‘
‘One of us’?:
Voices of mixed-race (South
Asian and white) Britons
SHEENA KALAYIL
MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY
 “To one of us” – Hanif Kureishi
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
 When bilingualism in Britain is discussed it is
seldom if ever with reference to the inner city
immigrant populations, yet over half the immigrant
pupils in our schools have a mother-tongue which is
not English… we should see it as an asset, as
something to be nurtured, and one of the agencies
which should nurture it is the school. (Bullock
Report, 1975, p293-294)
(Bullock Report, 1975, p293-294)
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
 It is important to understand
multilingualism as a complex matter, far
beyond the simplistic mantra of celebrating
diversity.
(Pagett, 2006, p143)
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Research Questions

1. Are children with one parent from the Indian sub-continent less likely to maintain knowledge
of this parent’s Heritage Language than children with one parent who speaks a European
language?

2. Does the particular HL (Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi for example) of the South Asian parent have
significance in its loss or maintenance?

3. Does the religion of the South Asian parent (and accompanying issues of capital) have
significance in the loss or maintenance of the HL (Bourdieu, 1989)?

4. How do adult mixed-race Britons position the importance of the loss or
maintenance of their HL with regards to their perceptions of identity?
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5. What can we learn about ownership of HLs, and can we make any recommendations
regarding the position of HLs in the educational curriculum?
6. How does society, through channels such as the media, portray the South Asians who marry
out of their community and does their portrayal in any way affect the maintenance or loss of the
HLs?

Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
 I think the best thing we can give her
[his daughter] is for her to understand
where she comes from and to value that
and appreciate that.
Jones Diaz, C. (2003)
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
 You see other British people go there [to India] … .
Complete coconuts – brown on the outside but white
on the inside, and they don’t know the language … .
These people are white, they aren’t true Indians.
(Majinder)
 Knowing the language is really the first step to being
Indian. (Saeed)
Jaspal,R. and Coyle, A. (2010)
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
 schizophrenia which bedevils generational
relationships
Blunkett,D ( 2002)
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Comments on methodology
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Interview with Tahir
For quite a long period of my life I’ve just been
struggling to have the identity I want, not the
identity other people expected me to have or insisted
that I should have.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Tahir
 I just started thinking to myself ‘I don’t need this,
what am I going to do with Urdu? I’m going to be in
England.’
 Why would I expend so much effort, why would I do
this, it’s embarrassing when I speak Urdu, everyone
[in Pakistan] understands English’.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Tahir
 My identity was supposed to be Asian and I was
supposed to speak Urdu, and I was supposed to be
religious, and I was neither of those things.
 I was forever being told what I should be, what my
identity should be.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Interview with Tahir
 But now with the emergence of India …as a player
in the world economy you sort of think well
actually, it might be useful for R to have one of those
languages.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Interview with Aishwarya
 I kind of went through I had a rather schizophrenic
attitude to towards being part Indian at a certain period
in my life because I had a quite confrontational
relationship my relationship with my parents …and so
part of me was I’m never going to learn Hindi off my dad
[indistinct] and part of me wanted to and I had actually
wanted to from a young age.

 Because learning Hindi was kind of was almost like was
giving into my dad.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Aishwarya
 I think I liked the classes at the Bhavan because it
was part of a bigger cultural package if you like..
 .. it was a feeling that I had a right to be part of it.
 With the phonetic classes they were taught by an
English guy, a white English guy, but my friend Mark
speaks fluent Hindi for example because he then
went on to live in India for years and years
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
Aishwarya
 A: Well, I think that that’s almost inevitable there
were sort of a whole load of cultural stuff that is just
there isn’t it you know you can’t not have it
 S: But it wasn’t enough..for you..
 A: Well I wanted to learn the language ..I felt that I
kind of almost felt cheated as a child you know that
in a way I had to put up with the aggro that you got
growing up in the seventies in a mixed-race family
but without what I perceived to be the benefits.
Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
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Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
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Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
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Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk
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Sheena Kalayil, Manchester Metropolitan
University: s.kalayil@mmu.ac.uk