Identity in motion

Who am I? I remember being asked this question many times before. It's a deceptively simple question that might require a dissertation for an answer. I hate describing myself and having to pigeonhole my identity into some fixed artificial categories.

Generally, one's identity is seen through nationality/ethnic/racial lens. In Malaysia, in the eyes of my fellow Malaysians, I'm of course a Malaysian Malay Muslim through and through. That's because I look and talk like one. No complication there, and for the sake of decorum and simplicity I refuse to explain the nuances of my personal identity (an American, part Indonesian and an internationalist).

In the US, since religion plays a minor role in one's own identity formation (at least publicly), I'm often described by my American friends and colleagues as a Malaysian-American, as if this ethnic category formally exists. It's like calling somebody Zimbabwean-American or Luxembourgian-American just because their families originate from certain geographic locales. It doesn't bother me at all to be called Malaysian-American but the name itself sounds a bit facetious and unnecessary. I think, in order to be bestowed the politically-correct identity appendage, the community that one originates from has to be sizable enough to be considered integral in the makeup of the nation as a whole. Malaysian community in the US definitely doesn't meet this criteria and hence the redundancy of a politically-correct identity. But most of the time, to people who have no idea of my background, I'm just known as an American, without any appendage at all, which is perfectly fine by me. It helps that I speak American English with a faint hint of indiscernible accent (Malaysian-Wisconsin mish-mash, maybe?).

In Indonesia, I'm usually known as a Malaysian who happens to have a quarter Sundanese blood in him, speaks Indonesian rather fluently and knows the country pretty well. It got a bit complicated when I was living and teaching in South Kalimantan. I came as an envoy from the US government to teach English in an Islamic boarding school but the people in the school saw me mostly as a Malaysian who so happens to speak English like an American. A bule bajakan or fake Westerner is what I was called, which sounded endearing to me. Other than my English-speaking ability, the American part of me never figured into their perception of what I am. Maybe on certain occasions such as wearing shorts above my knees on the football field or basketball court, smoking Marlboros instead of kretek or skipping daily prayers, I was seen as an American, or at the very least, a secular and Westernized person. But they loved me there in the school no matter what I am!

If I have to describe my identity in a succinct term it'd be an internationalist. I see myself as a citizen of the world, instead of Malaysia and the US. I feel a sense of brother/sisterhood with people from all over the globe. I'm comfortable in various cultures; I've been to many places; and I can empathize with the universal sense of joy and suffering of people the world over. So, yes, I'm an internationalist, and to paraphrase the oft-used Marxist slogan: "Citizens of the World Unite!"