Diasporic Disassociations: Attempts to Embrace a Halved Identity

Words by Parisa Mortazavi

There is a strange unsettlement that manifests itself in a life lived between identities. Teetering cautiously on the border between cultures, this existence creates a façade that is just enough to feel safe but too far removed from either side to feel truly whole. For those of us living in diaspora communities, this feeling of rejection can become all-consuming when the place you have been tirelessly told to ‘go back to’ no longer lies in wait.

For those who have journeyed away from their motherlands, returning can invite a displaced nostalgia. The deep desire to finally feel at home is met instead with new ‘foreign’ senses; suddenly, your accent has evolved, local colloquialisms have developed, and your home looks entirely different to the one you fall asleep thinking of. This is not to negate the deep solace that exists in the presence of your people and your past, but the expectation to meet the exact same fate you left behind simply does not ring true. Instead, you must speak quietly on public transport so that the tourist twang in your accent is not detected and overcharged. You must turn to those who remain as locals for fresh insights into what’s in at the moment, only to realise your experience here may well be on its way out. It is at this point that you release your bated breath without a single ounce of relief.

My experience as a second-generation immigrant born in the UK has familiarised me with this grasp of loneliness. For our generation, this solitude exists slightly differently, from every imaginable angle. With my mixed-race heritage, I hold a number of identities. I am a half-Iranian, half-Scottish, British-born but that’s ‘Mixed Other’ to you. It is impossible to imagine any place in which I would truly, wholeheartedly, belong. Despite attempts to defiantly wear my minority status as a symbol of pride, oftentimes this comes with a persistent battle against those pesky feelings of inadequacy.

I live in Britain; I was born in Britain. Yet, I know that I am unrecognised and unwanted by many in Britain. I go to Scotland and am still too far removed to be given the nod of approval by my Glaswegian counterparts – my skin a little too dark and hair a little too coarse to quite fit the mould. And so, I lean towards my Iranian identity. But upon visiting Iran, I will once again become a foreigner. A tourist in my own land. The truth is that the dichotomy of belonging everywhere, and also nowhere, is loud and unforgiving. We are supposedly spoilt for choice in which existence we choose to embrace each day and yet are met in each one with an implicit, polite guest pass.

There is a morbid confusion in this boomeranged existence; guilt in distancing from cultures that have failed to welcome me. Like recognises like, but like would not recognise me. Hope in turning to a culture where I do look the part and largely feel like it too. Relief in finding a space that feels far more homely… only to be met with the subsequent understanding that from whichever angle it comes, it will only ever come in part. I make countless attempts to ignore the fast-paced conversations I cannot understand, the memories made back home I will never relate to.

A concept called host hostility refers to the resentment which meets diaspora communities, attempting to close the door on cultural integration and instead lock us away with only our minority identity for company. A sizeable population in Britain has shown time and time again, through violence and outwardly discriminatory policy, that a person’s place of birth or British passport doesn’t hold any weight when it comes to determining their place in this country. There exists an infuriation from this population towards anyone with just a little too much melanin in their skin, and a few too many seeds of ambition to make something of themselves – an infuriation that sees these people as the enemy of Western progress.

This hostility faced by people who struggle to fall wholly into any one of their identities grounds an interesting development in the feat to fit in. In fact, it creates a new sense of comradeship and a shared source of connection among people who feel similarly displaced. Shared experiences unite minority cultures and lead to realisations of similarity, where that long-sought feeling of belonging can actually be established in a much wider group. This combination begins to feel like a whole in itself, and through various friendships and relationships I have built within these communities, I have learnt that the frustrations that once felt so individual are actually entirely shared. In this way, our in-between-ness becomes a space of belonging in itself.

The truth is that identity is fluid in its conception and need not fit into one rigid box that has been dictated to us by the customs we have grown up around, whether that be here or somewhere else altogether. Identity is based on personal attachments, and the ‘half’ placed before any of my own does not mean I should feel in any way ‘ousted’. I am Iranian, Scottish, and British too, but in entirely my own way. These identities mean something very different to each individual to whom they belong, and the validity of your stance need not be justified by its similarity to the next person’s.

The culture of immigration, specifically within the West, pushes an implicit instruction that you must shed your previous identity to fit in, or forever remain an outcast. We, in solidarity, hold the reins to remove this expectation. By navigating the many fragments of ‘othering’ we have become accustomed to, and embracing the layered, in-between spaces of identity and belonging, we can refuse to be excluded. I excel in this place, with my people and our cultures, in a space that is entirely our own.

We find ourselves in finding each other.