NATASHA
“Where I'm at now, I'm proud to be here and to have made it to this point. I no longer feel bound by those beauty standards, I don't feel bound by my brownness and what that means.
I'm not afraid to speak my truth anymore or who might feel uncomfortable with it.”
Monday 19th September, 2021
I'm with Natasha in her cosy loft home in New Farm, Meanjin, surrounded by a large collection of music vinyls. We are sitting on the couch eating some snacks and sushi.
E: Can you tell me a little bit about your cultural background?
N: I am half Indonesian, a quarter Armenian and a quarter Hungarian. Both my parents met in Australia and I was born here.
My dad is Indonesian and he has a huge family. My mum was an only child and didn't really have any family around here, whereas my dad had seven or eight brothers and sisters, he came from a very big Indonesian family. Interestingly, they all lived in a big family home well into their adult life. All of his brothers and sisters were living together in this one house. I've only been to Indonesia once in my life to visit them in Jakarta, I think I was six years old.
E: What are your memories of being in Indonesia?
N: My Auntie Sandra, she was this beautiful Indonesian woman, just a vision. I remember she was gorgeous and I really looked up to her a lot. She was working as a TV anchor at that time and I have these very random memories of her house. She had this big wall of all these people that she had worked with, it was a little Hall of Fame with photographs of her with people like Richard Gere. I remember seeing that and thinking, Wow my auntie is just so amazing.
I have a very distinct memory of walking around the neighbourhood to go get some fruit and vegetables from a little cart. I just remember the trip being very family oriented and everyone was together. Many of my aunties and uncles have now passed away, but it felt very much like a cultural thing to all stay together, live together and be this one big unit rather than disperse and do your own thing.
E: What were some things that the family would do together?
N: Auntie Sandra loved to throw a good party. Parties were a big family event and our cousins would come. My brother, sister and I all loved my dad's family, but we didn't have the strongest connection to them because we didn't see them very often. There were big family dinners, big family events and bringing in all the cousins, which was all so foreign because we lived in Australia. Our life was very isolated, it was just our immediate family and that was it.
E: Where in Australia did you grow up?
N: On the Gold Coast. My mum was raised by a single working mum and lived a very humble life, they didn’t have a lot of money. It was just her and her mom and that was it, there was no family really, she was an only child. My parents had these two very different lives, my dad came from quite a prominent Indonesian family, so it was two different worlds essentially. We would go to Indonesia and experience this very different world that we weren't used to, it was exciting and fun.
E: How did your mum and dad meet?
N: They met in Sydney. My dad left Indonesia when he was about 18 and all of the stories he heard was that he was this little rebel. He couldn’t wait to leave Indonesia. His father had set up this job for him as a bank manager and said one day ‘you start on Monday, you better go.’ My dad was like, ‘I don't want to do it.’ So he ran away and came to Australia with $100 in his bank account.
I wish I could talk to him now and be like, Can you clarify this for me? (laughs) Because it doesn't necessarily add up. But he was definitely that kind of spirit, just wanting to travel and felt really contained in a very traditional Indonesian, prominent family. He didn't feel comfortable, so he came to Australia somewhat illegally. I remember he was a waiter, worked on a cruise ship and that's how he came to Australia. They stopped in Sydney, got off the boat and never came back (laughs), which is just so my dad, he was very cheeky, fun and just a real free spirit. He was the most charming man as well.
My parents met in Sydney and obviously back then being in an interracial relationship was mind blowing. It was a very big deal. I think just existing in Australia at that time and being an interracial couple, it was definitely hard for them. It's interesting because I remember my mom detailing a lot of what we would now call casual racism. I think it definitely had an effect on them.
Even just the fact that they were an interracial couple, dad was a Person of Color and we were all mixed race kids. We didn't have many open discussions about what their experience was and what that meant for us, which is really interesting now when I think back to it because it's major. I also think it's kind of that generation where these discussions weren't had. Specifically thinking about my dad, I can definitely recognise now how much effort he put into being as Australian as he could be. It honestly devastates me thinking about that, it really makes me feel so sad for him that he felt that he had to do that.
E: How would you describe your connection to your Indonesian growing up to now?
N: It's very disjointed and complex. I used to beg my dad to teach me Indonesian and he just wouldn't. It's very interesting because a lot of my Asian friends or mixed friends have this experience where they get so much of their culture through their parents. But what's really interesting with me is that, my dad was visibly a very Indonesian man and he would eat everything with his hands, but he never really passed that on to us or connected us to that. So I've had a very disjointed relationship with my Indonesian heritage. I think growing up and experiencing that, it made me feel like I had to be white.
