Every Sunday, Jaspreet Kaur’s mom would rub oil into her daughter’s scalp and comb it by way of her hair whereas sharing tales of their household’s historical past. “The oiling of the hair was a valuable time when ladies caught up and linked to their roots within the tales we had been informed, the songs we’d sing,” Kaur says. The award-winning spoken-word artist, author and trainer explains that the Sanskrit phrase sneha not solely means “to grease” but additionally “to like”.
When Kaur began secondary college, on the age of 11, the oil in her hair together with the aromatic scent of tarka (spice-infused oil) on her blazer that no quantity of Impulse physique spray might masks attracted destructive consideration from different women who ridiculed her and made feedback corresponding to “stinks of curry” and “greasy hair”. From that day, she made the choice to not have her hair oiled.
This and different experiences of feeling as if she needed to distance herself from her tradition, cover a part of herself away, led her to write down her current memoir, Brown Lady Like Me, about rising up as a South Asian girl in Britain. “I’m now in a spot the place I wish to be taught who I’m and perceive why I felt the way in which I did,” Kaur says, from her London house whereas her five-month-old daughter naps close by. “I wish to dwell extra authentically and personal all of the totally different elements of my intersectional id. I don’t wish to really feel ashamed any extra.” Her e-book isn’t merely a memoir, however a manifesto and information to navigating a variety of subjects that brown girl face immediately, from household and training to the complexities of the office and sweetness requirements.
“I write about this concept of a cultural diasporic journey that quite a lot of us find yourself happening,” says Kaur, who for the early years of her life grew up in a intergenerational house talking primarily Punjabi. “As much as the age of 4 or 5, we had been very linked to our tradition, id, religion and households, as a result of that is our complete world at that time.” Issues modified when she went to highschool, particularly later in her teenage years, when everyone seems to be attempting to slot in and assimilate into their atmosphere. “I began to distance myself from my tradition. I wished to be as western as potential, even when that meant letting go of a few of my cultural traditions.”
As a toddler rising up in east London, she noticed no scarcity of formidable and robust South Asian ladies inside her household and area people. She didn’t see this illustration in common tradition. “Within the late 90s and early 2000s, it felt as if brown women had been utterly ignored in mainstream media, in movies, in TV, in books. I couldn’t see us within the classroom, nor might I see us when it comes to what we had been studying at college, and that made no sense as a result of I knew Asian ladies had been a giant a part of British society and had been for many years. So why had been we being ignored? Why was it that after we did see Asian ladies, in a sitcom, say, we’d at all times be depicted as docile, weak and submissive?”
As a brown woman myself, with English as a second language, I recognise a lot of my very own expertise mirrored inside the pages of Kaur’s memoir, specifically, the strain present in reconciling one’s cultural heritage with a have to assimilate.
In 2017, whereas marking examination papers in her job as a highschool historical past and sociology trainer, Kaur obtained an electronic mail inviting her to present a TEDxLondon discuss. She had been writing to make sense of her emotions because the age of 13, however had solely been performing and sharing her work on-line for a yr earlier than the e-mail arrived. Her discuss, How Poetry Saved My Life, was about how utilizing inventive expression and writing supported her psychological well being journey. She left educating shortly afterwards to deal with her work as a author, poet and performer. She additionally now works as an educator to sort out points associated to gender discrimination, psychological well being stigma and the postcolonial immigrant expertise.
Whereas Kaur has a various profession spanning academia and the humanities, her memoir acknowledges the complicated dialog surrounding the destructive and limiting impact that stereotypes can have on profession alternatives. “Pakistani and Bangladeshi ladies have an inactivity price of about 60%, which implies round half of them aren’t within the labour pressure,” Kaur says. “We all know the media usually portrays this concept that Muslim or Pakistani ladies don’t work as a result of their religion and tradition doesn’t permit it, however in actuality, this isn’t the case.”
Kaur writes on how microaggressions, corresponding to not having your title pronounced accurately, can have a cumulative impact on how brown ladies view and worth themselves in society. “Think about a microaggression as a tiny paper minimize – you gained’t bleed to demise. However think about getting 10 paper cuts a day – your hand would actually harm.” She explains that what others understand as refined or trivial, in reality, exacts an enormous toll. There’s this sense that the impact is refined, however “Think about if it’s taking place every day and what that’s doing to your thoughts and your physique as you navigate the world.”
Kaur emphatically encourages brown ladies in all careers and vocations to be extra seen to encourage youthful generations. “Medical doctors, dentists, legal professionals are all great professions, and I perceive why, coming from immigrant households, we’re being pushed within the course of economic safety,” she says. “However how can we be sure we’re diversifying the industries we’re going into in order that we’re taking over area and telling our tales?” Kaur often visits colleges to point out younger brown women that they are often writers, or any multitude of issues.
The necessity for secure areas is a recurring theme in Kaur’s memoir, whether or not she’s speaking in regards to the classroom, the net panorama or the world of courting. “One thing we have now to bear in mind is that these apps usually are not constructed for the liberation of brown ladies or ladies of color,” she says, after I ask her how, as brown ladies, we will discover a steadiness between the visibility that she encourages with our want for security, notably on-line. She sees social media as a software for training and an area for solidarity, sisterhood and social activism. “Alternatively, we all know the abuse and threats that ladies of color have obtained on-line, particularly Muslim ladies going through Islamophobia.”
It isn’t solely on-line areas that should be thought-about when it comes to security; there may be additionally the matter of authenticity and who will get to soundly specific elements of our tradition. As a teen, I struggled with the cognitive dissonance of not sporting henna throughout term-time for worry of being “othered”, whereas singing alongside to Gwen Stefani on MTV as she sported henna tattoos and a bindi. Kaur understands the strain between appropriation and appreciation all too nicely. “There’s an unequal cultural change the place the dominant in society takes elements of our tradition and our traditions and makes it cool and accepted,” she says. “When the host communities attempt to do those self same issues, they’re ridiculed or abused for it, so once more we have now to think about the problem of security right here. There are clear examples of what’s and isn’t OK.” She provides two: it’s OK to put on South Asian clothes at your South Asian finest pal’s wedding ceremony “after all, as that is carried out out of respect for the tradition”; it’s not OK to put on the identical outfit as a dressing up to a Halloween occasion. “The underlying issue of how to not applicable is by listening, studying and asking permission.”
For Brown Lady Like Me, which took six years to analysis, Kaur spoke to a large demographic of brown ladies, lots of whom had skilled injustice. She carries no anger or bitterness because of consuming so many tales of harm, however relatively exudes a real heat and openness to interact in dialogue, quoting from her father: “Anger will make you robust, however love will make you highly effective.”
As her child continues to sleep, Kaur displays on the way in which that motherhood has introduced all these points to life. “I now have my very personal little brown woman like me,” she says. “I’m contemplating the world that she’s going to develop up in and the way I’m going about instilling as a lot confidence in her as potential to navigate the world round her. I wish to train her confidence and empathy, a love for studying and development.”
I can’t resist asking if she plans to grease her daughter’s hair on Sundays. “Oh, I actually hope so,” Kaur says. “She was born with a full head of hair, so I already do with a little bit little bit of coconut oil!”
Brown Lady Like Me by Jaspreet Kaur (Pan Macmillan, £9.99) is offered for £9.29 at guardianbookshop.com
