I just got back from the United States. My love affair with the nation has been pretty intense; I have been there a couple of times in the last few years and cannot wait to get back. One of the things I really like about the US is how people reacted, or didn’t react, to the colour of my skin.
Let me explain: I am a brown-skinned young woman whose ancestry is Indian. I have been brought up in New Zealand and have spent all my adult years in Australia. I speak, think and dream in English. I don’t identify myself as an Indian, Kiwi or Australian, but rather as a citizen of the world.
In Australia, from taxi drivers to work colleagues to prospective suitors, one of the very first things I get asked is ‘ Where are you from?’ When I answer with ‘Sydney’, they take it one notch further with ‘No, where are you really from?’
It leaves me feeling offended, infuriated and perplexed because my race is not my only nor my most significant identity, and I would hate to think that the colour of my skin is the most interesting thing about me. Yet, I can never seem to get away from that question. I have often wondered: why is it so important for people to know within the first few minutes of meeting me what my ancestry is?
In America, the locals approached me in a very different manner. The British writer and critic A.A. Gill, in his new book To America with Love, wrote about the way the educated and enlightened class in Europe belittle America ‘for being a big, dumb, fat, belligerent child’. According to Mr Gill, they wrongfully view Americans to be ‘stupid, crass, ignorant, soul-less, naïve oafs without attention, irony, or intellect.’
Like Mr. Gill, I couldn’t disagree more with that perception of Americans.
I found them to be amongst the most warm, generous, and intelligent people I have encountered. And most of them weren’t terribly eager or in a rush to find out about my ancestry. As soon as they heard my hybrid accent, which is more tilted towards an Australian twang, they accepted me without any questions. It didn’t matter whether it was a professional setting, a social gathering, or even on public transportation. People liked or didn’t like me irrespective of my race. It hardly mattered where my grandparents were born or what language they spoke. It was liberating to be treated as an individual rather than be seen as just an extension of my skin colour.
I must admit that most of my time was spent in Washington DC, known for its cultured, highly educated and intellectual society, which would make Sydney or Melbourne its equivalent. But my experiences with people when it comes to race, in both of these Australian cities, have been quite different.
I must stress that I don’t think Australia is racist. But I do think Australians are uncomfortable when it comes to talking about race. There is not a two-way dialogue between the minority communities and the mainstream community that is needed for the successful amalgamation of multicultural Australia. On the one hand, mainstream Anglo-Australia appears scared and super cautious of addressing the race issue for fear of unintentionally causing offence or saying the wrong thing. And on the other, Sydney’s multi-cultural population chooses to live in ethnic enclaves. One only has to look at certain suburbs such as Cabramatta, known from its Vietnamese food and culture, Liverpool, which is home to a large Indian population, or Leichardt, known as little Italy, to see this.
As a child of migrants, I believe the best way for our multi-cultural society to thrive and for racism to diminish is integration, mutual respect and acceptance, which must come from both sides. Until then, the most interesting thing about me will be the colour of my skin. And that would most certainly be a shame.
There is also a trend among some men in Australia that it is in good taste to tell brown women that it is the colour of their skin that they are most attracted to. I recall, a few years ago in Sydney, meeting an educated professional man who is well known in the progressive media circles of metropolitan Sydney. In his attempt to declare his interest in me, he told me that he prefers brown girls and doesn’t much fancy white women. I didn’t think much of it at the time but looking back, I found that type of sentiment rather offensive. Telling someone, man or woman, that you are interested in them because of the colour of their skin is not just insulting – it is racist.
It is true that inter-racial dating and inter-race marriages are much more common in America than in Australia. But that is because America has had a lot more time to evolve into the melting pot it is today. I look forward to the day when I am having a drink at a Sydney bar and am not interrogated about my ancestry in the lame form of a pick-up line. But that day seems all too far away.