Diaspora, Adoption, and Mixed Heritage: A Personal Essay on Identity and Appropriation
We have all made incorrect assumptions without much in the way of consequence. We may have miscalculated how much time has passed, misjudged the distance of a throw, or even gotten a horrible haircut we were convinced would “suit our face.” But what are the risks when we make false assumptions about culture and heritage? Who and how are people hurt when we express our biases on the origins of shared traditions and the way people who practice them are “supposed” to look?
I was six years old when I moved away from the Ashkenazi (European Diaspora) Jewish neighborhood in Thornhill, Ontario, which I had called home since birth. It was then that I began to recognize the ways in which one’s familial/cultural background can create feelings of “otherness,” and, more poignantly, began experiencing what it means to be “othered” and made an outcast. It was after only a couple months in my new school that I became known as Laika the “latka girl,” a title prescribed to me after a particularly problematic remark made by one of our teachers. Over the years, and within various communities, I have become increasingly aware that disclosing or having my ethnicity discovered can (and has) led to racialization, prejudice and unwelcome comments or questions — experiences that range from mildly unpleasant to bone chilling.
It is no surprise, then, that as I grew up, I was desperate not to become an “ugly Jew” and I wanted to be “physically” distanced from my Middle-Eastern (Israelite/Judean/Canaanite) heritage. I prized my pinky-pale skin and formed an unhealthy attachment to my “goyish” (non-Jewish) nose. I pushed up on my nose bridge every night and persistently hid my star of David. I wished I had inherited more features from my Icelandic great-grandmother, and whatever European-Roman lineage was forcibly mixed into my Ashkenazi bloodline. I wanted to be “beautiful”. I never wanted to be “European” …. but I desperately wanted to “look” it.
Over time, however, things began to shift. The question in my head was not if I looked “too Jewish,” but if I was too mixed, if I could ever fully embrace my Middle-Eastern heritage without possessing all its stereotypical traits. While I acknowledge the benefits of white privilege that comes with having “European” features, there still exists a range of difficult and entangled emotions that comes with the experience of not being perceived to “look enough” like one’s ancestral or cultural group or family.
For myself, this complexity is amplified by the fact that my adoptive father and family, while also Jewish (Judean/Israelite in ancestry), are immigrants from Morocco, meaning they are of the Sephardic/Mizrahi (Iberian, Middle-Eastern and North-African/MENA) diaspora, whose ancestors have little genetic mixing with Europeans. It is within this context that the question of my genetic and ancestral mix, as well as appearance, became a point of persistent questioning and dissociation.
These emotions all reached a head during my high-school years. It was in Ms. Bhatia’s art class, during a unit on tattoos, that I first introduced Moroccan-Jewish custom into my artwork. It was while practicing a Mizrahi henna “tattoo” design on one of my Iranian friends that I casually mentioned how, unlike my mother, I wanted to have a henna party should I ever get married. About as soon as the words left my mouth, an Italian boy in my class exclaimed, with quick assurance and poorly masked outrage, that I should not appropriate the tradition. With the support of my friend, we explained that within my father’s community, as much as in Indian or Arab communities, it is a custom and an honour to partake in the art form. However, the damage was already done. It was one of those crushing moments that brought up every feeling of impostorism and otherness that already existed within me — feelings often shared by children of mixed heritage, adoption and regional minorities who may not “look” like the stereotypical model of their cultural group. This moment stayed with me in a way that could not have been anticipated. It would be years before I reintroduced any part of my Jewishness beyond “Europeanized” religious customs into my artwork. These years were filled with internal debate, questioning and conversation with friends of all colours and backgrounds in which I revealed my deepest insecurities and we bonded over shared traumas.
The funniest part about all of this is that no one of Middle-Eastern or South-East-Asian heritage has ever directly questioned or policed my ethnicity or cultural ties.
I have been approached as many times in Farsi (an Iranian language) as I have in Russian. And within myself, there has been this odd switch, where I went from hating what has been called my “Muslim girl” eyes, sharp features, and dark, textured hair, to desperately holding onto moments when they were noticed. I now hold an odd sense of pride regarding the many times I have had to explain my cultural background, with all of its complexity, for those who “noticed” or presumed that I am at least part Amazigh (native North African) or Iranian, or just the lightest version of any number of MENA nationalities.
Speaking with and finding validation from my Moroccan friends, both Arab and Jewish, has certainly been helpful in navigating my identity and cultural ties. However, it was actually a series of conversations with one of my Mi’gmaw friends, who is often confused for white or deemed as “white passing,” that pushed me to reintroduce Sephardic/Mizrahi-Moroccan culture back into my artwork. It was my Mi’kmaw friend who noted that, when we separate ourselves from our communities and allow outsiders to choose what we share with and between our friends, families, and ethnic subgroups, we give a part of ourselves over to the idea that our culture and ancestry can simply be “bred” out of us and dictated by the opinions of outsiders. This is the ultimate act of individual colonization and erasure.
What I have realized, and what has given me strength on my journey with identity, is that the complexities that assumptions ignore go far beyond my unique circumstances and relationship with mixed ancestry, colonization, and adoption. They reinforce the deeply racializing and othering process of presuming — quite incorrectly — that there is only one, distinct and identifiable “look” for peoples from vast regions with their own complex histories, unique diversity, and memories and experiences of colonization. Additionally, they discount and devalue the experiences of those who, unlike me, do not share any inherent/recent genetic connection to their adoptive families, promoting and presuming that there is some kind of automatic inheritance of social behaviour found within distinct communities, while also discrediting the need for exposure to the culture of their biological parents and devaluing familial bonds and learning.
My work Promises Within the Henna Home (2020) is a physical reminder of the values, stories and traditions my father’s family taught me and that I hope to one day share and embody in my home as I raise children of my own. When I showed my father the sprawling Jewish-Moroccan henna designs that cover the small wooden home in my work, I finally had the courage to admit my fears and concerns about incorporating his culture into my artistic practice. His reply was simple, but to me it meant the world: “You are my daughter, no one and nothing else gets to decide that.” It’s up to others to ask whatever questions they have about my artwork…. It’s up to me make my mark, as an artist and a person, distinct from any other.
— Laika Dadoun, 2021
