Submission to The Social Lens: A Social Work Action Blog by Jaspreet (Jess) Sohi, BSW 4th Year Student.
Colonization, which to me means having a mainstream or hegemonic style of thinking, has never been an emotionally charged term until recently. I was educated about the many forms of torture done on Indigenous children in residential schools, as well as the cultural genocide that occurred on the territory we now call Canada. I believe colonization has less to do with skin colour and more to do with adopting a western mindset. This colonial way of thinking has become the “social norm” and is the default for how society should conduct itself.
Although we were taught the repercussions of colonialism and how it affected not only Indigenous peoples but also people of colour directly, these lessons never made me question “Who am I?” I had a limited comprehension of colonialism. When I was sick as a child, for instance, my mother would combine turmeric with warm milk and force me to drink it. She explained that it was a “ancient medicine” and promised to include it in my school lunch. Due to the odor of the turmeric drink, I was nicknamed “smelly Indian” at school. However, when Starbucks added the “turmeric shot” to their menu, my odorous treatment became the norm. It was considered “exotic” since white people drank it.
Furthermore, I recall arriving home and requesting a “regular” lunch from my mother. I subconsciously adopted the classroom’s prevailing culture and despised my ethnicity because I was different. I wanted nothing more than to be accepted by western culture; therefore I began erasing my cultural identity in order to blend in. Without intervention, such an occurrence can lead to years of resentment, racism, and intergenerational trauma. That is precisely what occurred. I, along with many others, was taught to believe that the white man’s dominating style of thinking is the only way of thinking.
In May 2022, I registered for an immersive global mental health course (SOWK 440J/5710 in Nairobi, Kenya with Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim. When I learned that Kenya has a large Indian population, I was ecstatic. I immediately felt that I wasn’t going to a new country, but rather to a place I’d been before, such as my village in Punjab, India. As a first-generation Canadian, I was anxious to share with my students the cultural information I had acquired and to tie everything I had learned to India.
During my time there, I quickly found that a great deal of what I “thought” I understood about my culture was false. During the same time that I was branded “stinking Indian,” I was also taught that India and other developing nations were “third-world” nations. It was explained to me that my parents emigrated to Canada in search of a “better life” since India was a poor, disorderly nation without social order. The fallacy I was taught in school about the lack of access to clean water in undeveloped countries was validated by my excursions to Punjab and the frequent propaganda I was shown on television. I only observed impoverished, illiterate, and drug-abusing individuals because that is what I was told and what I personally observed in the comfort of my own home. Years of exposure to my own biological father’s drug use in India and Canada led to the formation of these prejudices in my mind.
I only observed the shortcomings of India and Kenya due to my education. I never gave organizations such as SCARF in India a second consideration in terms of their success. I learned about SCARF during the same presentation as PDO, a Nakuru, Kenya-based user-led community-based mental health organization. During our site visit at PDO, the founder regularly made contacts with comparable Indian organizations. I am embarrassed to say that I was astounded by the success of these two WHO-accredited groups. My village in Punjab is identical to Nakuru. During my time in India, though, I have only visited my village and the Delhi International Airport. I have never traveled to other regions in India. I was solely exposed to rural areas and the challenges my small village’s residents endured.
As a result, the assumptions I held about India were validated in my mind. In actuality, these misunderstandings were true only in my small village and not in India as a whole. Specifically, these misunderstandings may have been accurate because the few people with whom I interacted as a child–those battling with addictions or unemployment–were the only ones with whom I interacted. Generalizations destroy relationships with oneself and with one’s culture. I never embraced my culture.
I learned more about my own culture while living in Nairobi, Kenya than I did throughout my time in India. Prior to my arrival in Kenya, I too felt superior regarding my knowledge of India. I am astounded by the fact that I have a superiority complex and a “I know it all” attitude towards my culture while never having examined my own history. Why am I surprised to read that India has been successful in tackling mental health? I am beginning to realize that I have viewed India exclusively through a colonial lens. I’ve only had a negative impression of India, and I feel involved in its colonization because I blindly accepted what I was taught and told without questioning it.
Not only that, but I did not feel Indian enough, since I have spent my entire life propagating disinformation about my country and perpetuating the notion that India is a country from which we can learn nothing. Indian and Kenyan cultures share numerous similarities, but I’m not an Indian enough to describe the true history of how those similarities came to be or why they exist. Social work has traditionally been a governmental institution dominated by white people. It has been functioning just as intended, and I have learned how to exist in it by distributing false information with a sense of superiority, as the colonizers had hoped, causing me to hate my ethnic identity and encouraging others to do so as well.
As a response to the question, “Who am I?”
I am Jaspreet Kaur Sohi and I am learning how to decolonize my mind to (re)educate myself about my culture and ethnicity.
If it weren’t for Tamara Baldwin, Christina Fung, and Mulalo Sadike form the UBC ORICE department educating me and my classmates about the negative consequences of “saviorism” and “white saviorism,” nothing like this would have been possible. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim for the course. Your lectures were excellent, and I was thoroughly entertained by both your knowledge and your wonderful sense of humour.
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