is cultural 'enoughness' a myth? – with Lazou

[00:00:00] This is a place where we talk about belonging. Welcome to the Inbetweenish. I'm Beatriz Nour, your host. Raised in three cultures, two religions, and four languages. Trust me, I get the chaos. On the show, I chat with those who have lived that Inbetweenish life, a foot here and a foot there, building bridges across cultures, and of course, the age-old quest to finding home.

[00:00:31] Welcome back to the very first episode of 2025. I wanted to take a moment to wish you all a Happy New Year. May it be filled with abundance, nurture, and balance. In today's episode, I'm speaking with Lazou, who is based in California. Lazou has a very interesting background. She comes from a small minority group from a tiny island in the middle of the ocean.

[00:00:55] Together, we talk about viewing the West through rose-colored glasses, retracing family roots, colonizing versus settling, language learning and the context in which it is learned, and a lot more. Lazou is a writer, producer, artist, and also a podcaster who tackles a similar topic to Inbetweenish, but a bit more niche. It's called Nuances, our Asian stories.

[00:01:22] Her latest season, Queering Premodern Asia, was a fascinating listen. As always, links are in the show notes below. And now, let's turn the mic to Lazou. In your own words, what is your ish?

[00:01:39] Well, I am newly American, but I'm from Mauritius, which is a tiny African island. But I am of Chinese descent. But I don't speak Chinese. I've never been to China. And I speak French, and I'm also Canadian. So I feel like I'm never in any category perfectly.

[00:02:12] I like how you gave a time reference to some of these. Newly American, Chinese descent. Yeah. How do you relate to these different cultures? I think it has changed based on where I am. So when I was growing up in Mauritius, I was surrounded by Mauritians. So I identified as a Chinese Mauritian.

[00:02:42] You know, I'm one of the Chinese ones. And then when I left Mauritius and I went to study in Toronto, because I was born in Canada, I met actual Chinese people from China. And I was like, whoa, we have very different experiences. We have very different even versions of Chinese food that we eat. That is fascinating. Am I Chinese? I don't know.

[00:03:07] So moving to Canada, I started to question that part a bit more than I ever did, because I felt like I was not Chinese enough. Especially when I went to Chinatown, I felt very out of my element, because everybody expects me to speak the language and I don't.

[00:03:29] Um, and then coming to the US, especially after COVID, I became very hyper aware of the fact that I'm Chinese or East Asian because people can't tell the difference. Because people can or can't? They can't. And I mean, to be fair, I can't tell the difference between Korean or Japanese or Chinese

[00:03:58] either. Uh, you know, like you can tell by the fashion once you start to know like what Korean fashion looks like versus Chinese fashion, but it took me a while to learn that. Um, but in the, in the US, I think people see an East Asian person and they just assume they're Chinese. So yeah, the degree to which I relate to my Chineseness has changed a lot.

[00:04:24] And also while I was in Mauritius, because I grew up in Mauritius, but I was born in Canada. I always thought that I identified more with being Canadian because I, I thought that was something special about me as a kid. And now I think having left Mauritius for a long time, I claim back that Mauritian identity

[00:04:52] more than I did before. Why do you think like looking back, obviously as a child, it's our perceptions of things are so different. But why do you think when you look back on your childhood, you felt like being Canadian in a Mauritian Chinese environment is special?

[00:05:17] Um, I think because probably most of our media was Western and, you know, the Disney movies, they're all Western, right? Like all the cartoons are either from France or from the US or England based on Disney movies. It seemed like the West was more progressive and, um, less racist, but we'll talk more about that later.

[00:05:47] I was just going to ask, now having lived in the West, is that how you feel? Um, so I think growing up, I had this very naive, um, Disney colored glasses kind of view of the West, you know, that the West was so much more advanced in every way. And that I, I was almost like waiting to go back to Canada. Canada.

[00:06:15] And then I think I just wanted to, I wanted to live in a society that was more progressive in terms of, for example, marriages at the time when I was a kid, interracial marriage was still a little taboo. It happened, but usually families were not super happy about it.

[00:06:47] Um, and that always bothered me. So there were little things like that where, you know, I just didn't agree with some of the stuff in the culture there. So I felt like the West was the answer because all I saw was that even if you're a mermaid, you can marry the prince, right? Like it's fine. Um, yeah, life is a little more complicated than that though.

[00:07:13] To be honest, I very much relate to, to what you just described. Uh, I think especially the generation that grew up with Disney, I think we did have like these rose colored glasses when it came to the West. And I think many people still have that by the way. Um, I think where that starts to come apart is perhaps when you go and live in the West and then you're like, Oh, this, this place has issues too. Yeah.

