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OCR
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 sociopolitical-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. + 144
