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ANUSHRAY SINGH
sub-diaspora, helping construct hyphenated narratives of Sikh/Indian/South
Asian-Canadian citizenship as a pivotal part of contemporary Canadian
belonging and identity. Cultural and socio-political differences (pervasive
in the region) are transcended for a collective diasporic conscience: this is
the mobilization of South Asian identities as communities coming together
to empathize with each other’s experiences of racism, stereotyping and
discrimination in their Western host societies.
TRANSNATIONAL “DESI” IDENTITY
In their new “hostlands”, South Asian immigrants experience an in-between
existence: simultaneously “here” — involved in the mainstream/native socio¬
political-cultural discourses of their host societies (the ones they migrated
into) — and “there,” which refers to similar discourses of the native/ancestral
societies from which they migrated (home or motherlands). This hereness and
thereness — an embodiment of immigrant and minority belonging — is acultural
misfit,’ people not finding their place in the mainstream identity of their host
and home societies, but belonging rather in-between, or transnationally.
Some cultural referential points such as popular Hindi cinema, Punjabi
music and Cricket often serve as pivotal strands building a co-ethnic cohort in
Canada. The term “Desi” uses a universal approach transcending postcolonial
identities by blurring national divisions amongst the South Asian diaspora
in the West and other parts of the world. It often invokes the commonality
of immigrant experiences and cultural similarities. This is often echoed in
South Asian diasporic cinema, music, television shows and other cultural
products. “Desi” is often used as a slang term in Hindi but its co-optation and
eventual cultural appeal make it almost poetic in its construct, enunciating
tales of diasporic members born away from their “homeland,” disconnected
from cultural roots different from their Western ways of knowing. Another
reason for solidarity is a shared British colonial past: the reason for modern
postcolonial identities that arguably struggle to reconcile various Eurocentric
and South Asian nationalistic rhetoric, for example, contestation between
English and South Asian languages or beauty standards based on light and
dark skin tone. The South Asian decolonization efforts find grounds in
dismantling insecurity about non-fair or brown skin colour; it’s about finding
intellectual vigour and education even in one’s native South Asian mother
tongue. The transnational South Asian-Canadian identity can be better
understand through First, Second and Third Space — an observation rooted
° Homi K. Bhabha, Diaspora and Home: An Interview with Homi K. Bhabha, Interview by
Klaus Stierstorfer, Degruyter.com, 7 December 2017.
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