Who am I ?

Written by: Shayanika Suresh

“Who am I?” Is that not such a simple question? Why is it then that I find myself searching for an answer? True, I could reply by saying my name but what will I say to the question that follows: “Where are you from?” It is not that I do not know where I was born because I do. I know my motherland. It has a name, yet I cannot say it. Why? Not because I am embarrassed (for I am not) and not because I am afraid (for I am not), but because I have been denied rights to my land. I do not belong there, they say. History tells a different story, yet not a soul is prepared to listen. Instead, the present creates its own history and that is what the world is taught, which then turns to me, shakes its finger in my face and says: “You don’t belong there!”

So, where do I belong – to the land in which I live? Do I become a child of this nation, which has fulfilled my basic needs and has given me the education to earn a living? Can I finally answer: “I am from Canada”? In my glee at finding an answer to the question that has so often haunted me, I tapped the person sitting beside me in the subway and said: “Hey, My name is _______ and I’m Canadian”. I do not know what I expected him to say, perhaps congratulate me or introduce himself. Instead, he asked, “Are you sure? Because you don’t look so!” I was dumbfounded. This idea of looking your nationality had not occurred to me. Yet, here it was. I may live here, but I was not born here. I am wanted here but I cannot be from here. Though I have used the term ‘multiculturalism’ many times, it is not till this moment that I finally realized what it truly meant – individuals with different identities and histories, belonging to different nations, coming together and sharing one land. We are all partly Canadian, because we play a role in its present, yet we are not entirely Canadian, because we do not share its whole history.

As I watched the other commuters get in and out of the stations, I realized that many of them are like me – only partly Canadian, but they were also different because they had something that I did not. These people had identities and nations to which they belong, to which they can return. And, here I am, denied rights to my identity, and rejected access to my nation. Tears filled my eyes, as I felt the sting of being identity-less. Only those who face a similar identity crisis can understand the pain of this state, which is such that I will wish it not even upon an enemy.

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