[00:07:39] It's just not broadcast and we're not exposed to it as much when we don't live in it, you know? Yeah. But yeah, I, I very much relate to what you described. It's so funny because like our cultures don't intersect at all. Yeah. Yeah. But still the experiences can be very, um, familiar. Yeah. Or similar rather. I think a lot of people will probably be like, well, where's Mauritius? I don't know if you have to explain this often. That's true. Yes.

[00:08:09] I usually do explain. So Mauritius is a tiny island off the East coast of Madagascar in the Indian ocean. It is the only place that Dodo bird ever lived. And it, if you've been on the internet in the last few years, you've seen the underwater waterfall. That's also where that is. I have not seen that, even though I've been to Mauritius, I have not seen the underwater waterfall. That sounds really cool. Yeah. If you Google underwater waterfall, you'll see. Underwater waterfall. Wow.

[00:08:39] It must be an interesting natural phenomenon. Um, you are also of Chinese descent in Mauritius and that is 2% of the population. Yeah. How did that come to be? Like, how did your family end up in Mauritius? Yeah. So my family on both sides, I believe they were, um, they were fleeing the revolution or

[00:09:06] the war and they were, both sides were pretty poor. On my mom's side, my great grandfather and great grandmother, they separately left China and came to Mauritius by boat. So my great grandfather, the story is that he cross-dressed as a woman to get on the boat

[00:09:32] with the other women because he didn't want to be joining the army and fighting the war. He's like, I'm out of here, which I'm like, good for you. I wouldn't stay and fight either. Um, so on my dad's side, my grandparents moved from China again, separately. They met in Mauritius.

[00:09:53] My grandmother swapped her identity with another woman who was in Mauritius, but wanted to move back to China. And she was in China and wanted to move to Mauritius. And at the time, I think like immigration was not allowed. And if you were abroad, you couldn't come back and something like that. So they swapped identities.

[00:10:17] So my grandmother for her entire life, her documents had somebody else's name on it. That's crazy. It's very interesting to understand the roots of your family and how, how they ended up where they are and the stories that they carried with them. Right? Yeah. A lot of it I only recently learned too. How do you feel piecing these things together? I wish I had started earlier.

[00:10:46] Um, cause now, um, my grandmother, my, my dad's mom, she passed away a few years ago. Um, and the last few years her memory was gone. So she couldn't really tell anything, but you know, if, if I had started looking into this 10 years ago, I could have asked her so many questions, but now I can't.

[00:11:08] Um, so yeah, I, I want to learn more and I want to interview my family, like my relatives who are still around who might know something. It's been hard to find more information than what I just shared with you right now. Like that's about all I know. Um, and the fact that we don't speak the language too is hard because my parents went to China

[00:11:36] recently for the first time and they met some relatives there on both sides of the family. Both my mom and my dad met their relatives, but they had trouble communicating because the language we speak is haka cause that's our ethnic group haka. And the haka that my parents sort of understand is the haka that people were speaking like a hundred years ago now. Wow.

[00:12:01] So the language has evolved, right? The accent has evolved. The vocabulary has evolved. Plus my mom speaks fluent haka in Mauritius, but really all she talks in haka about is, you know, daily life stuff, family stuff, food, you know, just like stuff around the house. She doesn't know how to ask for directions in haka. She doesn't know how to ask where is such and such building.

[00:12:31] Um, so there's, there's a lot of language barriers and then the relatives in China, they didn't speak English. And so sometimes they would have a son or daughter who could speak English and it could help translate, but not always. So I taught my dad how to use the translate app and they downloaded the languages on their phone and everything. And so my dad would type it in English and it would translate

[00:13:00] it to Mandarin and then they would translate it from Mandarin to whatever language they're speaking. Um, so, you know, it was not easy to ask very detailed questions. Um, but they did have a good time meeting them. Because haka isn't even like on, on these translation apps, right? Like that's why you have to go through another language.

[00:13:24] Yeah. Cause also not everybody speaks Mandarin. I don't think the village where my family comes from and where most of the Mauritians come from, it's still pretty rural. So some of the relatives there, you know, they still live in the same house that the family lived when my great grandparents left.

