“Where Are You From?”

I finally figured it out

But where are you *really* from?

Any first gen / second gen immigrant will tell you that these are triggering words. At some point in our immigrant journeys in North America, we’ve all been asked, “Where are you from?”

To which, second gen immigrants typically say something like, “Chicago”. To which, the ignorant person they’re speaking with often retorts with, “Sure, but where are you *really* from?”

To which, a visibly uncomfortable (and sometimes even humiliated) second gen immigrant would say, “I’m American / Canadian but my parents immigrated from *insert country name*.”

As a first generation immigrant myself who moved from India to the US in 2011 and from the US to Canada in 2021 (sometimes you have to go through the Desert to get to the Promised Land), I usually just skip right to saying, “I was born and raised in India but I’m a US citizen living & working in Canada.”

But as complex as that is, that’s just the 5 second answer I give to quickly move the conversation along without any further awkwardness. Most folks don’t seem interested in knowing more so I don’t give them a fuller answer.

Nevertheless, since you’re reading this, I’m assuming you’re interested in the fuller answer. So here you go:

I was born & raised in Mumbai as a third culture kid. Both sets of my grandparents migrated to Mumbai (and the state of Maharashtra) from the beautiful, southern Indian state of Kerala. To most North Americans, that may not mean much but given that India has more ethnic & linguistic diversity than all of Europe put together - that’s basically like a Romanian family moving to France in search of better opportunities for their family.

I was so third culture that my parents chose to raise my sister & I with English as our first language. After all, why on earth would we need to know Malayalam (the language of my people) when when the regional language in Mumbai is Marathi and the national language in India is Hindi?

The inadvertent result of this was being raised as a polyglot. I can’t speak, read or write Malayalam but I can understand it because of my grandparents and relatives who still speak the language. I did however learn to speak, read & write Hindi and Marathi in school (in addition to the primary language of my education - English). Then, in 8th grade - I started studying French as an optional language; which I continued studying until the end of high school.

I also took a Russian class in college (which I aced with an A+ by the way - a massive accomplishment as the only non-white / non-Slavic person in class) so I can read Russian’s Cyrillic script and understand some of it - even if I can’t really speak the language.

I’ve also taken multiple classes of Koine Greek (more Cyrillic scripts!) in seminary but that’s an extinct language so I won’t brag too much about that. If you’re doing the math - I can read & write 6 languages (English, Hindi, Marathi, French, Russian & Koine Greek) and can fairly understand 7 (including Malayalam).

This is crazy to me because I never really planned on becoming a polyglot. I just am one - because of where I’m from. Yeah, even more so because of where I’m *really* from.

I recently started reading Attempt Great Things For God: Theological Education in Diaspora by Asian American theologian, Chloe T. Sun. In it, Dr. Sun shares her own experience as a diaspora Christian in North America. In her words:

When I worship at a local Chinese American church where three different congregations speak three different languages, the space where I feel most at home is one where people from the different congregations mingle in and across their different languages.

I’ve never felt more seen in a theology book before! Her words jumped off of my iPad straight into my heart - making me jump out of my chair.

Like Dr. Sun, I too feel most at home in spaces where everyone is an ethnic minority. This is probably why I never quite felt at home while living in DC or Atlanta - where the demographics were mostly White or Black. Towards the end of my time in Atlanta, I actually started de-assimilating from ‘White’ spaces and identifying more with ‘Black’ spaces (evidenced by me starting to attend majority Black churches instead of the majority White ones I’d always attended in the US) but I still never felt fully at home in either space as a Brown, South Asian, ethnically Malayali / culturally North Indian man who grew up as a third culture kid in Mumbai. Because I was still heavily outnumbered by other dominant racial groups.

But this is probably why I feel at home in Toronto - the most diverse city in the world - home to 250+ ethnic groups who speak 200-ish languages. Truly a taste of heaven on earth!

And it probably doesn’t hurt that South Asians are fairly prominent among the ethnic groups in Toronto. In many ways, I feel more at home in the Greater Toronto Area (especially the Peel Region that consists of Mississauga and Brampton) than anywhere else I’ve ever lived in North America. Probably more than anywhere I’ve lived in India too because of the astounding multi-ethnicity here.

More specifically - I feel most at home at the South Asian restaurants & grocery stores here where Punjabi, Tamil, Malayali, Sri Lankan (Tamil & Sinhalese), Arab, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali families (and everyone else in between) come to go about their business.

This is also why I probably feel most at home at a multiethnic, majority Filipino Pentecostal church in Brampton ecclesially (despite having fairly reformed theology).

So yeah, I guess this is where I’m really from.

The next time someone asks me, “Where are you from?”, I might just respond with - “How much time do you have?”

Then, I’ll probably send them this Substack post.

Help me grow this community!

I recently learned that this newly-launched Substack community already has subscribers from 16 countries and 42 US states. Wow!

Thank you for joining me on this journey. I’d be honoured if you shared this on your social media or forwarded this along to a friend and encouraged them to also subscribe.

My sense is that the vast majority of you are church leaders so if you have church leaders in mind who would benefit from my reflections, feel free to encourage them to subscribe too!