Of Race, Class, Gender and Religion?

Born and raised in Toronto, Loraine Nazareth graduated from the University of Toronto in 1998. She is currently working for the provincial government while pursuing a post-degree certificate in Technical and Professional Writing at York University. Loraine has tentative plans to pursue graduate studies part-time once she has paid off her enormous student loan. After several years of rejecting her parents' plea to date "within her community", Loraine finally started dating a Goan. Please, don't make any assumptions here. This is not a case of acquiescence. Loraine feels very badly that her happiness happens to coincide with that of her parents.

IN a recent "Race, Class, Gender and Religion?" course I took at the University of Toronto, the curriculum focused on external impositions evoked by race, class and gender. Institutionalized racism and sexism were recurring themes throughout the course and we examined biases in the education system and within the immigration department.

I'd like to contrast these external impositions by examining how race class and gender have shaped me rather than affected me. I will do this by examining a level of authority which was never brought up in class. Though on a less formal scale, this authoritative body is no less menacing than the racist professor, the sexist bureaucrat or the immigration official whose practices privilege the wealthy. This great force is parents. In my case, my traditional, religious parents who secured my livelihood for the first nineteen years of my life and helped--to my detriment--to shape my notion of my particular race, class and gender. Though I've always seemed to have a strong sense of gender identity, this notion (perhaps at times wrongly interpreted) kept me confused throughout my childhood as to my race and class identity. Reconciling one's race, class and gender with the ordinary trials of childhood life is difficult enough. I, however, was lucky enough to have the additional burden of coping with the religious rhetoric spewed daily by my Bible-breathing father. For my family, religion has overlapped both our class and race identity to the point that the three are almost indistinguishable. I will now relay for you some of my more frustrating parental encounters involving class, race and gender so that you may come to see why I was such a confused child.

Tearlessness and Gender Identity
Gender has never been a confusing issue for me. Even at a very young age I was quite confident being female and feminine, though I remember knowing that it was not always considered a good thing. No one actually told me that being a girl was somehow considered being less, it was something I picked up on just being around the males in my family. My father would often scold my older brother for "crying like a girl". "Take it like a man", he would say. Incidentally, I've never been told to take anything like a woman. What would that mean, take it like a woman? The female gender is commonly associated with emotion and sensitivity. These are not bad traits. They're not necessarily good traits, they're just traits. Yet being emotional and sensitive is most often construed as being weak and womanly. I learned at a very young age, just through observation around the house, that crying revealed weakness. Though I don't believe this anymore, I still avoid tears at all costs and find it difficult to cry in front of anyone as does my all-weathering father. So you see, the power my parents or more specifically, my father, wielded was more than just financial, more than just provisional. My father held a power over me which, like institutional bias, was difficult to detect. He had no idea that he had any power over me. How could he know this when I myself only so recently realized it? Furthermore, he did not realize the negative message he was sending me about femininity by openly telling my brother to stop behaving like a girl when he was behaving unfavorably. We learned in class that the discriminatory acts of those who participate in institutional bias--teachers, officials, etc.--need not necessarily "derive from the personal prejudice" of the participator "but from the carrying out by the" participator "the dictates of the others who are prejudiced or of a prejudiced social institution." (Kallen:52) These participators may not consider themselves biased in any form. Similarly, my father did not consider himself or his actions sexist. He was simply carrying out the dictates of his educators and his own parents, with the intention of bettering his son--not crippling his daughter. Although being a girl didn't always mean being treated fairly in my family--I always ended up having to help out with the cooking and cleaning--I never resented my gender. Rather, I learned at a young age to give value to those aspects of my gender deemed frivolous. Being labeled a "girlie gossip" didn't trouble me at all when I compared the closeness I had achieved with my girlfriends through slumber party and lunch break chat sessions with the aloof friendships my brother shared. His were characterized by an inability to communicate properly, resulting in mutual male teasing and torturing. In taking Women's Studies courses I have been able to hone my ability to find the positive in what is deemed negative (and vice versa). Though virtually tearless, I am just as firm in my gender identity as I was as a child. My race and class identities, however, were not as clear to me growing up due to the fact that both were linked to my ethnicity, and both were strongly overlapped by my religious identity.