[00:13:44] They still live in that house. And so, you know, not much has changed there. So yeah, they, they don't speak Mandarin. So they need somebody who can speak Mandarin, who can translate the Mandarin to the haka. Um, you know, my parents could get a few words here and there, but it was really hard to communicate. Yeah. Because languages change. And then also like the context in which you speak a language also

[00:14:14] really impacts your vocabulary. Yeah. I mean, even for me, you know, I, I grew up listening to French media, like TV, radio, everything was in French, but I didn't grow up in a professional landscape where I spoke French. So all the stuff that's related to technology, like emails, or even just, you know, website buttons,

[00:14:42] right? Like these are not things that come naturally to me. Um, sometimes I will change my browser thing to the French version just to see what the French word is for those buttons. But it's not something that I just know because I wasn't socialized in a professional French environment. But also you speak Creole, which is even more of an in-betweenish language. Can you tell me a little

[00:15:09] bit about like your language acquisition, like how you picked up your different languages and in what contexts? Yeah. So I was born in Canada. So the first two years of my life was in Toronto. So I heard Creole at home because my parents speak Creole and English. Then we moved back to Mauritius and I didn't

[00:15:34] hear English again until I went to school. But then I heard Creole and French every day because all the media was in French at that time. And as soon as I started school, we're taught English and French at the same time. Equally? Like it's not, uh, it's not like you have like one language course,

[00:15:59] you're taught English and French equally in all subjects? Um, so it's super weird. We're taught everything in English, but all the media is in French. So in school, all the subjects like math, sciences, everything is in English. And then we would have French class. But if you turn on the TV, if you pick up a newspaper, if you turn on the radio, everything is in French. And then everyone

[00:16:29] around you speaks Creole. So we just picked up all three just by existing. I mean, it's really cool to be in that environment, right? To be able to pick up these languages and have everyone around you also speak the same languages. Yeah. And I think even though I don't speak haka, I know a few words in haka from just hearing my mother, my grandmother speak. And I noticed that

[00:16:59] my mom, when she speaks with my grandmother, they will speak Creole, but then there will be some haka words in there. And that's how I picked up those words because I would have enough context to learn over time what those words mean. One day I was in the car with my mom and my grandma was sitting in the back and they were speaking in haka only. I don't remember what they were talking about, but I laughed

[00:17:25] and they were surprised. They're like, you understood that? And I'm like, mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's how they discovered that their secret language is no longer secret. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. I find it so interesting that even amongst like the older generations, they are still mixing, going back and forth between creole and haka. I don't know if I'm saying it correctly. Yeah. Haka. Yeah.

[00:17:51] Yeah. So how has your experience as a minority in Mauritius shaped your sense of belonging? Um, I think it was very different from how my experience is now. I was very aware that I was a minority. Well, the majority of the country is dark skinned and I'm the minority as a light skinned person.

[00:18:18] And pretty much the entire government is people who are of Indian descent. Like the political power is Indian. Chinese people have zero political power. Um, and then if you look at the big companies, like the big corporations, the banks, the big conglomerates, they're all owned by usually white

[00:18:46] people. So I think I was very aware from a young age that there was, I guess what they call a bamboo ceiling these days. Like there was a ceiling in terms of how far I could get in society. Um, Chinese people did well in business. So a lot of Chinese people had their own businesses and they did well. But if you wanted to go into politics, that was going to be really hard. If you wanted to go

[00:19:14] into like some of the bigger companies, like not being a small business, but actually being, you know, in one of the banks or any of those, that would be a challenge because it's all white people. Um, and where did these white people come from? Yeah. I mean, they're descendants of colonizers, you know, some of them might've moved there later as expats or white immigrants.

[00:19:40] Um, but they're, you know, they're very, very few. They're less than 1% of the population. But they don't hold any political power. Not really, but they still do hold cultural power. I was talking to another Mauritian on my podcast and she, she has lived in Mauritius as an adult. Like I left after high school and I haven't lived there,

[00:20:06] but she was there during COVID. And she noticed that even though there aren't that many white people in Mauritius, and even though colonialism hasn't been around, you know, for a while, we've had independence for a bit now. When she goes to a cafe and she's waiting in line, or she's waiting for somebody to come to the table to serve her. If a white person comes in, they will be served first.