Dad would definitely tell us stories, especially about his family and his upbringing, but the cultural aspect of what it meant to be Indonesian, we are so disconnected from it. Now that both my brother, sister and I are older, we definitely feel that heaviness of not knowing where we come from. It's definitely been something that we've all explored a bit in our own way, but it's hard to know where to start. I think we've all felt imposter syndrome really strongly because of the way we were brought up.
E: Did you want to embrace your Indonesian culture when you were younger?
N: I was the darkest of my brother and my sister and the most visibly Indonesian. It's quite interesting because I feel like we've all had a different experience because of that. My brother looked the most like my mom and I looked the most like my dad. So I naturally had more of an inclination when I was younger to really connect with our Indonesian heritage. I'm visibly brown, I want to know where that comes from.
E: What do you feel have been your primary challenges growing up mixed Asian?
N: I have very sporadic, distinct memories of when it started to hit me that there is a difference that is noticed by people, that I have no control over. I remember being in grade one at school and this little boy came up to me and said 'put your hands like this if you want to be my girlfriend (puts hands above head in a cross) and go like this if you don't (puts hands down).’ He kept repeating it to me and I kept saying, ‘No, no, no, I don't want to be your girlfriend.’ I just remember he goes 'whatever, you're too brown for me anyway' and walks away. It's never, ever left me, that one interaction and it's weird because I distinctly knew what it meant. He was actually saying, you're brown and that's a reason for me not to want you. That's obviously coming from his own conditioning, but it definitely was something that I felt from a very young age. The fact that I was this chubby little brown girl in primary school, I definitely felt like the other. I could tell I wasn't the same as everybody else.
There would be so many more instances that would have hit me subconsciously as well. It's so real, so prevalent and not easy to talk about.
E How was your experience in high school?
N: I got a full scholarship to a really nice school, which was completely whitewashed. There weren't many brown kids or brown teachers. Even if no one's saying something to your face, there's still that strong feeling of being the other. It's very hard to not feel it subconsciously. I've got lots of memories, especially the boys in my school asking very inappropriate questions. There was this one boy who was a friend of mine making a massive joke over the fact that I probably have brown nipples and how ugly that would be, and 'show us your nipples.' Just really inappropriate. Then you're also being told it's just a joke, lighten up. It definitely can start to affect how you navigate the world and perceive everything. I was a good student, then I started to flunk as soon as I got to high school. I couldn't really focus on my grades. My priorities were about pleasing my peers and trying to be this version of myself that was very accepted and celebrated, that's all I cared about. I hate the fact that I was so consumed by that, but it's very evident to me that I was so confused, I was desperate to be accepted and to fit in with everybody in a predominantly white school.
I wanted to be the whitest version of myself that I could be, which is so sad. I had this knowing that I would never, ever be or feel beautiful. I got to this point in high school where I thought, no one's ever going to find me desirable, I need to be this funny girl. I started to overcompensate in other ways because I felt I had to double prove my worth to people and was a massive people pleaser. Now that I think about it, it had quite a severe effect on me. The beauty standards especially had a real impact on me growing up because of the lack of representation. I remember Harry Potter coming out and thinking, I could never be in that. I used to do acting and would think that I could never really pursue it because there would never be roles for someone like me.
E: There was no one we saw ourselves in, so of course we didn't think that was the ideal beauty standard. We didn't think we were beautiful because we couldn't see anyone that was like us. The closest person in popular culture or movies would have been Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels.
N: Totally 100%, and just even having people come up to me and ask, ‘where are you from?’ Or instantly telling me, oh you must be Spanish / Indigenous / or this. The guessing game was constant and the hardest thing I started to realise was that my skin colour will be the first thing anyone will ever see.
It took a while for me to see my skin colour and heritage as a positive thing. Back then, I struggled with that a lot because I was so desperate to fit in and couldn’t escape it because it defined me. People put that on me and there was never any consent with it.
Being a child going through that, it's so hard. Even now I feel it's taken so much in me to really get to a place where I can feel proud of my heritage, and that I can hold space for it. Being so young and going through all of that, then also just feeling so disconnected from my heritage, it was like a real whirlwind.
E: When did the shift happen for you?
N: When I moved to Melbourne. I got through high school and I suppressed a lot, even though I definitely thought about it and was aware of it, but I rarely had the conversation. I would sometimes talk to my friends, and their response was, aren’t you overreacting a little bit? Or they would dismiss it. I don't think they were bad people, but there's such a lack of understanding as to how it really feels to go through all of this. I experienced that from adults as well and the few times that I would feel inclined to talk about it, the response was oh, ‘you know people don't mean it like that.’ Just like microaggression vibes.
When I left school, that's when everything started to shift. The internet really started to become a thing, representation started to slowly change and the conversation started to slowly become this thing. In 2010, that's when you really started seeing this shift, but I was right at the end and didn't necessarily experience it.