The Québécois of India
Peter Li, in his "Race and Ethnic Relations in Canada", distinguishes between the two concepts. Li defines ethnicity as being based on "descent, language, religion, tradition and common experiences". (Li:5) He accuses race of being a social construct based on physical traits, most commonly skin colour. (Li:5) By this definition it is possible that two people may be of the same race though from different countries (for example, people from both India and Pakistan belong to the South Asian race). It is also possible that two people may be from the same country, and yet have different ethnicities. (For example the English and the French in Canada.) Though my parents have the same racial and ethnic background, people are often puzzled as to my race. This is not unusual because for the longest time I, myself, was puzzled over the very same issue. My family is South Asian. Both my parents were born in Goa, now a state on the south western coast of India. However, my parents, like other Goans, do not consider themselves Indian, but Goan. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this phenomenon to a Westerner is to use the analogy of Quebec and the Québécois. However, I will begin by briefly outlining the history of Goa.

Goa was a Portuguese colony for over four centuries. As a result of mass conversion of the indigenous population, Goans, though they don't look much different, have a separate language, culture, and most significantly, a separate religion from most other Indians. In my experience, Goans are fervently Catholic. While the majority of Goa's population is not Catholic, the Hindus and Muslims of Goa do not consider themselves Goan, but Indian. This gives Goans a separate identity, justified in Li's definition of ethnic identity in that Goans are self-defined and defined by others as being of a separate ethnic identity. (Li:5) Just as the Québécois insist they are Québécois rather than Canadian, Goans consider themselves Goan over Indian. My parents and their Goan friends talk about Goa as if it were a country, so for most of my childhood I grew up believing that I, or at least that my parents, came from a country called Goa, and while I spoke of it in reference to India, I truly did not understand the reference myself. When I spoke of Goa to my friends, they all said they'd never heard of such a country, and neither had their parents, my teachers, or any other adult for that matter. Indeed, this is because such a country never existed. After visiting the state three times and reading about Portuguese colonialism, I finally came to understand the truth about Goa and its reference to India. I did not, however, realize the extent of my parents' feelings about being different from other Indians until the first time I brought home my (now) ex-boyfriend. I truly thought they would like him. Apart from being intelligent, he was Indian, he spoke Hindi fluently, and knew a lot about India's history and culture. However, according to my parents, this was his history and his culture, not ours. Every guy I have ever dated has been of South Asian descent, yet my parents are adamant in their belief that I have never dated within my race--I have never dated a Goan. Yet my ex-boyfriend's ethnicity was not my parents' main concern. The fact that he was Muslim is what kept them up at night. As I said before, Goans are Catholic, and proud of it. My parents referred to my boyfriend and myself as an interracial couple partially because he wasn't Goan, but mainly because he wasn't Catholic. This overlap of religion with racial identity was common in the Nazareth household and helped to keep me confused as to my own racial identity well into my teens. I remember a most frustrating incident which occurred almost a year ago when I decided to get my nose pierced. I was on my way to Gerrard Street and decided to call home and tell my parents just so they couldn't say that I went behind their backs. My father answered the phone and when I told him what I was planning to do he shrieked, "Get your nose pierced? But you're Catholic!" "I know this," I affirmed, "and I'm not planning to convert, just pierce my nose." "But you're Catholic," he repeated, "you're Goan!" "Yes Dad, but I'm also Indian." This completely stunned my father. Never in his life had he ever heard me say such a thing. "No, you're Goan. You're a Goan, Catholic girl," he said, not realizing how ridiculous he was being. "Is Goa not in India? Am I not then Indian?" My father did not know what to say next. He knew I was right. So, being the crafty man that he is, he tried to convince me that as nose piercing is an Indian art it should only be undertaken in India if it is to be done properly. Since my mother and he were planning a Christmas visit to the country he suggested that I come along and have it done there, secretly hoping that my desire to have a gem embedded in my nose was only temporary and would fade in the eight months before the trip. I, however, was ardent in my desire and refused to wait. "Dad," I said, trying to be just as crafty, "it's either a nose ring or a tattoo." You can imagine my surprise when my very conservative father begged me to get a tattoo. "Why are you telling my daughter to get a tattoo?" I heard my mother demand in the background. And when my father told her the alternate option she grabbed the phone and pleaded, "Loraine, get a tattoo. At least those you can get removed." These days, in our society, getting one's nose pierced is not uncommon. People of all races seem to be piercing their noses--it's become trendy--a fad that will fade with time. In India, however, nose piercing is a very old tradition among Hindus and Muslims, but not among Catholics. My parents often criticize western practices. Thus they demonstrated their utter intolerance for non-Christian tradition in their preference of a western practice (like tattooing) over one practiced by those of their own race, from their own country. I like the way my nose looks pierced and I do consider myself Indian on the basis that Goa happens to be situated in India. Perhaps now you can begin to understand my childhood confusion as to my racial identity. Catholics are few in India, and even some Indians are surprised to hear that my parents were both born in India but are yet Catholic. Just as I've always been quite secure in my gender identity, I've been similarly secure in my being Catholic. However my racial identity suffered for this. I believed my race was Goan, but by Peter Li's definition of race, there is no Goan race, only a Goan ethnicity. Goans may have a separate culture from other Indians--just as the Québécois have a culture separate from Canadians--but they have the same physical attributes and thus, according to Li's definition, belong to the same race.