[00:20:36] Really? Yeah. So there's still this remnant of colonialism. There's still this sort of veneration of white people. Um, partly I think it might be because Mauritius also has a lot of tourists and maybe they think that white people are more likely to be tourists and they're more likely to pay a bigger

[00:21:01] tip or something, you know, there, there might be like other factors than racism, but racism is probably part of it too. So white people in Mauritius are a privileged minority and Chinese Mauritians are a bit more marginalized. Would that be like an accurate representation? I wouldn't say Chinese people are marginalized per se. I mean, they're marginalized politically,

[00:21:27] but overall, most of the Chinese people are, there isn't like any systemic structure against them in terms of like getting loans or buying houses or anything like that. So I wouldn't say they're like systemically marginalized other than politically. The descendants of African slaves, on the other hand, are still marginalized. They're still struggling to catch up, so to speak,

[00:21:55] with the rest of the population. The industries that they are typically in, like a lot of them are fishermen, for example, there is not a lot of investment in those industries, even though the country is rich with fishing opportunities. We have a lot of ocean that belongs to Mauritius,

[00:22:15] but not much is invested in those areas. So there's definitely still a lot that is set up against the black population in Mauritius. So compared to the black population, I wouldn't say the Chinese are marginalized. So I want to go off on a little tangent, just like for my own understanding. Yeah.

[00:22:41] So I went to Mauritius last year. I spoke to locals when we were there. And my understanding is different empires, I guess, like kind of like discovered Mauritius, but the Dutch were the first to settle there. No one was living there prior. Like the island was uninhabited. Is that accurate? Yes. So wouldn't that be settling instead of colonizing?

[00:23:10] I suppose. I think there's a nuance there, right? Like there's a difference between like a land where no one is there and a land where people are there and are being killed. But then like they did bring in a lot of the same dynamics that were in other places, because as you mentioned, like, you know, they brought in African slaves and then there was like a hierarchy.

[00:23:36] I never really thought about that. Yeah, I just associated the indentured labor and slave labor with colonialism. But yes, you're right. There was no indigenous people living there. However, so, okay, the Dutch colonized and then they left and then the French colonized and then the British

[00:24:01] fought them, the British won. The British colonized, well, settle, whatever you want to call it. So at the time, I don't know if you've heard about the Diego Garcia thing with the ICJ? No. Okay. So the Chagos Islands, the Archipel, I don't know how to say archipelago, archipelago? I don't know how to say archipelago.

[00:24:30] Whatever the English word is. Archipel de Chagos. There's an island there called Diego Garcia that is now a U.S. military base. So when the French had Mauritius, it was part of the French colony and they brought some slaves there. So there was a population living there. British took over. Those people were still living there. They were farming. They were doing their own thing. It was a small population. I think it was

[00:24:59] like 1,700 people, but there were people there. Mauritius is granted independence in 1968 by Britain. And part of that deal, Britain required that they keep Diego Garcia. So Chagos belongs to Mauritius. It's part of the same country. But Britain decided, we're keeping Diego Garcia, but we'll give you

[00:25:26] independence. And I guess the Mauritians said, sure. What happened next is basically what happened to Palestine. So they decided, we're going to make this a military base for the U.S. and the U.K. We're going to expel all the people who live there. And they used basically the same tactics. They're like, oh, there's not really any permanent residents there. They're just kind of working there. They're

[00:25:53] not really from there. They are just temporarily there. And then the people who were, let's say, on a trip to Mauritius or something, they couldn't go back. They shut down all the businesses that were employing those people. So they lost their jobs. They were trying to basically force them to leave voluntarily, quote unquote. They even tortured their pets in front of them to try to coerce them to leave.

[00:26:19] And by 1971, all of the people who were living there had been expelled and moved to either Mauritius or Seychelles. Wow. So like 68 to 71. Yeah. And since then, Diego Garcia has been a military base for the U.S. and the U.K. And it's a very, very strategic position that is like right in the middle of the Indian Ocean that can

[00:26:45] reach, you know, the Middle East, that can reach Asia, that can reach a lot of places very quickly. So the ICJ has decided that Britain did not complete its decolonization project of Mauritius because it still holds Diego Garcia. And ICJ has said Diego Garcia needs to be returned to Mauritius.

[00:27:14] And the U.S. and the U.K. are like, nah. Of course they are. Wow. I didn't know this at all. Yeah. I mean, most people don't know about it. And, you know, they don't necessarily want people to know about it too because they know they're going to have to give it up. Yeah. I think it's so interesting to hear about these other places in the world because then you

[00:27:39] start to see that this isn't a one-off. Palestine isn't a one-off. Diego Garcia isn't a one-off. This is how colonial empires operate. To me, it's becoming more and more clear that colonization never ended. It just took on different forms, but it's still very much around. Yeah. But they've just gotten a lot better at creating rules, making it almost legal.

