APA Heritage Month: We Are All “Those People”

Pakistani

South Asian

Asian

Woman of Color

My life has been shaped by these identities.

My “Pakistani American” identity was the first I was given, handed to me by my parents, a product of India’s Partition in 1947. Both were born in Karachi, Pakistan, thousands of miles from their ancestors in Gujarat — a city filled with Muslim immigrants from all over South Asia, where their Indian identities were washed away and replaced anew.

My parents held this identity close when they moved to the United States, as they found themselves flooded in a sea of whiteness. They were not Indian, they were Pakistani. And so was I. I didn’t truly understand what that meant except that we were Muslim and our family lived thousands of miles away. And we were not Indian. Even though we may look it, we were nothing like them. We were also not Asian, because Asian was another term for another race. Yes, Pakistan was in Asia, but other Asian identities, particularly those we commonly define as “Asian,” were impossibly foreign. We were not like “those people.”

South Asian is a descriptor I started using in in my last two years of college. Although I self-identified as “Pakistani,” I didn’t feel like part of that community. My family was never very religious, estranging us from the few Pakistanis nearby, and it wasn’t until taking a class about the South Asian diaspora that I began to realize that I not only shared commonalities with Indian Americans, but that the world viewed us through similar eyes.

Our experiences align in so many ways — most notably in our immigration patterns, which closely mimic one another’s. It was through this understanding that I began to realize how colonialism had impacted my parent’s perceptions of identity. Their stubborn belief that they were somehow different, somehow better than Indians, was not useful. It kept us divided. And so, I became South Asian.

I claimed my identity as an Asian American through my two years in a rural village in Nepal, a country bordered by China and India. I lived amongst Hindus and Buddhists, ethnic minorities from the Himalayan foothills and those from the southern Indian border. Within one family I saw children who looked like me and others who looked as if they were from Taiwan. The line between East and South Asian was no longer so apparent, and the perceptions that my childhood community had pushed on me — that our Asian communities did not intersect — were altered.

I spent time with other Asian American friends in the capital, Kathmandu. There, we would digest our experiences from within our Nepali communities. Village life mirrored traditions we had seen from our grandparents. Foods reminded us of home. Over the two years, we came to claim our Asian American identities as complex and far-reaching. Silos were removed and we stood in solidarity with one other, and with our Nepali community.

I took my Asian American identity back to the United States when I joined Asian Americans Advancing Justice — Asian Law Caucus. Currently, I work to defend the rights of Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian community members impacted by national security and civil rights issues. What continues to inspire me about the organization is the inclusivity concomitant to the work we do and who we represent.

Our radical Asian American identity doesn’t include East Asians alone in its definition of APA: it centers the voices of the most marginalized in our communities. It centers Cambodian refugees and Yemeni immigrants. It organizes Indians and Chinese folks not just for the rights of Asian Americans, but to include the voices of Latinx and Black community members. We work in solidarity with other people of color. And it starts here in our office — in our relationship building and in our understanding that our struggles are inextricably linked.

To be APA is to be in solidarity with all people of color. It is also to recognize my privilege and to use it to uplift the voices of those around me who have been given less. I stand on the precipice of many identities: Pakistani, South Asian, Asian, Woman of Color. Each is to be used to reflect my experiences, my work, and to build our collective power.