Moving to Melbourne, which is so multicultural and the communities that exist down there are so strong, it honestly changed everything. It was the first time in my life that I ever had experienced feeling very beautiful. I went from feeling like I had to do everything to diminish my Asian heritage, to then all of a sudden I had won the lottery. There were so many beautiful POCs and amazing communities down there that it was a total 180 for me. That even sent my brain spinning a little bit because it felt so foreign to me, I didn't know how to navigate being around all these multicultural communities. It felt so amazing but also I didn't feel equipped for it.
E: What impact did that have on you?
N: As someone who definitely didn't grow up with a very strong cultural identity, that's when the imposter syndrome really started to kick in because I was seeing all these incredible POCs that were living their truth. They're the real thing, they're embracing it and they've had that in them their whole life. I'd grown up on the Gold Coast, which is a surfy town, everyone's white and blonde. It was confusing and really jarring. But it was definitely the first time that I started to understand my beauty. I saw girls that were me, who were killing it and were creative, smart, beautiful and doing things. That was game changing and gave me the confidence to pursue the things I wanted to do, know that I could do them and that I had value beyond trying to be something that I wasn't.
E: Did you have any Asian friends growing up?
N: I didn't have many at all when I was growing up. I definitely had friends, but I was so whitewashed and disconnected from my culture. I wish I embraced it more when I was younger because I really missed out on having that community, having mixed friends and sharing my experiences with them. I always loaded it onto my white friends, which is interesting that I would do that and not seek out a community that would understand me.
E: What was the biggest change for you in Melbourne?
N: The biggest thing was feeling more comfortable in who I was and how I looked. It was probably an age thing as well and being exposed to creative communities that were solely focused around being POC or being black. That was everything for me to see that existed. I was in Melbourne for five years and that's when diversity started to become a talking point, especially being in such a left-leaning, progressive state. It was great to see that and friends that were in modeling agencies that were only for POCs. It was so cool.
I remember being down there and thinking I'm never going to leave this place, this is where I belong. I see my people and this is where I should be.
E: What brought on the decision to move back to the Gold Coast?
N: Well, also I'm painting Melbourne in this really positive light, but there were still interactions I had with people that were not great. I had dated someone and I remember the topic of calling someone exotic came up and he said, ‘I don't get it, it's a compliment.’ I've now recognized that I experienced a lot of that in Melbourne. I've definitely experienced becoming a fetish to certain men and how problematic that is. That's what started to happen in Melbourne, I felt so accepted but then how much of this is genuine? It could also just be my own perceptions but if someone was giving me some kind of attention, I was thinking about their motives for wanting to engage with me... It's very complex. I had reached the end of Melbourne and I knew I had to come back to re-centre myself. Melbourne is a pretty crazy, wild, fun place and I was there in my early twenties, so I knew I needed to come home to feel more grounded. As amazing as Melbourne is, it can kind of gobble you up if you're not keeping your head afloat, which I think I experienced.
So I moved back home but I was honestly terrified, because I knew I was entering back into this somewhat traumatic experience that I'd had growing up in Queensland, which was the complete opposite to what Melbourne was. I'd say mostly these problematic behaviours I experience now actually come from an older generation. I'm not saying that it doesn't exist within our generation as well, but I really notice with my friend's parents and things that they say. It's definitely still there. Down in Melbourne, you don't get away with anything, people will call you out and they'll school you on the spot, there's no apologies. I feel really blessed that I was able to experience that, it gave me more confidence in knowing who I am, being proud of it and not shying away from it, even if it's someone older.
E: Was there a particular reason why you wanted to move back to the Gold Coast?
N: I needed some healing. My dad got pretty ill while I was down in Melbourne, so there was this need to be closer to him. I felt like I needed to be able to see him if he needed me.
E: Did this time with your dad allow you to connect with him a bit more?
N: Yeah, I feel like the story with my parents is really sad because they both passed away before I had a chance to really connect with them about where they came from. My mom passed away when I was 21. Dad passed away last year (2020), but his decline started happening many years before that and by the time I had moved up, he was not really himself anymore. I got to that point of really wanting to know about my culture and my heritage, but it was just a bit too late, which is really sad. Now I have so much I wish I could ask and connect to it more, but it's just my story. I've kind of gotten to a place where I can just accept it for what it is, and it's just my own journey to embark on myself. It's definitely left me at a point where it's hard to know where to begin.
E Just thinking about your dad, even though you have that disconnection to your culture, you still had your dad and that connection to him as a person. That's very meaningful, is he the catalyst for you wanting to connect to your culture?