[00:28:06] Well, it was always legal by their book, right? And then we, the people, fought to make it illegal. And then they just transformed it into another form that is still legal. And then it's, you know, our constant battle to make it illegal. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. It was always legal by their book. But I mean, like, I think most people think colonization ended. Yeah. You know, most people are like, yeah, no, that was the past. We moved past this. You know,

[00:28:34] this was like our grandparents. They don't even think like our parents, but like 68, 71, like that's not necessarily grandparents for some people, right? Yeah, exactly. Including 48, you know, Palestine, India and Pakistan. Like that was not that long ago. But today it's easier to think like, oh, that was like a relic of the past. Like we don't do this anymore, but we do. This is still happening. Like colonizing empires. Yeah, they do this.

[00:29:01] Yeah. And it's not just the US too. Even now in Mauritius, you know, other islands that Mauritius owns. India is trying to get a piece of it to build something. China is trying to get a piece of it to build something. All the empires are the same. They use the same blueprint in a lot of places, you know? Yeah, exactly. That's a good way of putting it. Yeah.

[00:29:29] Tell me about your household growing up. How did the different cultures that you belong to influence your day-to-day life? So I, in the yard that we lived, two of my dad's brothers had houses in the same yard and my grandma lived with one of them. So it was a lot of family around

[00:29:54] all the time. I had cousins in the yard. My cousins were all boys. So I was the only girl in the yard. Um, it was really cool to have a lot of cousins nearby, even in the same neighborhood. I had other cousins as well. So family, we were all very, very close. We had family gatherings pretty often

[00:30:17] on both sides of the family and both sides of family are pretty big families. So those gatherings would get pretty loud. But I think there was a sort of interdependence that does not exist in the West. I think in Mauritius and I guess in, in most non-Western societies, there's a bit more of, um,

[00:30:45] a collectivist mindset where everybody's pitching in for everything. And so life is a little chaotic. I don't know if you can relate to that, but you never know what's going to happen. You just got to roll with the changes. Um, you make plans, but nothing is set in stone, you know, and it used to

[00:31:07] drive me crazy, but yeah, it's just, it's just something you have to get used to. I find it really strange that in North America, it's seen as rude to expect help from your family or anybody. Um, for example, let's say, let's say I, I'm in Mauritius and I just opened a business, right?

[00:31:36] Uh, somebody in my family is an accountant. I might call them and say, Hey, uh, I just opened a business and I had these questions about like taxes. Do you mind if I ask you some questions? Like that would be a totally normal thing to do, but in the U S that is not a normal thing to do. That was an adjustment for me. Um, I can imagine, I think in, in a lot of Western cultures, they took individualism a little bit too

[00:32:04] far and we're not really meant to like, we're not, we're not meant to live as hermits. Like we need community. And I think we've strayed a little bit from that in the West. Yeah. I would say not necessarily individualism, but I think we've taken capitalism too far because now we've even monetized our relationships, you know? So in the U S with the same scenario,

[00:32:29] if I knew somebody who was an accountant in my family, like it would be weird to ask them. So instead I should pay somebody or pay them, but if they're my family, they might feel awkward if I pay them. So I would probably pay somebody that is not in my family to give me advice. Yeah. I, I see what you're saying. Yeah. I do think, especially in the U S it's very tied to

[00:32:54] capitalism. You're absolutely right. Yeah. I think because I lived in France, like I see it at least in France. Um, I think it's more about individualism. Of course, capitalism also plays a role, but like capitalism is not running rampant in Europe like it is in the U S the U S it's really on another level. I think. Yeah. Um, to go back to your, your cultures and your upbringing,

[00:33:20] have you ever felt rejected from one of your cultures or have you ever rejected one of your cultures? Have I felt rejected? No. Have I rejected? Yes. Um, I think I mentioned earlier, I saw racism growing up in my own community, in the Chinese Meritian community and it still exists.

[00:33:48] And I, I really did not like that. One of the reasons why I'm an atheist is because I grew up Buddhist and Catholic and I saw a lot of people, Chinese Meritians who would go to mass every week

[00:34:09] and they would be deemed very good pious people, but then they would be upset when their child dates somebody who is not Chinese. I just saw a lot of that kind of dynamic where there was a hierarchy in the way they see people. Um, and I, I, I wanted to distance myself from that when I was there

[00:34:37] and I, I couldn't wait to get out and move to the West because that's where everything is so much better. Right. Uh, uh, yeah. Tell me about this move to the West. You mentioned that at 18, you moved back to Canada. Yeah. And then later in life, you moved to the U S when did you have that first

[00:35:02] like realization of shit? This is not everything I thought it was. Oh, you mean like the progressive bubble when that burst? Yeah. That amongst other bubbles. Um, honestly, that bubble didn't burst until

[00:35:21] I moved to the U S. Interesting. Partly because while I was in Canada, I was mostly on campus. And even after I graduated, I live close to campus and, you know, downtown Toronto is very, very, very diverse. So there's people from all over the world. Many people are new immigrants. There's also people whose

[00:35:47] families have been there for a few generations. Now there's a pretty big Asian community. There's, you know, everything you can think of probably Toronto has it. Um, so I never felt out of place and I never felt like I was in a white dominated country, even though I was, but because I was in downtown and

[00:36:11] all my surroundings was very diverse, I never really felt it. And then moving to the U S I moved to Silicon Valley, which also is pretty diverse, not as diverse as Toronto, I would say, but pretty diverse.

