This young author wrote a book to help teenagers navigate the problems of being pulled apart by two cultures.
I was born in Singapore, but you can’t really call me Singaporean. I may look like them, but anyone talking to me can immediately tell I’m not one of them. There’s a distinct lack of ’lah’s and other modifiers, no trace of the beautiful mishmash of languages unique to the country, and none of the cadence and intonation vaguely reminiscent of the Chinese language.
I was a voracious reader growing up, and I also kept a small notebook with random little stories I wrote. But looking back on them now, they all reflected the books I read and the shows I watched. They featured kids who didn’t eat rice every night for dinner or speak in other languages at home. Kids who slept over at friends’ houses and went to school camps and never once considered feeling different, separated somehow, from their peers.
Even the first manuscripts I wrote featured red and brown-haired protagonists who were cookie-cutter, white protagonists. It wasn’t until the OwnVoices movement started gaining traction almost 10 years ago that I realised I could create characters that looked like me, sounded like me, and struggled with similar insecurities stemming from growing up between two cultures.
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