Deepa Paul: “I wanted to belong, but the gap was too wide”
The author on beauty standards, being Indian enough and code-switching in life and love
Hi, welcome back to Mixed Messages! This week’s guest is author Deepa Paul, who is of mixed-Filipino and Indian heritage, now living in Amsterdam. Deepa’s memoir, Ask Me How It Works: Love In An Open Marriage, is released this week and is set to be the book on everyone’s lips, as she lays bare the reality of being in a polyamorous relationship. I’ve been excited to speak to Deepa ever since I met her at the ESEA Summer Party, especially to understand how her heritage influences her approach to love. Read her story below.
How do you define your identity?
My mom is from the Philippines and my dad was Bengali. He passed away when I was really small. That created a separation from my roots in India and my family is in Kolkata.
I say I’m Filipina-Indian. I lead with Filipina because I was born and raised in the Philippines, so my accent and humour is Filipino.
I moved to Amsterdam with my husband 13 years ago. Where I live is very international, but I raise the diversity quotient just by walking into a room. There’s a word for when you’re Dutch but not white, allochtoon. I am never gonna be seen as Dutch-Dutch, even though I have a Dutch passport. When I travel and people ask if I’m Dutch, I say ‘no I’m allochtoon.’
Growing up in the Philippines, I’m guessing you didn’t have to try to connect to that culture. What about your Indian side?
It’s taken some work. My first memory of picking up a pen was to write to my grandmother. We started corresponding through snail mail from when I was five until she died. She was my connection to my Indian roots. It was never so much a connection to the culture as it was to particular people in my family. It was very expensive to visit India from the Philippines, so I’ve only been to Kolkata maybe three times.
Growing up, I went through the stage of wishing I was just like everybody else and didn’t have this strange name. Filipinos are notoriously racist and colourist. There were loads of stereotypes about Indians being smelly, the money lenders of the neighbourhood, always on motorcycles. When my mom was growing up, the threat to her as a child was “if you misbehave, the Indian will come and take you away in a basket on a motorcycle.”
My mom put in a lot of work to tell me ‘what makes you different makes you special.’ I grew up to realise she was right. Now the work is on me. It’s my job to bridge the gap.
Is it work that you feel like you want to do?
I do want to be closer to the culture, but it is hard work because both my grandparents passed away. The first points of contact from the culture aren’t there. I don’t want to lose it because it’s a connection with people I love. If I turn my back on making the effort, am I turning my back on my dad and my grandmother too?
I have certain touch points of Indian culture, like things that were given to me that feel really precious. My grandparents gave me a comic book style Ramayana, which I still have. I remember going to Kolkata for a wedding and my aunt took me to the market and we bought everything – those things are precious to me. My husband is also a really good cook. He's Filipino, but makes better Indian food than I ever would.
I get there through food and building on memories that I've built with others. Those are the seeds of my connection. It’s my pleasure, not a job. My South Asian identity is the people who introduced it to me. I will never be able to prove that I'm Indian, but I have them with me, and that's about as Indian as I need to be.
Does it feel important to you to be seen as both Filipino and Indian?
Yes. I almost never just refer to myself as Filipino. When my husband and I moved to Singapore for his first job, I would go shopping in Little India for bangles or wear my dad’s old kurtas with jeans.
I remember going to this fancy hotel in the Philippines for a big gala and all of the South Asian community were in their saris and jewellery. I was in my jeans and Little India bangles. I felt like I wasn’t one of them, and like I knew it and they would too. At some point I had to think, ‘well, I'm not ever going to be like that and I have to be okay with that.’ I did get over that hump. It was a very strong feeling of ‘I want to belong, but the gap is too wide.’
When you first met your husband, you were surprised that he was attracted to you. Was that because of your mixed heritage?
Absolutely. There’s a very specific standard of beauty in the Philippines: petite, fair, thick, straight hair. I was never that girl. I had crazy, wavy hair, big eyes, I’m fuller figured. I think he was also quite surprised, I wasn’t his type.
Up until that point, there hadn’t been any positive portrayals of Indians in the Philippines, except for in 1994 when Sushmita Sen won Miss Universe. The Philippines is crazy for beauty pageants, and everyone loved her and thought she was so beautiful, I was like, ‘hey, I’m like her!’ That made me feel proud. It was the first time I felt someone who looked like me could be considered beautiful.
Do you think being mixed impacted your views on love and relationships? Your cultures prize traditional relationship structures, but you had an untraditional family and upbringing.
My brain is really used to code switching. I can think in Tagalog then switch to English, but it's a different brain and almost a different personality. I've been doing this all my life. My brain is comfortable switching from one reality and identity to another, and I think this makes me predisposed or suited to being polyamorous.
In the book, I write about how I switch from one identity to another quite fluidly. When I'm with my family, I am fully a wife and mother. I also never stop being my boyfriend's girlfriend, and when I’m over there I’m still that wife and mother.
Our identities do not exist in a vacuum. Maybe one of your parts is dialled down a bit, but it’s still there.
Is it that we want to prove ourselves? I'm still figuring that out. It’s not that I don't want to belong, but I've established my own identity. I’m very happy with who I am. But I wonder, is there still that part of me that wants to be recognised.
I find the same with queerness – I identify as queer, but I’m extremely femme presenting. I can be quite hetero passing as a mother, wife and girlfriend. Sometimes when I walk into queer spaces, I wonder if I’m queer enough for this space.
Have you spoken about being mixed with your daughter?
We haven't had conversations about being mixed. She knows she’s Filipina, the Indian heritage isn’t really real to her. I’m waiting for the right time. I have a couple of book ideas that will hopefully take me back to India, maybe I can take her on that journey with me
What's more relevant for her now is the experience of growing up non-white in a predominantly white society. It'll really become a reality to her when she sees India and her family.
What’s the best thing about being mixed for you?
The feeling that I’m not limited to one identity, which is clearly a running theme in my life. The feeling of being more than what I see. The feeling of always having something greater to explore. I’ve talked about still chasing parts of my identity, but that's exciting as well. I haven't figured it all out, my identity is not static.
Can you sum up your mixed identity in one word?
Unfolding.
Get your copy of Ask Me How It Works: Love In An Open Marriage here. Next week, I’ll be speaking to chef Julie Lin, whose cookbook Sama Sama is out soon. Subscribe to get Mixed Messages in your inbox on Monday. Shop Mixed Messages tote bags and bookmarks on Etsy now!
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Mixed Messages is a weekly exploration of the mixed-race experience, from me, Isabella Silvers. My mom is Punjabi (by way of East Africa) and my dad is white British, but finding my place between these two cultures hasn’t always been easy. That’s why I started Mixed Messages, where each week I’ll speak to a prominent mixed voice to delve into what it really feels like to be mixed.
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This really hit home. So much of what is said, about moving away from trying to find a tidy answer to something as layered as identity, felt familiar. That feeling of living between worlds, of always translating yourself depending on who’s asking, is something so many of us carry.
Thank you for sharing and I’m really looking forward to reading Deepa’s book!