[00:36:27] And then 2016 happened. And that was, that was really like a shock to my system. I, I honestly had not considered the possibility that this annoying orange could win the election. The night he won,

[00:36:52] I was like, I don't know what is real anymore. Um, and then, you know, everything that ensued after that, it just encouraged all the racists to come out of the woodworks. Yeah. So that was a start of me learning the history of this country, you know, because I came here to work. I wasn't,

[00:37:17] I had never planned to move to the U S the job fell into my lap and I was like, okay, sure. I'll go. California has great weather, but you know, I didn't really know any history of the U S because why would I, you know, growing up in Mauritius, I never really paid much attention to the U S the history we learned was just the history of Mauritius. That's it. Really? Yeah. I mean,

[00:37:43] we learned a little bit about like world war two, but that was maybe one English class lecture or something, you know, we, we didn't really take too deep into that. So interesting. But then, you know, 2020 happened. Yeah. So George Floyd and then the anti-Asian hate, um, 2020 was a year where

[00:38:06] I really got into all the anti-racist literature, started reading more books around, you know, collective liberation and, uh, black history. And that's been an ongoing process still now, you know, I'm still learning. I'm just reading a book right now called indigenous continent. And

[00:38:29] it's about the indigenous people of America and how they actually fought back the settlers for quite a long time. They held them back for quite a long time and all the battles that they did win. Cause you know, all we hear about is that they lost, but there were many battles where they did win. There were many years where they were able to defeat settlers and use them for their own

[00:38:58] political games. Um, so just learning a different side of history. I grew up with a very like America first mindset. When you were saying in school, you learned about Mauritian history. I only learned about American history. I went to an American school. All my teachers were American and Canadian. It was very America first. The flag in our school was the flag of the U S not the flag of Egypt.

[00:39:22] So to me, it's very interesting that in Mauritius, they valued their own culture and history over that of, so did you learn Egyptian history? No, not in school. No, no. Wow. Yeah. It's, it's weird. It's weird to admit that it's, it's shameful today. Like I see it as shameful growing up. I didn't even think twice about it. Neither did my parents mind you. They were like,

[00:39:50] yeah, this is normal. You go to an American school. I remember one time, I don't remember which occasion that is, but I was talking to some people, you know, a lot of people haven't heard much of Mauritius. So people always have a lot of questions. So I always tell them whatever they want to know, you know, the history, I'll tell them what I know. And they're like, oh, you know a lot about your history. And I'm like, well, I don't know. We were, we had to learn it in school.

[00:40:18] Don't you guys learn your history in school? And then I found out that they don't. Yeah. At least they don't learn the real history. They learn the sanitized history. Oh, I think everybody learns the sanitized history. Like you were saying about the book, you're reading Indigenous Continent. What we always hear about is how the settlers and in my mind, everyone who came to the new world, those are colonizers. Yeah. They were not settling because like there were already people settled on that land and they are

[00:40:47] the Indigenous people of that land. Yeah. I think this is why language matters so much because it might seem like just a small nuance, but it really shapes the story as well, you know? Yeah. I need to do better at that because I never, I never noticed the use of the word settler versus colonizer. But I think to me, like in my mind, when I hear settler and when I hear

[00:41:14] colonizer, to me, they're, they're the same thing. They both took land that wasn't theirs. Like, I guess I, um, it might be because Mauritius didn't have this Indigenous population. So in our context, they were both the same. So I learned it as both were the same. But in my mind, I know that in the US, it was a very different story, but I didn't make the

[00:41:44] connection as to how those terms are different in that situation until you pointed it out today. To be honest, I didn't make this connection until recently as well. Um, I think that's intentional. First of all, like history is taught by the victors, right? So the reason we only ever heard about like Europeans coming into the US and settling is because it's told from that perspective

[00:42:14] of white Americans, you know, um, ask an Indigenous person in Brazil or in the US. And they have a very different story, right? Yeah. So Black history is not taught in schools. Asian American history is not taught in schools. Indigenous history definitely is not taught in

[00:42:35] schools. Uh, Latino history is not taught in schools. So yeah, there's, we're only learning one type of history and I'm trying to make it my goal to learn the different perspectives of American history. Mm-hmm. And you know, how the different peoples who live here have experienced that same history

[00:43:00] that the white people claim is the only one true history. Yeah. I think that's so important. And it's very admirable that you're doing that. Um, because I think most people don't care to dig deeper into what they have been quote unquote taught. Um, today, how do you balance your different cultures?

