By Samoda Silva.
“You can’t be what you can’t see”.
I hear this quote constantly when it comes to representation. And while I concur with it to some extent, I don’t think it does enough to actually illustrate what it means to grow up in multicultural Australia and not see multicultural Australians in major aspects of society and culture: in positions of power, in academia, in the Olympics, on magazine covers, on your TV screens.
Australia holds the comeback story of the century, evolving from a country that excluded and marginalised migrants and people of colour, to a nation with one of the most successful multicultural stories in the world. However, despite this celebrated national status quo and the many multicultural Australians I knew and grew up with as a young black-haired girl, brown-eyed Sri Lankan Australian, it was always very easy for me to feel like an outsider. To know that there was something different about me that separated me from what I perceived was the norm. To compare facets of my everyday life, like what I looked like, what I did on the weekends, and what I had for lunch with my friends and recognise that what me and my family did, had and were, was different. And not necessarily in a negative way, but just, different. Young me didn’t have the competency and introspection, nor any progressive influential figures to resonate with, to recognise that this difference was actually a positive feature and should be embraced. As a result, these feelings of difference just sat in my mind, dormant, waiting to be unpacked as I grew older.
It is great to see people who look like you and share a story with you in positions above you. But it is another thing to see people who look like you, are connected to you via the invisible string line that is a shared culture and are proud to share that culture with the rest of multicultural Australia. Representation goes beyond mere visibility; it validates existence, identity, and cultural pride. It helps to dismantle the internal biases, insecurities, and misconceptions you didn’t even realise were the root of what some may call an identity crisis. It makes you more comfortable in your skin when you’re still debating whether you like your skin or not.
A lot of things contribute to an individual’s holistic identity. Some characteristics are out of your control and contribute to your identity pool whether you like it or not. Some characteristics become part of your identity as you grow and experience more things in life. You can carefully curate your identity by deciding which aspects to present to the world, and which to hide away and keep private.
Representation goes beyond mere visibility; it validates existence, identity, and cultural pride. It helps to dismantle the internal biases, insecurities, and misconceptions you didn’t even realise were the root of what some may call an identity crisis. It makes you more comfortable in your skin when you’re still debating whether you like your skin or not.
I like to conceptualise identity as one bottomless ball pit. From the minute you are born, you have some balls in your ball pit that you can never remove: your culture, your socioeconomic status, who your family is, your genetic makeup. Then there are the balls that you acquire as you continue the journey of life, and you can choose to bring them to the top of the pit where everyone can see them, or push them down to the bottom, where no one can: your interests, hobbies, occupation, relationships, and experiences. It’s easy to see what people value in their identity ball pit when you hear them introduce themselves for the first time.
“My name is ____________, I am ___________, and I like _____________”.
As part of my role as an Australia Day Ambassador, my job is to speak at ceremonies where people officially become recognised as Australian Citizens. It’s always a deeply humbling experience to witness and participate in this moment in time where up to hundreds of people make the pledge of commitment, look to their loved ones, breathe a sigh of relief and celebrate, knowing that ‘they’ve made it’. These occasions always shed light on the sacrifices of hundreds and thousands of people across the country and provide an invaluable perspective on the thing that millions of us take for granted.
At a ceremony this year, I met with a Sri Lankan family; husband, wife, and two kids, a daughter heading into Year 12 this year, and a younger son who reminded me of one of my cousins. I saw them gather close to me, and as I turned my head and noticed them, I felt the invisible string pull me in. The auntie asked me, “Are you Sri Lankan?” I said yes.
“සිංහල කතාකරනවාද?”
“Do you speak Sinhala?”
“ඔව්”.
“Yes”.
The auntie told me that she was so proud to see someone like them, a Sri Lankan, in the position that I was in, and they saw it as a sign that they could achieve anything in Australia. Let me make myself clear, I don’t tell this story to gloat, nor would I dare herald myself as an inspiration of any sort. The speech I made that day actually ironised the power of Australian society to uplift me, a very ordinary person, to a position atop a stage, behind a lectern, in front of hundreds of people. However, I use this story as a direct reflection of what younger me would have thought if I, too, saw someone atop a stage, behind a lectern, in front of hundreds of people, starting off their speech with ආයුබෝවන්! (a traditional welcome), introducing themselves as a Sri Lankan Australian, and thanking their parents for their sacrifice in migrating to Australia. I acknowledge that younger me would likely not have had the maturity to fully understand the significance of this event, nor the vocabulary to actually explain it. But I do feel that something would have clicked in her brain and in her heart, and some of those doubts I had about my identity and how I fit within the societal puzzle, and those insecurities I didn’t realise were insecurities, would have been spoken to, even somewhat.
You will never understand the power of representation until you actually experience the power of representation. That satisfying neurological process when you see someone you resonate with in front of you and realise that they likely would have experienced the same challenges and doubts as you have, and nonetheless have been able to overcome them and ‘make it’ in the end.
“You can’t be what you can’t see”.
Yes, that may be true. But you also can’t be proud of what you can’t see others be proud of, too. You can’t fully appreciate your self-worth and potential until you see others embrace what it is that makes you and them different. You can’t inspire others when you, yourself, have not been inspired. And you can’t represent unless you have experienced the transformative power of representation yourself.