Displaced people and national identity

Have you ever travelled to a foreign country and feel like you don’t fit in? This can be anything from you not being able to communicate using the local language to struggling to grasp the culture. Now imagine having none of the above problems yet somehow still feel like your existence in the country is displaced. This is exactly how many immigrant children feel in their daily life, displaced in a country they consider theirs and constantly being subjected to a land their elders left behind.

The rise of globalisation and open borders allow many families to settle into a new country. This enrich that country by providing different mindsets to enhance the overall quality of living. With the future generation constantly being educated about the benefits of diversity, most people have developed to understand that the colour of one’s skin does not determine one’s identity. It’s also becoming more normalised for people to see that being a part of one country doesn’t exclude one from feeling a part of another. Trevor Noah of The Daily Show once responded to the French ambassador of the US: “Why can’t they (French World Cup footballers) be both (African and French)?”. This statement resonates strongly with me as a person who holds dual-nationality.

I became a naturalised British citizen at birth (after my father) despite never having lived there until the age of 15. Having grown up in Vietnam, I never questioned my identity until I moved to the UK. As I go through my young adult years in London, I engaged more with the locals and became increasingly more confident in my language skills. As a result of this integration, I subconsciously changed my outlooks and attitude to fit a more “British” lifestyle. I knew this would never be enough to let me pass as “English”, but British surely, I naively thought. Well, that didn’t happen. Even worse, now I’m considered by my Vietnamese cohort to not be “Vietnamese” enough either. I’m officially a floater, a banana (white on the inside, yellow on the outside), a confused adult.

It’s hard especially when I go to a new country, I just don’t know how to introduce myself. Should I introduce myself as British or Vietnamese? Will people question me about it? Should I just say it’s complicated? It also doesn’t help when people are racist. One time I was at McDonalds when a young man told me to “go back to China”, and that I need to “stop pretending to speak with an English accent”. This fuel my feelings of insecurity and sometimes build a wall between me and the people I want to connect with. I would at times even disassociate myself completely from one of my identities and depending on the people, would act a certain way so that I don’t be outed as “not quite right”.

But this is 2019, no one should be left feeling this way! My generation and the generation before me has the excuse of not growing up with the internet, but the current generation doesn’t. I think people should be more “woke” and acknowledge that “I”dentity is none of other people’s business! Like one wise person once said: Don’t judge a book by its cover, and everyone is entitled to feel like they belong, be it one, two or four countries.