mixed backgrounds

[Peony]

Re: mixed backgrounds

@Nina85

I dont know how to answer that to be honest with you. I guess I identify more with Canadian culture given that I was born and raised here. I have visited Pakistan and absolutely loved it, but I never actually lived there. My father and I are Muslim and my mother Christian. BUT, as Canadian as I feel, I have always been questionned by people as to where I am from - I look more Pakistani than Canadian- and therefore always had to talk about my Pakistani heritage. So I think other people identify me with being Pakistani more than myself in some ways. I speak very little urdu- something I resent my dad for because he should have made more of an effort to teach it to me, so I am learning it myself now. One thing I do remeber growing up is my parents fighting all the time about everything (money and finances, friends…) BUT never religion or anything about ethnic backgrounds, which is why I always find it weird when I see some of my friends being in conflict with their SO because of those reasons. There was an unspoken but strong respect and understanding for differing religious or cultural views in my household between my parents. My mother would encourage my father to bring me to the mosque when I was young to meet other kids from the Pakistani community there, my father would attend baptisms/weddings at the church with my mother, we would celebrate EID and go to my mom’s relatives for their christmas celebrations. Never any hate or conflict, and I grew up to know who I was and respect anyone different. I grew up wearing western clothes, but my mom would always get a salwar kameez or two made for me every year so I could wear those too on special occasions. She also knew some urdu so I would hear my parents speaking it and both my parents would cook desi food a lot. As a child, we lived in a completely caucasian neighborhood- I was the only brown kid- and was made to feel different very often. But as I grew up, being mixed is something i really cherish. ON a side note, I went to Pakistan when I was 23, and all my cousins were freaking out saying things like “We were expecting this little Canadian girl, but the way your talk, express yourself, look, you are ssoo south Asian!!”.

That’s great that your parents were like any other couple in many respects but never fought over religion or how to raise you. Yes, people have assumptions about others based on their looks and perhaps ethnicity. You’re a product of your experience so of course if you are raised in a family where both Pakistani culture & Islam, and Canadian culture & Christianity are a part of your life, you’re not going to be completely one way or another.

My nephew is 1/2 white and 1/2 Indian. He looks completely white! He had strawberry blond hair as a baby which is now pure blond. My sis has gotten my Mom’s Iraqi lightness so I’m guessing that’s why he’s blond. So this white looking child’s first language was Urdu, it was really cute. When he was a little over one year old while watching a video and he says “mama iske manei kya hai?” It made my sis wonder for a brief minute if she should stop talking to him in urdu to help him adjust more to the culture that surrounds him. Mash’allah, as beautiful as he is on the outside, he is just as gorgeous in the inside.

He considers himself Indian! it’s so adorable. He just started going to school and joined the Indian club. LOL…race stuff does come up. He came home one day and said “Mama, what’s my skin color”? Just recently, while he was playing with the kids in the neighborhood, one of the fathers was just joking around and said to his daughter, Casey are you going to marry LP (my nephew) and the little child responds “NO! I’m not going to marry a brown person!”. Obviously a 4 year old child is not going to think about race if it was not discussed in her house. Sad thing is that this little girl is 1/2 Chinese and 1/2 white and thinks she’s for some reason better than another 1/2 asian (albeit different ethnicities) child and 1/2 white child.