My Identity
I went out with a friend over the weekend, and we had a nice time. He’s Brazilian and I met a few of her other Brazilian friends. One of his friends asked me “Are you Sri-Lankan?” I replied, “No, I’m Tamil.” His reply was, “isn’t that a language, not a place.” And, I told him, I do not identify as a Sri-Lankan, and I’m from Tamil Eelam. Now, explaining this to someone who is out of the loop in terms of current events is a bit difficult, but I feel I get into this conversation every time someone asks where I’m from. I gave him the short answer that I’m from Tamil Eelam, and that is the traditional homeland of the Tamils before it was unjustly colonialized by the British and then wrongly handed it over to the Sinhalese majority. So I asked him back, where he is from, and he said he’s Canadian (even though his parents are from Brazil).
That’s when I realized, I often fail to tell people that I am Canadian too, I’m a Tamil-Canadian. I have my citizenship, I’ve lived in this country for many years, I pay my taxes, I go to a Canadian post-secondary institution, I work in a workplace made up many Europeans and Canadians, and I’ve integrated into mainstream Canadian society. So, what does that make me? Is your identity who you identify as, is your identity what your birth certificate or immigration status say, is your identity based on what others identify you as?
Then I thought some more, if I have kids later in life in Canada, what does that make my children, Tamil or Canadian, or a mix? Or what about the children of Tamil descent who were born in other western countries before immigrating to Canada?
What makes someone’s identity? I’m confused.
When people ask you where you’re from, what do you reply? Do you reply that your Tamil, Canadian, Tamil-Canadian, Canadian-Tamil, Sri-Lankan, or something else? How do you deal with the questions of Tamil being a language and not a country.
But, I know one thing for sure, the next time someone asks me where I’m from, I will continue to say I’m Tamil.
– Kannan
