One of the main things that I did in my degree course in anthropology was to debate the issue of identity. We tried to figure out what made a person a part of a particular group, and we explored things like ethnicity, culture, and language.
This was a discussion that had become complicated. In the days when migration was less common, the answer was simple. You belonged with the group that looked like you, sounded like you, and prayed at the same places. Europeans, for example, were predominantly blonde and blue-eyed and went to church on Sunday. Arabs for the most part were tanner, had dark hair and went to the mosque on Friday. Things like race and religion were key identifying factors.
However, things have changed since the early part of the last century. Migration has become a fact of life. I am from Singapore, a place where the citizens pledge to be “regardless of race or religion.” I am an ethnic Chinese who have served alongside Malay and Indians during National Service. I have family from the US, which is filled with hyphenated people (African-American, European-American, Asian-American etc) and I grew up in the UK, where people who were obviously of South Asian descent and went to the mosque on Friday were as British as the Anglo-Saxons in the same village.
So, I’ve grown up in a world where race and religion were not defining factors of belonging to a place. Sure, Singapore’s population is predominantly ethnic Chinese, but as our Prime Minister recently had to clarify, Singapore is not China and the Prime Minister of Singapore is not a China whisperer. If anything, our Prime Minister has shown that when push comes to shove, we probably have more in common with the West than we do with China (hence the propensity to crack uncalled-for jokes about Beijing whilst in Washington):
So, if race and religion were no longer the marks of identity that they were, what else is there. One could say that there’s language. I remember telling my Finnish friend about a step-uncle who was proud of his Finnish roots. My Finnish friend’s initial reaction was, “Na, he’s not Finnish – he’s American.” However, when I mentioned that this uncle gave a speech in Finnish, his reaction changed to – ‘He speaks Finnish – OK, he’s Finnish.”
In anthropology, we say that “language is culture,” because each language is different and when you speak a different language, you’re a new mindset. One of the examples is at the pharmacy. In English, you ask for something “for” your ailment, but in German, you ask for something “Against” whatever you are having.
Language is a powerful form of identity, particularly amongst Europeans. I remember a Caucasian and an Oriental Lady who used to visit the Bistrot. When they paid, and I noticed that the Caucasian lady had a German name, I asked in German if she was German. The oriental lady, whose name was Nguyen (a name that does not get any more Vietnamese) said in German “Yes, I am.”
My Singaporean mindset geared me to think that German had to mean someone who was blonde and blue-eyed and had to have a name like “Muller” or “Schmidt.” It took me a while to remember that someone who had dark hair and eyes and called “Nguyen” could also be as German as someone called “Muller” or “Schmidt.” Ms Nguyen I had served probably grew up in Germany and spoke German, which was the working language of her environment and learnt English as a second language (spoke it well enough to function in the international arena) and Vietnamese was spoken at home if at all. Hence, while her name was Nguyen, she was as German as it got.
The power of language as a mark of identification is so powerful that language becomes a political issue. In America, for example, there’s an inevitable clash between teaching in both English and Spanish. In fairness to the American system, the latter groups of immigrants do want to learn English so that they become part of America’s hyphenated identity. The ability to deal with the hyphenation depends on the ethnic group and how long they’ve settled there.
European-Americans or specifically the Irish have no issue being both American and the hyphen. I’m old enough to remember the fact that Irish-Americans were the suppliers of funds and guns to the IRA because they grew up on stories of English oppression. St Patrick’s Day in Boston was as serious as it was in Dublin, if not more so.
The more recent migrants would prefer you concentrate on the American part rather than the hyphenated part. I usually got around Chinatown because I could speak Cantonese to the waiters who were so happy that I was a young person who knew how to speak the language as opposed to their kids who needed to remind the world that they were “American,” “British” or whatever.
At the other extreme, you get Singapore, which officially tells its citizens that they’re Singaporean first and the hyphenated second. However, there’s also a compulsive need to reinvent and define the hyphenated part. For example, the Chinese are told that they need to forget about their actual mother tongue like dialects and have to speak Mandarin. Indian in Singapore is defined as a Tamil (something which our late President tried to contest, something which disappointed the local Tamil station which was hoping to get a sound bite). Our language policy is such – English is the common language, we have the mother tongue given to us by the government and there’s a Malay, our national language used in the national anthem and drill commands, but not actually used for much else.
While official Singapore has produced a complicated series of language policies to define Singapore culture, there is an authentic Singapore on the streets, which is best exemplified by Singlish, our version of English, which is for the most part English but has words from Malay, Tamil and Hokkien.
We’re not the only example here. New Zealand had a native culture that gave the European settlers as good as they got. Unlike the “Native Americans,” or the “Australian Aborigines” the Māori People in New Zealand became a recognised part of the mainstream. New Zealand is as English speaking as it gets, but the national anthem in New Zealand is partly in Māori and as every rugby fan knows, there’s the Hakka, a traditional Maori war dance performed with passion regardless of ethnicity origins.
Human beings are wonderfully adaptable creatures and somehow, when placed in a situation where they have to communicate across barriers, they will do it. At best, governments can provide opportunities to learn standard languages, but trying to micromanage how people identify themselves, usually doesn’t end very well. So, the answer may be to let things happen on the streets with minimal supervision and let cultures evolve and flourish from there. Let people decide how they want to identify.
A version of this article first appeared at beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com