Generality:“Yellow”. 143
Ipshita Raj | 18 | she/her | nationality & ethnicity:Indian
“Yellow”.
According to most people and what I've seen, mostEast Asians
(Chinese, Japanese, etc.) are referred to as yellowin terms of skin
colour. But even in India, we have people from Assam,Mizoram (North
East India) who look so similar to people of thosecountries that it's
difficult to differentiate (and thus they've beenthe victim of Chinese
hate during certain periods). To me, yellow refersto joy and happiness,
as well as insanity. I'm a designer so I think morein those terms. In
relation to my country, yellow reminds me of a statecalled Rajasthan
because of its desert area, and also the Sun God,Surya. This might not
be relevant, but yellow is a colour that I feel looksgood on most brown
people because it offsets our tone so wonderfully.
I've never heard of yellow being used to refer tothe 'Indian' that is so
often seen in mainstream media, because mostly wesee fair people
(more often seen in North India because of their colourismstandards
rather than the South).
“Asian”.
To me you stop being Asian when you leave your culturebehind.
Rejecting it outright means you don't want it to bepart of your identity
anymore and so it doesn't make sense to call suchpeople Asian despite
them looking like a person from Asia. A person isAsian when they are
born in Asia, or have parents of Asian descent whoparticipate in
traditional things, because they have knowledge ofit. A person whose
parents are Asian but doesn't know anything abouttheir culture, to me,
is as good as not Asian. So I guess I feel that peoplewho take part in
our culture are Asian, rather than just being of thisdescent.
Ethnicity|part1.
I'm originally from North India, but lived for a fewyears in the us when
everyone here was learning languages and geography,and when I
came back everyone in the us had just started learninggeography
there. So I basically didn't belong anywhere for thelongest time. I got
teased for giving off a vibe that I thought I wasbetter than everyone
else because I didn't know much about India, and Icouldn't defend that
fact with my knowledge of us geography or other information.I've
lived in South India for a majority of my life now,but didn't learn the
native language here (Kannada, but I know Hindi andEnglish) because
all my friends spoke to me in hindi or english. Butafter getting bullied
for that, I realised I had to because many nativepeople of this state
look down on North Indians who came here just to "ruin"their beloved
state.
I have majorly friends who are native to this state,and their attitude
towards other people who come from the north is bad,but they say
mchaos
(mchaos)
#1