained. “As I got older, I was kind of in a weird spot because people of full African American descent weren’t very supportive and then I wasn’t really accepted in the Muslim community either because I didn’t ‘look’ Muslim, so growing up was interesting.”
Unlike most people from mixed backgrounds, Plummer’s parents were able to provide her with a strong balance of both cultures and values.
“I hear about the same things about people being biracial, like growing up Black and White, but really not knowing where they stand,” she explained. “The difference, I think, in my situation was that my father was such a strong personality, with such a strong African American history, and it gave me a level of confidence that maybe other people wouldn’t have.
And my mother had the opportunity to be home and raise us as Muslims, and she had family here,” Plummer continued. “So the cultural support was more than I’d ever imagined. Whereas a lot of immigrants that move here, don’t have all their family here at the same time, but I just didn’t have that situation.”
Regardless of how one grows up, their ethnic background remains unchanged. The cultures and values instilled in them notwithstanding, how they identify is subjective. In politics, one could make the pandering argument for Mr. Trump’s comments about Ms. Harris. However, the reality of not recognizing or knowing what her actual ethnic background does not make Ms. Harris guilty of misleading. One simply doesn’t “become” Black and one doesn’t just become Asian American.
And while those familiar with Mr. Trump’s rhetoric, it doesn’t change how troubling they come across.
“It was the same old show − the divisiveness and the disrespect,” Kamala Harris said in Houston, according to USA Today.
Even people who worked under his administration, like Elaine Chao, have found themselves speaking out about the racism Asian Americans have faced.
“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation,” the former U.S. Secretary of Transportation said via NBC News. “He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.”
Indeed, identities are socially constructed and there may come a time when we aren’t placed in these imaginary boxes of being ___ enough. Until that time comes, multiracial individuals will keep having to figure out if embracing one or the other (or both) is sufficient for the people who scratch their heads and wonder who they really are.
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