I've been thinking a lot this summer about the fact that there is a disjuncture between my physical body as other people see it and my identity as I see it through my understanding of my past. I want to remake myself so that others are unable to project "ethnicity" onto me. I don't want to be perceived as "white" but I also don't want to be perceived as "other." This dichotomy bothers me. Either you are "one of us" or you are "exotic."
I am especially sick of being called "exotic" by white people. But, I also embrace it, I make a point of highlighting my "ethnic" qualities so that I can avoid whiteness. Because to be perceived as white would be to erase my mother, to erase our whole past, to forget my grandparents, great grandparents, great-great grandparents, etc. It would be to forget the daughter of a former slave and her dutch master. It would be to disown the little girl from Rajasthan kidnapped by marauders and sold to the British as an indentured laborer. It would be to erase the double colonization of the bodies of my fore-mothers.
I want to be Guyanese, I want to be Indian, I don't want to be exotic. Is it possible to be that? I'm not so sure.
I think I'm exploring this uncertainty in the pictures I recently posted on my site (this one, this one, and this one).
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