About Me — Mahein Kazi

What living in 4 countries has taught me about cultural identity

My Story

How do I best answer the all too familiar question “where are you from”? It’s a question I have been asked time and again and one I find challenging to answer.

“I am from Pakistan” doesn’t quite capture the entirety of my cultural identity, though I know it’s the answer most people are looking for.

I try to bring a little humour into the equation and quip in with an “Oh, I’m from Germany” (I am a German passport holder, so technically that is my nationality) or at times with “I’m from Canada” (which has been home to me for over a decade now, and where I currently reside with my family).

Neither one of these answers prove satisfactory and in most cases prompts further probing: “but where are you really from?”

When people meet me I can sense them trying to put me in a neatly labelled box.

It’s almost as if they have a preconceived notion of what an average Pakistani woman should look and act like, and it confuses them when I don’t conform.

The fact that I speak fluent German & have adopted many of the mannerisms from a long stint of nearly two decades of living in Bavaria, Southern Germany, confuses them even…