Oh, So Now I’m Bangladeshi? – The New York Times

British writer Zia Haider Rahman on identity and perceived identity:

It is Britain’s inherent cultural problem with otherness that makes it difficult for the native to call me British, difficult even for those who, one might naïvely hope, should know better.

If you’re not going to call me British when I grew up in Britain; when I hold a British passport and don’t hold a Bangladeshi one; when I don’t even speak Bengali; when, good citizen that I try to be, I help an elderly neighbor with his Ikea bed, or dig out the old lilac that another cannot uproot; when I was educated in Britain, worked in Britain, was “a body of England’s, breathing English air/Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home”; when I wash the dishes at the local church’s fund-raiser for the homeless (because regardless of faith, we surely all believe in the idea of community); and again — it bears repetition — when I hold a British passport “without let or hindrance,” then you can’t be surprised if, doubting your good faith, I grab my bags and get the hell out.

After all, how much more can I integrate? What more is it you want from us? To be white? To be you?

Source: Oh, So Now I’m Bangladeshi? – The New York Times