N: Exactly. Yes, I'm really glad I moved back because he ended up moving back to Indonesia shortly after that. My brother, my sister and I decided that dad really needed to be with the family in Indonesia, because we knew that he would have really good support there. We were all kind of dispersed and busy, my sister lives in America, my brother was down in Melbourne, so we felt dad needed to be with his family. That was a challenge because it was hard for him to reenter Indonesia, he had revoked his citizenship and was no longer an Indonesian citizen, he was an Australian citizen. I don't know why he didn't choose to do dual citizenship, but that was my dad.
He was such an Indonesian man, it's like who are you fooling dad? (laughs). The way that he spoke, the way that he ate his food, the food he would cook, he cooked only Indonesian food. He was like an amazing cook and you just look at him and he's this tall Indonesian man. It really breaks my heart that he felt he had to go to such lengths to really prove that he belonged here. It's hard because I haven't been able to have that conversation with him about why he really did that, but I feel like it was this desire to belong and be accepted. I remember having conversations and dad felt ashamed, and it was hard for him to go back to Indonesia when he was sick. He really left that life.
I feel like a lot of the identity struggles that I've got, I've definitely inherited from him. I think he felt it too and really struggled just embracing himself as he was.
E: What do you really embrace about your identity now?
N: I'm proud to be at the point that I am now and all of the experiences that I've had, both good and bad. I used to be really ashamed of how I previously reacted to things or that I wasn't more in tune with being Indonesian and not speaking up in certain instances. Where I'm at now, I'm just proud to be here and to have made it to this point. I no longer feel bound by those beauty standards, I don't feel bound by my brownness and what that means. I'm not afraid to speak my truth anymore or who might feel uncomfortable with it.
Losing a parent, it throws a very different perspective on things and makes you reflect a bit more. Losing dad made me realise that I'm not connected to Indonesia at all and it's really made me want to find that connection. Dad's funeral was in Indonesia but I wasn't able to go because of COVID. Experiencing my Indonesian father, that was my experience of Indonesia. Now that's gone, it's really on me to go and explore that side of me and to find out more. I'm right at the beginning.
E: What does that reconnection look like to you?
N: I would really love to go to Indonesia. I used to beg Dad and be like, can I please come over? For whatever reason, he just never opened up that side to us and it's hard to understand why. But now I think it's really important for me, my brother and my sister to all go to Indonesia. It's a bit hard at the moment because I know Indonesia's really going through it with COVID. I also want to spend some time living in Indonesia, I'm at this point where I want to allow myself to know that culture, how my dad grew up and what it was like. I want to connect with it.
I'm still undoing certain things that I've grown up with as well. The shift in energy surrounding diversity and race is very fresh and I'm still unlearning a lot of things that I grew up believing. Even doing this with you today, there's still a part of me that feels like I don't deserve this. I know that's not the case, but I'm right at the start of my journey.
Having connections with people that really understand you and what you've been through, that's been so positive for me. Doing something like this project as well, is my first big step into doing something that's strongly about my Asian background. It's an amazing push from my inner self to share my experience and embrace what it means to be mixed and have Asian heritage.
Doing music and having the radio show, we have quotas, it needs to be 50% Australian, it needs to be this, this, this. But we've really challenged that and I've really tried to represent black and brown artists on the show. In the world of music, especially dance music, it's turned into this white male thing. When I was in Melbourne, I really wanted to start djing, but I was going up against these white dudes and you weren't seen. So even just existing in a creative space as a PoC woman is doing everything in itself.
I've kind of gotten to the point where even showing up and me putting myself in this position, that's doing everything. I'm so excited to be a part of a community of women with mixed heritage where you can be whoever you want to be, you can do whatever you want to do, you can express that creatively. There's just so much more to look up to now. There's still so much more work that needs to be done, but I can't believe these conversations exist now. In Queensland, I think it has a long way to go in terms of really embracing community and showcasing diversity. The only way it will happen is if we all come together and make it happen, or if those opportunities are there and exist for us, otherwise it's just never really going to happen.
E: Are there any aspects of your Indonesian culture that are really important to you, or what have you learned so far?
N: I don't think I know yet. I have so much to learn and discover. I've taken a really long time to grieve and mourn the passing of my parents, which has been at the forefront of everything. Now understanding they're gone, I've turned inward and asked myself, who am I? Who were these people and where did they come from? I don't know a lot and they really raised us in Australia. It's interesting that they came here, really wanting to assimilate and didn't give us their culture. They didn't pass that on to us, so I've yet to find that out.
CULTURAL ARTEFACTS:
Batik Fabric: The only thing I had a strong connection to was Batik Indonesian fabric, which my dad used to fill our closets with piles and piles of this beautiful Indonesian fabric that he had from home. When I see it, I get such a strong connection to my dad.