And Where Are You From?

 There are Jews who are so because of their focus on heritage and culture.

There are Israelis who are so mainly because they are Zionists.

I am Malaysian by background, culture and heritage, not by race.

Some in Australia incorrectly reckon I am Malay, just because I come from Malaysia. They mix up nationality with ethnic origin.

The age of colonisation from the 16th to 20th centuries have resulted in many individuals sharing the heritage of the Indigenous and the conquerors.  Think of South and Central America, Australia, India, the Phillippines,

Lebanon, the USA and Canada.

Across south-east Asia, migrants from India and China in the same recent five centuries have also married and set up families with the already diverse ethnic groups residing there.  Today their off spring are popularly referred to as Peranakan Indians and Straits Chinese.  

(Peranakan as one may know is the Malay word for "local born".)

Those who have family trees from both European and Asian sides, originating from the age of the rise of Euro sailing trading powers across Asia,  are popularly known as Eurasians.

There are Portuguese Eurasians ( think of Goa and Malacca), Dutch Eurasians, Anglo-Saxon Eurasians (reflect on Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore) and Spanish Eurasians (the Phillippines).

Their numbers have dwindled in Singapore and Malaysia, perhaps due to emigration.  However many young people across Australia, UK, USA, NZ and Canadia today are the new generation of Eurasians in the 21st century.

In societies that make citizens and residents hold an identity card by law, are Eurasians recognised as an independent ethnic group on their own?  Chindians in Singapore have to choose either Indian or Chinese to state in official papers.

For their own reasons, several political entities insist on identifying and compartmentalising the race and religion of their residents.  Others do not because it suggests discrimination.

So an Australian, British and Canadian need not necessarily be of Caucasian origin.

Residents of homogenous cultural nations can find it hard to accept that an Australian can be African in appearance, a Canadian is Indian and a Peruvian is of Japanese origin.

How much do emigrants settled in a new nation hold strong links back to the mother culture? 

There is strong emphasis by the Japanese on such things.

Indian women proudly adorn their traditional dresses.  Muslims are strongly bound by their religious convention.

Chinese tend to everyday wear contemporary Western styles in their adopted lands, bringing out the cultural wardrobes on festival dates.

Improved economic ability, easier air travel, technologically facilitated contacts and more physical interaction amongst the diverse demographics of the human species have also resulted in more intermixing of DNAs, genes and cultural richness.

The evolving development of an European union is also helped by increased marriages of people from the so many different cultures on the continent.

#yongkevthoughts

Go Back Where I Came From, Walk Together Where We Can Move Forward

In Australia, so far, I have never been told off to go back where I came from.

When asked politely where I came from, I often say Epping NSW - and then I get a quiet shock that this cannot be, on the part of the questioner.

There can be this unnerving but not intended to be rude perception that one cannot be from a place outside of stereotyped convention.

While I was back packing through Vietnam, I was approached on several occasions by the locals if I was an overseas returned Vietnamese guy. When I replied that I was from Australia, they winced in half disbelief.

In societies with populations of diverse backgrounds in the 21st century, it is important to recognise the separation between citizenship, residency, ethnicity and nationality - and celebrate the shared humanity in each of us, no matter where we were born.

Malaysians have been told by their own fellow citizens in their own country to go back where they came from, so Trump's remark is not original - and echoes a malaise, paranoia and aggression that some have in not recognising that each of us do have roots from somewhere else, it all depends on how far back one scratches. Usually such blatant attitudes in asking specific groups or individuals to go back and not linger around are based on political agendas and highly lacking in sophistication.

Europeans are a result of the mix of African, Middle Eastern and Central Asian DNA. Indigenous Americans are said to have been arrivals from eastern Asia. Japanese are claimed to be descendents of migratory groups from the Asian mainland. And yes, a long, long time ago.

In all this huha of picking off people to go back to where they came from, an important consideration is missed - where are you and I going forward together?

#yongkevhoughts