[00:43:21] Balance? Um, I think one way I connect is through food. I often make Mauritian food, Chinese food, even Indian food from Mauritius that I grew up eating. I've also, of course, learned American cuisine as well, but food generally is a big part of it.

[00:43:49] Still, I'm pretty close to friends from Mauritius and my parents as well. I talk to them every week. My dad keeps me up to date on the local politics, what's happening there. I would say Canadian culture is the one that I have the least connection to at this point because I left Canada as a baby. I went back

[00:44:13] there to study and then soon after I graduated, I moved to the U.S. So my sense of Canadian culture is not very well ingrained at all. When it comes to American, I have been learning a lot.

[00:44:34] To me, American culture as it was sold to me as a child was individual freedom, individual empowerment, democracy. And I have to say that a lot of times in the last few years, that has felt like a good marketing campaign for a bait and switch product. Say more about that.

[00:45:02] I remember when I became a citizen in 2021, my husband asked me, what does it feel like to be American now? And I didn't know what to respond, but I did feel a certain heaviness about the moment, a feeling of responsibility, a feeling that, oh, this country is now my problem too, officially.

[00:45:33] And yeah, I had conflicting feelings about it. I think growing up in Mauritius, I felt very much like we were a tiny island and I was a tiny minority of that tiny island. So it felt helpless in that way where we were too small to matter to the rest of the world.

[00:45:54] And I think the contrast in the U.S. is we're so big and there's this illusion that because we're so big, what we say as a country matters, that what we say as individuals matter because this is the country of freedom, right? And democracy. But it has often felt in the last few years that

[00:46:18] that is not quite the whole truth. So instead of feeling helpless for being too small, it was a different kind of helplessness where I am part of this biggest country that has the biggest influence on the international stage. And yet my voice still didn't matter. So yeah, it has felt very dystopian,

[00:46:47] I think. And this helplessness is something that I think I have struggled with quite a bit in the last year. And I think the way I am trying to think about it in a more positive light is, okay, this is the culture now and cultures evolve. So if the culture is not what I want it to be now,

[00:47:13] it doesn't have to stay that way. And maybe I can do a small part in helping it go in the right direction. And that's the approach I take with all aspects of my cultures. Did you start your podcast, Nuances are Asian Stories, to better connect with your heritage?

[00:47:35] So my initial goal was to show the diversity of Asian diaspora people and humanize Asian people. The idea was that I think if you are not Asian and you don't know a lot of Asian people, but you hear those stories, you would be able to relate to them and see, oh, they're just like me.

[00:48:01] They're human. But once I started it, it became really clear that the podcast was not for the white people. But instead, I saw that when I interviewed people, that it was a healing experience for them because a lot of them said, nobody ever asked me what my experience has been being Asian

[00:48:25] in America. I've never even processed all the experiences that I've gone through, like navigating, you know, being a child who brings Asian food and all the white kids make fun of them, you know, like, you know, all the stuff that Asian people go through here. And so I realized that it became a space for healing and for community building. So I decided to pivot

[00:48:52] and not cater to the white gaze. But also what's important to me, it's also a place for self-reflection and finding ways where we can do better. One of the guests I interviewed said something that has marked me. And she said, she realized that her biggest influence she can have is in her own

[00:49:20] circles, in her own community. Because if you're going to try to convince white people to care about what you have to say, they don't even respect you to begin with. Why would they listen to you? You're just wasting your time. There's also issues in your own community that need to be addressed. Do that. So in my podcast, I do that as gently as I can. But I want to encourage people to

[00:49:45] confront any biases that they have. Confront, for example, the anti-Black bias that is rampant in many Asian cultures, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment, anti-trans or homophobic. There's a lot of

[00:50:07] issues in our own communities. And so my hope with this podcast now is to be a space for healing, but also be a space where we reflect on things we're not doing so great at and that we need to work on. I really have so much respect for that, honestly. I love that it's not just about healing, but also holding a mirror up to people and being like, these are the problems. Let's actually talk about it.

