Our identity is an amalgamation of every single aspect of our lives, founded upon our unique experiences and put together to narrate the most beautiful story — a story of who we are. Important in constructing an identity for ourselves is reflecting on how we got to where we are today. For me, there are two specific aspects that greatly shape me; my Bengali ethnicity and my Australian upbringing.
My name is Rafa Rahman and I was born in Auckland, New Zealand in 1997 to relatively new immigrants from Bangladesh. We moved to Sydney, Australia in 2000 and this is where I have spent most of my life since. The first language I learned was Bengali, the first foods I was exposed to were Bengali curries and the first songs I heard were Bengali folk songs. In many ways, my early upbringing was quintessentially Bengali. Thereafter, I still faintly remember joining preschool at around three years old and the shock of not being able to fit in. Strangely, it’s a feeling that still lingers in the back of my mind.
What was perhaps even more of a shock to me was my first visit to Bangladesh at around three and a half years old. Plane rides and airport stopovers were both frightening and exciting. I met all these relatives for the first time — grandparents, uncles, aunties and cousins. I didn’t understand who they were or why they were important to me, caring only to cause mischief and having fun with my cousins. This was to be the first of many journeys to Bangladesh with my family. Although I have since come appreciate who my relatives are (it would be worrying if I hadn’t after twenty-four years), I cannot shed the strangeness and unfamiliarity I feel about Bangladesh.
However, each time I returned to Australia, the strangeness did not dissipate. Instead, it was supplanted by a new strangeness. A strangeness of looking different, speaking a different language, believing in a different religion and being surrounded by a culture I did not see on the streets. Consuming Australian media and hearing perpetuated narratives, it was firmly planted in my mind that to be truly Australian, you had to be White, only speak English and eat bacon. This was the unwritten rite of passage, enforced by every TV show I watched and beach I went to. Sometimes, when my parents tried to converse with me in Bengali, I would assert,
“I’m not Bangladeshi, I’m Australian!”
And just as swiftly, my dad would remind me that I could never be the same as *them* because of my brown skin.
Being quite a rebellious child, I actively tried to disassociate myself with my Bengali origins. This was compounded by the dichotomy I witnessed whenever I visited Bangladesh. A lot of the first world’s simple luxuries such as paved roads, clean tap water and pristine park spaces are hard to come by in a developing country like Bangladesh. I feel awful to admit this, but in my mind, I equated that with backwardness. And I wanted no relation with it.
Australian cultural influences have shaped my psyche immensely. I thank the education system and exposure to TV shows for this. If I’m honest, I think there are a lot of benefits. From my experience, children of immigrants are provided ample opportunity to adopt Australian values and an Australian way of life. We can pause here and ask the question, ‘*What even is the Australian way of life?*’ The fact that we must pause on this question is positive. It demonstrates that upon introspection, Australian culture is a kaleidoscope of all the different cultures that coexist in this country, from the First Nations people to Anglo-Saxon colonisers and of course later immigrants. Sadly, there is an ugly dull blanket that hides this multiplicity. The blanket that says in big bold letters: “**YOU HAVE TO BE WHITE! YOU HAVE TO LOOK LIKE US, TALK LIKE US!**” (us meaning Caucasian).
Sadly, I believe this is a blanket that still covers the eyes of many Australians. Usually, it’s not explicitly demonstrated. When 90% of my work colleagues are White, almost all the people on TV are White and almost every politician is White, I do feel like a foreigner. Even though I live a very Australian lifestyle, I’m not as Australian as *they* are. And I could never be. That hurts me. I wish it was different but it’s out of my control, unless I somehow find a way to morph into a White person. This situation is the result of centuries of institutional and structural racism. Although many blatantly racist elements of Australia such as the infamous White Australia Policy have been eliminated, their ashes are still present today.
The question arises, if I were to go to Bangladesh today, would I feel a sense of belonging that I lack in Australia? I can confidently say no. Besides my phenotype and scattered elements of Bengali culture I’ve been exposed to and retained from my upbringing, there is not much else I have in common with someone who has spent their whole life in Bangladesh. Every time I visit, I instantly stand out from the clothes I wear, my broken Bengali and my difficulty in acclimatising to the Bengali palette. It hits me straight in the face. If I were to spend ten years in Bangladesh, I guess I could feign familiarity. But I would find it impossible to shed the influence of my Australian upbringing.
In the past few years, I’ve tried to understand my Bengali origins for the first time in my life instead of just dismissing it. I’ve read several books about the history of Bangladesh and Greater Bengal, asked my parents, watched countless YouTube videos about Bengali history as well as olden Bengali films, taken an interest to Rabrindanath Tagore poetry and even taken two DNA tests to better understand my ethnicity. No doubt I’ve amassed quite a lot of information about Bengali culture and history, however it can never be a substitute for lived experience. I can never truly experience the emotions and struggles of someone who grew up and lived in Bangladesh. Like an Orientalist, all I can do is sit down and observe Bangladesh externally, formulating my own perceptions and opinions which will always be tainted by my own zeitgeist. I can attempt to paint a picture of Bangladesh, using paint I tried to throw away most of my life. But I can never be the painting. I can never know what it truly means to be Bangladeshi.
This leads me to a perplexing junction where I am stuck between two worlds. If I am a foreigner in both Bangladesh — my country of ethnic origin, and Australia — where I spent most of my life in, where can I truly call home? I am trapped as a foreigner and strangely, that brings me comfort. I don’t have to exert all this effort to fit in because I am peace with knowing that I am different.
In Bangladesh, I’d be a foreigner alone. Most people in Bangladesh were brought up there and live a very distinct lifestyle. I’d be one of a handful who are different. Whereas in Australia, I’d be a foreigner with a sizeable number of other 1st and 2nd generation Australians. Ironically, we belong through our shared experience of not belonging. What I’m looking for then is not to inherently belong, but rather to share the same experiences with others. What draws me to my friends and those I love is that we are all foreigners in Australia. Most of us are children of migrants and our experience navigating this complex identity unites us and allows us to resonate with each other.
It might sound morbid to relegate myself to an eternal foreigner, but I see it as making the most out of a situation that is largely out of my control. Not to downplay the plight of refugees, but I can draw metaphysical parallels in my own journey to what refugees face. In a way, I too have become a refugee with no home. I am stranded with this perplexing identity, and only with the help of those stranded with me can I make it to shore.
I have hope that as the diverse communities of Australia flourish, the image of a quintessential Australian will be painted with many shades, not just White. It’s happened before in other parts of the world. I only have to draw from Bangladesh which was an ancient melting pot of many different cultures such as Indigenous Austro-Asiatic people, Dravidian hunter-gatherers, Indo-Aryan warriors, Arab traders and Turko-Persian conquerors. These different people coexisted in Greater Bengal and over time, shaped the modern Bengali ethnicity. It would be wonderful to see Australia follow the same trajectory. For now, I, along with many other Australians, stand torn between two worlds, foreigners in two lands.
