Qayyah Moynihan

[2001/2. This is me with my brother - our cousin in Pakistan sent us over some gorgeous clothes for Eid so we took some pictures of us in the clothes to send back to her!]

1993 | LIVERPOOL, UK | Pakistani, Indian, Irish & English

There was never a clear moment at which I understood I was viewed as different; it was more of a slow epiphany.

I remember mostly little things from when I was small; of often being placed on a pedestal for my differences but also alienated a lot because of them. Whatever happened, I was always set apart. Sometimes through being subtly excluded in primary school, on the playground or at friends’ houses. I wonder sometimes if they recall it or feel any sense of shame. Sometimes it was more overt. My mum used to go into (my very small primary) school to do fun show-and-tell activities for Eid and Ramadan but it ground to a halt after 9/11. I remember being told I couldn’t play with the rest of my classmates as one of the girls had been instructed by her father not to play with me, because my family was Muslim. It was surreal and isolating.

 I vaguely remember being about five years old and coating myself in talcum powder because I didn’t want to ‘not be white’ anymore. I must have felt 'deracialising' myself would give me a pass into this unspoken in-group. In a world where it still feels like a lot of status hinges on appearance and its proximity to whiteness — it's hard to stop thinking about how you look through white eyes. I still have complex feelings about my appearance but I'm proud of my mixed features now.

 Both my parents made an effort to keep us connected to our ‘Desi’ and Muslim roots. Mum and Naani tried teaching me Urdu (mine’s abysmal but I can understand bits.) I would watch Umrao Jaan, singing and dancing along to Rekha, as well as lots of Hindi films. We ate all sorts at home - Mum cooked daal chawal, kitchari, and sooji for me as a baby. And Dad knows how to cook saalan, chaval, and roti, too. My rotis still aren’t round but Mum and Naani taught me enough. We’d celebrate Eid like you would Christmas — lights and decor, gifts and clothes, games, both sides of the family. The slight differences were clothes, food and mehndi (henna). Equally, Dad wanted for his parents to be able to share Christmas, Easter, and Hallowe’en with us — so we had ‘the best of both’. My dad who reverted to Islam before he married my mum doesn’t recite Arabic but can pray — he whispered the Shahāda into my ear when I was born. He’s better than all of us at fasting in Ramadan. Mum wasn’t fussed about us going to mosque; but she taught me Ṣalāt and Qurʾān at home and although I haven’t kept either up I do see merit in contemplation.

 The transition from childhood to adolescence as the eldest in our family, paving the way as mixed race was not easy. I was the only mixed-race Muslim Pakistani person I knew of. Being caught between racism and horizontal hostility on top of life’s ups and downs, I acted up a lot. I couldn’t articulate what was happening. It turns out that a lot of my ‘acting up’ was symptomatic of race-based traumatic stress. Difficulties at home persisted from my teens into adulthood. The knock-on impacts of my difficulties impacted our whole family and caused a lot of despair. It made it impossible to responsibly stay with my family — I went from conflict in my adolescence to phases of estrangement, abusive relationships, financial instability, and homelessness.

Our family endured a lot through what happened to me as the eldest. I question if it was inevitable — whether it could have been averted if I’d never been, whether my existence as a firstborn with my heritage was a mistake. It's distressing to consider the all-consuming havoc racism wreaked across my family — with my mum; us, her kids; my wider family. And my dad, too.  A rational part of me knows the systems that produced us are to blame for my family's challenging experiences; yet another part still wishes I'd been more self-aware, that I'd contained and protected. What could have helped is if my parents had known of and spoken to me more about culture clash, being racialised, mixed-race erasure, racism, and horizontal hostility. I also wish we'd all been able to recognise that my being 'difficult' as a teen was an early sign of something bigger... they did their best. Being of mixed heritage is to be celebrated but I do wish I hadn't always felt forced to put a positive spin on whatever I found traumatic. Feeling your negative experiences are seen and heard is important.

As well as witnessing my mum experience discrimination, we inherited intergenerational trauma. I wish there’d been more respite in non-white spaces but horizontal hostility led me to feel inauthentic and excluded: I didn’t speak Urdu, hadn’t been to Pakistan, didn’t pray, didn’t dress modestly, I dated, I drank. I was never 'one of' any collective. Choosing between absolute binaries of British, white, Indian, Pakistani, Muslim and Brown only to repeatedly land in a no-win situation pushed my sense of ownership over my ‘self’ to a precarious precipice. I felt resentful that others didn’t have to question their existence: while I was trying to claim ownership over my ‘self.' My Pakistani and Muslim identity left me feeling alienated and ashamed in white spaces. And I felt rejected in Brown spaces — so I copped out. I bastardised my name, stopped correcting people who mistook me for being Mediterranean, refused to wear Pakistani clothes. Caving into whiteness was a huge betrayal to my mum. It hurt our whole family.

I devalued my culture a lot but I’m grateful to have outgrown that mindset: I can now enjoy making saalan for friends and wearing shalwar kameez. I’m sure the joy and novelty of being mixed and having Pakistani and Muslim roots will only grow as I age. Learning to read the Qur’ān arguably forged my career as a translator. The way world events and my background shaped me propelled me to work in the media, which I'm grateful for. I’ve attended indulgent weddings, been painted in henna and been dressed in the most stunning clothes sewn by my mum and my naani. I've grown up on dishes people pay for and been taught to cook meals people take courses to learn to make.

 Through conversations with my family, I'm compiling a cookbook-memoir of stories about them, coupled with recipes — some of which I've put together; others, family recipes passed down by Mum, Naani, and other family members. It's been an opportunity to learn about food, but also what it was like for my parents navigating each other's cultural differences; my naani walking across the border of India to Pakistan post-Partition; her journey with Naana from Pakistan in 1963 by boat to Genoa; my mum and her siblings growing up in Liverpool as their parents started over. As well as carving out a space to grieve, it's been a place to reminisce, to laugh, and maybe to make up for some lost time. I hope it will outline a space just for us — to really celebrate, love, and be proud of us.

 It’s too easy to feel bitter about what should have been. When discussing being Brown or mixed, I often catch myself talking in the context of anger, confusion, loss, sadness, pain — yet there are so many facets of my upbringing in a mixed-heritage, mixed-race family that have left me with such unrivalled, rapturous, and surreal joy. I now recognise how my ‘atypical’ cultural background has shaped my strengths, my tastes and values and through my life experiences have found empathy, gratitude, compassion, and patience. I am no longer ‘exiled’ to a no-man’s land; I have free reign over a unique space that’s all mine.

[2018/9. This was taken when we were celebrating Eid at our parents' home in Liverpool.]