On why I don’t feel Asian enough

It’s hurtful when your community doesn’t wish to identify you as their own.

Recently, while reading about the anti-Asian crimes in the USA, a thought swam across my mind- something that questioned my identity. Am I an Asian?

Geographically speaking, the Asian continent consists of- give or take- 48 countries and India being one of them doesn’t seem Asian enough.

There is a dichotomy in Asian countries too. Countries like South Korea, Japan and China are Asian countries, but a country like, India isn’t. If you ask any person to describe Indians, they’d say ‘browns’ because that’s what our identity has become. There’s nothing wrong with being called brown but, it is factually incorrect that people don’t identify us as Asians.

India, as a country, or Indians, in general, aren’t neglected. It’s contradictory actually- people, especially prioritize- per se- Indians when it comes to business, math and beauty. But, it’s not about that. It’s about not being able to identify as Asians.

When you google- ‘how to identify Asians’- you’d see a series of photos of people from South Korea, Japan, and China. Where are the other countries? Where are the countries where people aren’t entirely light-skinned, don’t eat food with chopsticks(mostly) but have brown skin? Where are the people of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka?

Let’s take American movies, for example- the protagonist is usually a stuck-up white girl with an Asian best friend who is either Korean or Chinese. These age-old stereotypes have ingrained in the entire world that Asians are habitually Korean, Japanese or Chinese. This juxtaposition between two Asian countries, more like groups, makes me wonder how Asian am I?

I know that India is an Asian country, but why don’t we Indians identify/ call ourselves Asians? Isn’t it a part of our ethnicity? Doesn’t it make us one community?

All our lives, we were conditioned to believe that we’re a part of Asia, but when it comes to recognition- we, as Indians, aren’t even called Asians if only recognized as one.

It’s sad to see this. It’s annoying to feel that despite being Asian, people don’t consider us as one. It’s heartbreaking that we Asians as a community don’t stand up together. Because at the end of the day, all of us need a place we can belong to.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the west or the north- because all that matters is the sense of belongingness. Unfortunately, Asians are supposed to look a particular way to be identified as one, and I, as an Asian, don’t look even remotely closer to what an Asian is supposed to look like.