Y'know when we moved here in ‘88 there were other South Asian (in 1988 we used to just call them all 'brown’ or 'Indian’) kids in school but when they asked me what we ate at home and I said “you know - curry, roti” and consistently they were like “what? huh? I don’t know what this 'doti’ is? Are you sure it’s Indian food? Doesn’t sound like an Indian thing. say it again? again? rooti? roto?  rowti? do you mean chapati? puri? naan? it’s called naan. I don’t know what this roti thing is”

And so I figured maybe 'roti’ was a specifically Trinidadian colloquial term or something; but now I see everyone talking about 'roti’ all over the place in magazines and on TV and said by people here in Vancouver like it’s normal and now I’m just like…sigh.  What.  How.

It’s one of many lessons you learn growing up and realizing you’re not really like anyone.  Too oreo to be actually brown and too brown to dare trying to be white.  So I bonded with anyone who came from Hong Kong.  The British colonialism diaspora kinship. (what a thing to instinctively connect over)