In Canada, Slippers are just Slippers
Like race identity, my class identity was also an issue of confusion as a child. In fact, my notion of class was even more strongly intertwined with my religious identity then was my notion of race. My parents came to Canada as political refugees from Uganda with no money and two children. Since their arrival twenty-four years ago they've had two more children and worked their way up to the upper-middle class strata of Canadian society. Back in Goa both my parents were considered Brahmins. Brahmins are the highest level of India's multi-leveled caste system. They were considered so not because they had money, but because they both came from a family of priests, lawyers and professors--three of my dad's seven brothers are Catholic priests. In Goa it is a sign of the upper class to wear slippers around the house. Indeed, many people can't afford a pair of shoes for the market place, let alone a separate set of footwear--slippers--for lounging in around the house. Now it makes sense that people would want to wear slippers in Goa as the floors are made of stone. My parents both wore slippers as children. However, in Canada we have a carpet, or at least my family did. Soft, plush carpet, the kind you'd want to bury your face in. No one wants to wear slippers on plush carpet. Yet from the time I could walk until the day I moved out of my parents' house I was forced to wear slippers at all times around the house. I remember the arguments, the groundings, the numerous days spent looking for lost slippers. I must have gone through well over thirty pairs in my life. I can still hear my father tormenting me, "Look at you, running around the house barefoot like a beggar!" "Who will believe you're the child of priests?" "You come from a family of Brahmins on both sides, cover your feet you're a Goan girl!" His remarks were not sexist, he would say the same thing to each of my brothers, "Cover your feet, you're a Goan boy." His remarks were absurd, but thinking back I remember them making perfect sense at the time. Perhaps this is because my own sense of identity, pertaining both to race and class, was equally absurd. I remember assuming that my friends were lower class because they walked around their houses in bare feet. Being forced to wear slippers in a Goan context makes perfect sense; they are a status symbol with a practical use. However, in a Canadian, carpeted context, slippers are not necessary, nor are they great status symbols. In Canada slippers are just slippers.

By combining ethnicity, culture, class and religion and serving it up to me as race, my parents instilled in me a very blurred notion of racial and class identity. While my sense of gender identity as a child somehow came out unscathed, I was forced to bear witness to my father's very traditional sense of gender differences. Despite the many disadvantages which seem to accompany being female (we've discussed most of them in class) I could never imagine not being part of that gender. Similarly, being Goan--being Indian and yet Catholic--despite the confusion it has brought about, is something I've come to understand and truly appreciate. In studying about colonialism and learning to differentiate between race and ethnicity, I can now reconcile the identity bestowed upon me by my parents with that which I developed being born and raised in Canada. As for class, while my parents may belong to the middle-upper class, I am very much a poor student, living from hand to mouth at the bottom of Canada's economic strata. When I visit Goa I am a Brahmin, and I wear slippers to keep my feet clean and warm, but also to please my difficult father. As long as I live on my own, however, I am free to roam my cozy basement apartment, barefoot and blissful.