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