Immigrants the multiculture and the search for authenticity

[Music]

i was born at pakistani

in saudi arabia i learned how to speak

english from filipinos and americans

until i was nine years old

a week after surviving the y2k virus my

family of six and i

me being the youngest of four moved to

ottawa ontario canada

where my parents swiftly put me into

french immersion my passport tells me

that i’m a canadian citizen and have

been for the last 17 years through

naturalization whatever that means

suffice to say it’s really difficult to

answer the age-old question that

everyone

in canada asks you when you’re not white

so like

where you really from shout out riz

i moved to a solid neighborhood called

bayshore which served as a landing spot

for many immigrants all of whom were

there to provide a better life for their

families

now though i grew up with a lot of

people who look like me the thing most

of us had in common was that we didn’t

look like

everybody else i was the new kid

the smart kid the fat kid and before

long i was just a punchline

a brown kid but then russell peters

dropped somebody gonna get a hurt and

that was my

in i memorized the whole thing i joined

drama class in grade six

and there i found a new confidence a new

popularity

a new identity flash forward 15 years

and there i am

dope hotel in cape town south africa

acting in a tv show

opposite russell peters i was in the

best shape of my life making more money

than i’d ever made before

i was getting attention unlike anything

i was used to everybody was so happy my

career was finally starting to take off

and it was in that moment that i

realized i didn’t want to do this

anymore

i was pretending to be successful and i

felt like an absolute failure

there is a direct correlation between

inauthenticity and unhappiness

for example i’m a pakistani canadian

muslim these are aspects of my identity

that are irrefutable

but my understanding of each of those

individual components is based on

someone else’s definition

being pakistani was just my parents who

left that country 10 years before i was

born

being canadian was all the white kids

around me which despite my greatest

efforts

i was never going to be and being muslim

was basically

going to prayer on fridays never eating

pork and playing the bad guy on tv

but what did each of these things

actually mean to me

what i continue to learn is that in the

search for an authentic identity

we particularly as children of

immigrants don’t need to burn down the

pre-existing templates that our cultures

or religions have set forth

we can preserve our cultures while

embracing all who we are becoming

we can look into our code keep what

works like hard work

humility the music the food and

fix the bugs like cycles of abuse or

prejudice and relaunch

i can say this confidently because i

tried to erase my culture and lost

myself entirely

i had built an identity based on

concepts that were so inauthentic to me

but so

deeply entrenched that i still struggle

with understanding who i am

for me this makes me feel angry lonely

deeply confused i’m sure some of you can

relate

it’s like when you do that fake

high-pitched voice when you’re working

retail

hello welcome to the gap but apply that

to your whole life that was me

i mean i did work at the gap for a year

i got fired for discount abuse

but that’s not the point the point is

what all of that fakeness led to and for

me

that was self-loathing turned away from

my religion

i accepted roles i didn’t completely

agree with i didn’t treat people well

i silenced myself and sometimes i even

convinced myself that i was happy

i had to ask myself if this is what

chasing the dream feels like wouldn’t it

be easier to just go back to my job at

the canadian border service agency where

i also work for a year

no discount abuse this time since the

year 2000 there have been over 200 000

immigrants per

year in canada alone then that number is

still going up

whether they arrive as a result of

choice or a forced circumstance

each of these individuals is now facing

a reality where a brand new environment

becomes part of their identity scores of

studies have shown

that any population that is forced to

assimilate and their ancestral history

taken away results in a proclivity

towards substance abuse

and mental health issues that trickle

down generationally

we see this rampantly within ill-treated

indigenous populations as well as

marginalized communities not only in

north america

but all over the world not everyone is

afforded the privilege of embracing

all that they are and i was doing this

to myself

i never cared about my identity i was

just stumbling through and it didn’t

matter

so long as it looked like i was winning

and it took a miracle for me to actually

sit down

and look at what i was doing and that

miracle was my daughter

all of a sudden it mattered where i came

from and where i was going

i could no longer accept my behavior

because someone would be looking to me

as an example is this what i wanted her

to see

no was it even me no so

i made a decision to try to better be my

authentic self

i stopped substance abuse i stopped

reading for terrorists and cab drivers

and one-dimensional indian accented

clowns

only thrown in to feign diversity

stopped going to parties when i didn’t

want to i took myself out of toxic

relationships understanding that at

times

i was the toxic one i started praying

more because

i wanted to not because my dad was

yelling at me from downstairs

i said no to all acting work for money

for a period of time because i had to

know that i was willing to do it for

free if i really loved it

and that’s when i started to understand

my role as an actor

i was a storyteller pretending to be a

celebrity

i think it’s no coincidence that the two

times i’ve gotten the opportunity to

play a pakistani immigrant on screen i

got a fresh new perspective on acting

one time

and a canadian screen award nomination

the next my fellow pocs the industry is

ready for you to be

you the dominoes started to fall and i

was hired to be one of many character

consultants on a show called

transplant about a muslim refugee trying

to take care of his little sister

i eventually got the lead role too my

best work will always be when i’m true

to parts of myself

that i’ve taught myself to reject and i

love those parts of me

about who i am where i come from where i

am now and how i really feel about that

i always wanted to play characters that

were fantasies of who i wanted to be and

if the opportunity to play batman never

comes up i’m 100

down but i used to look towards acting

to become someone else

entirely because i hated being me now

i’m using this lovely art form to better

accept

who i am all parts of myself the

storyteller

the brown man the muslim the immigrant

of many cultures

the father there’s a line i ad-libbed in

transplant when asked what type of

muslim my character bashir is

some days i pray five times a day and

some days i don’t pray at all

the amount of feedback i’ve gotten about

that one line alone is indicative of the

relatability of authenticity my fellow

muslims are not saying it’s right it’s

just true

and i got room to improve we are

the multi-culture we absorb everything

i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t inspired

by

black middle eastern or european culture

i’m richer for the experiences

but are we willing to accept all of

those complexities

listen to yourself all parts of yourself

not just the anger or the confusion or

the loneliness

but the love you feel for yourself when

you really think about where you come

from

regardless of what other people think

i’m extremely fortunate to have an

incredible support system within my

artistic community and my direct family

but i understand it’s not always easy to

talk about how we feel

especially when it’s feeling like the

other

not fitting in but i encourage anyone

who can relate to that

to have these conversations if only to

make yourself available to somebody else

who needs to have it

to anyone still struggling with identity

i feel you

i struggle with it too with this model

minority nonsense this

this desire to only be perceived as a

product of perfection

and especially with my work being seen

on an international scale now i’m

terrified of being rejected for who i

really am

and especially by my own kind for not

being the

version of pakistani or muslim or

immigrant or whatever they deem suitable

or respectable

we do not just belong to our adopted

cultures or our parents cultures

exclusively we belong to all of them

uniquely and for me

it’s that version of my authentic self

my egotistical

flawed vulgar beautiful pakistani

canadian muslim self that i look forward

to sharing

for the years to come in shaola