[00:50:37] Because I think with so many of these topics, it almost becomes taboo to talk about. The racism, for example, oftentimes people of color will think like, oh, well, we're people of color, so we're not racist. It's like, no, no, no, that's not how it works. Yeah, no, no, no. That is not how it works. If you're not actively doing work, you're racist. That's a good, I like that. That's a good slogan. If you're not actively doing work, you're racist.

[00:51:07] We all grow up with biases. That in and of itself is quite normal, but it's about confronting these unconscious bias and how it affects our behavior and on a larger scale policies, right? Because the policies you were talking about earlier, that's very real. And it's something I don't think people realize, particularly if you're privileged, you don't realize it. Exactly. Yeah. That's why I try to also bring guests that will bring those perspectives.

[00:51:35] And I try to bring guests who will challenge my own preconceived notions. Like a lot of times when I interview somebody who has lived in the South, in the US, I'm ashamed to admit, but a lot of times I'm surprised by a lot of things that they say. You know, I have my own biases as to what I think the South is, even though I've never lived there. So yeah, I try to bring people who might challenge my

[00:52:03] own preconceived notions. And I always end the episodes with my takeaways. Yeah. Hopefully people can come up with their own takeaways. I want to ask you if there is anything that I didn't think to ask that you want to talk about. One thing that I've noticed with my podcast is through hearing everybody's stories and how different their stories are, even if they're from the same culture, like let's say

[00:52:31] all the people who also share Chinese ancestry, just how different their experiences are and how they're connected to the culture in various degrees. I've come to realize there's no really such thing as not Chinese enough or not XYZ enough. If you want to claim it, you can claim it. Now, I'm not talking about indigenous, like I'm not going to get into that. That's not my lane. I'm just talking

[00:52:57] about like, from my perspective, I've come to accept that I am Asian enough. I am Chinese enough. I can say I'm Chinese, even though my experience of Chinese culture is not the same as somebody who, let's say, moved here from China or even somebody whose family has moved here from China four generations ago. Like we all have different experiences. We don't need to be spending so much

[00:53:26] energy trying to become enough. I'm hoping that by having stories about so many different cultures, like people will come for the one that they relate to, and then hopefully they'll stay for the other ones too. Time for the untranslatable word in one of your languages that does not easily translate

[00:53:51] into the English language. The word is ayu, and it's not easily translatable because its meaning changes based on the situation and how you say it. So if you say ayu, it's dismissive. It's like, don't bother me. Like, ayu, don't bother me. But if you say, ayu, that means don't make me do this.

[00:54:20] I don't want to do it. But if you say, ayu, that means, oh no, like, oh no, I forgot something. Um, but if you say, ayu, that's like an exclamation of my goodness. So it's the meaning of it changes based on how you're using it. So there's no way you can translate it. Wow. That is so interesting. And this is Kheal, you said, right? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:54:50] When I heard your other episodes and you had that section, I was like, I know exactly what word I'm going to say. I love that. It's so interesting to hear these different expressions in other languages and how the way you pronounce something can completely change it. Like, I think that's so fascinating. I don't feel like we have like the same, um, an equivalent in English. I'm not

[00:55:18] talking about the word, but I don't feel like the way you say things in English can change that much. Well, there's a few like slang words, for example, um, sick, sick can mean like illness. But then if somebody says that's sick, like that's cool. Yes, but yes, but so the but is that's two. There's not as much of a range.

[00:55:47] Yeah, that's true. Some languages are just a lot more like expressive. Yeah. As you were sharing like the range of meanings, this might not be accurate, but in my head, I'm like, okay, I can, I can almost imagine the facial expression or body language that follows with that one. You know what I mean? But you know, I'm, I'm interested in like, when I said them,

[00:56:13] did the tone and the explanation of what I said, did you interpret that tone to mean that thing? Yeah, especially the, the complainy one, like you could just tell, you don't have to speak a language to know someone is complaining. I know. There's just that like, you know, it's like a sinking. I do not explain it.

[00:56:37] So that's a wrap for today. If you've enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to hit subscribe to never miss an episode. The Inbetweenish pod is created and hosted by Beatrice Noor. The behind the scenes magic is thanks to Habiba El-Rubi. And original music is composed and produced by Malik and Masidi. I love hearing from our listeners. So feel free to reach out to me

[00:57:01] anytime. Join us every other Tuesday. And remember the quest for belonging never ends and you are not alone. Keep exploring, keep embracing, and keep celebrating that Inbetweenish life.