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South Asian Heritage month: Kieran’s Story

Category: Race, Ethnicity & Heritage

Global Ethnic Majority

South Asian Heritage month: Kieran’s Story

Monday 18th July 2022 marked the start of South Asian Heritage Month (SAHM). SAHM sheds light and celebrates the legacy of South Asian people and history.

Across the course of SAHM DCMS are speaking with a number of staff members about their South Asian heritage and sharing it on their internal intranet. Education is key to DCMS’s Diversity and Inclusion strategy and ambition to become the most diverse and inclusive government department by 2025.

Kieran, from DCMS’s Sport, Gambling and Ceremonials team, shared his family’s story.

Kieran’s Story

July 18th marked the first day of South Asian Heritage Month and an opportunity to reflect on the impact and influence various South Asian communities have had on the UK. This year’s theme, ‘Journeys of Empire’, particularly resonates with me. I am the child of two families whose histories were shaped by the British Empire. However, for me, these histories have always felt quite distant until recently. I have always felt just British - none of the culture and customs that my grandparents brought with them to the UK were passed to my parents and then to me. Whenever I have been confronted with a form that requires me to describe my ethnicity, I have always found it jarring to have to try and explain where my family comes from by ticking a box.

My grandparents on my father’s side left the Punjab in 1950, sailing for 21 days from Mumbai to Southampton. They then made the trip north to Newcastle before settling in Doncaster, where my grandfather still lives, 72 years later. Their families were farmers but when they came to England, my grandfather was a peddler before owning his own market stall and selling jeans before he retired. My grandmother mainly stayed at home and continued to cook traditional Punjabi food throughout the rest of her life. Fortunately for them, there was a significant Sikh population in Doncaster where they could feel a sense of belonging, particularly at the local Gurdwara.

My mother’s side of the family is from Guyana, another former British colony, that is part of the Caribbean yet it borders both Brazil and Venezuela. My family on this side is a mix of different backgrounds as a result of the Empire. My grandmother’s grandparents left England in the 1800s to own a sugarcane plantation. Here her grandmother married a black African man whose family would have been slaves. My grandfather’s side ended up in Guyana because of indentured labour too - they were Indian Tamils, who worked on the plantations.

As a result, it has always been difficult for me to fit into one of the boxes on the forms. It also seems wrong to try and describe this history simply as ‘mixed other’. My family is one of millions of stories of how the British Empire has dictated and shaped people’s lives. South Asian Heritage Month gives us the opportunity to think about these stories in more depth and to really understand how the journeys of empire have shaped the country we live in today.

Are you interested in joining DCMS? Take a look at the current job opportunities here.

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