Finding My Place: Lamentation and Liberation of a First Generation Immigrant

‘And, this is Frangelli,’ she announced enthusiastically with a bit of a dramatic flair. Just for a split second, it must have felt like an achievement to her. She had, apparently, effectively managed to pronounce my name- an ‘ethnic’ name. Except, she really had not and she would not have known it either because I stood next to her. Smiling sheepishly. I did not bother to interrupt and correct her. I let it slide. She carried on with her conversation. I continued to smile away. Awkwardly.

Before Kathy had attempted to introduce me to her adult daughter, who, incidentally, happened to be at the café, Kathy asked me what my name was in front of her. ‘It’s Ranjini. Ran-Ji-Ni. Just three syllables,’ I said casually. She looked amused. I knew that expression meant that she did not get it so I repeated it again as convivially and clearly as I could. The result was, nevertheless, a comical-sounding ‘Frangelli’. A far cry from my actual name. 

I had been part of a social group of ladies who caught up over coffee and banana bread at a local coffee shop on a weekly basis after our Pilates class. By this point, I had technically been ‘catching up’ with Kathy and the others for more than a year now. So  imagine, my mild shock when it became clear to me that she did not know my name at all. 

I returned to my seat, maintained a friendly countenance, and chatted animatedly with the ladies, secretly wondering who else did not know my name. The more I smiled, the smaller I seemed to grow. ‘Am I making a big deal out of this?’ I asked myself. I convinced myself that I was and conveniently made excuses for Kathy. She was in her late seventies and there was no real need for her to know this seemingly extraneous detail in her already full life. Furthermore, there was not a single iota of malice to be detected in that context. It was not a capital crime. Period. ‘Move on. No big deal,’ I told myself.

Something about that seemingly harmless incident let itself unravel over time in my psyche. Stealthily, it chipped away at a veneer I had constructed of myself.  

Relocation from Singapore to Australia within a week of my traditional Tamil temple wedding to a man I had dated for barely a year signalled a time of reckoning. It made me question a lot - my decisions, my unfulfilled dreams, my selfhood. Essentially, everything that I had built and believed to be true to me was not within reach. 

Why had I only been asked to join them for coffee after a whole year of being around in their midst? Why was I especially friendly and so eager to show how well I enunciated words and shared many things about myself whenever I crossed paths with someone who was amiable enough to make small talk with me? My invisibility as just another brown-skinned faceless immigrant was gnawing the insides of my core.

As a woman in my thirties, why was I naïve to believe that friendships would be easy to forge and that I would be invited into the private spheres of prospective girlfriends without reservations? Where was my shiny new sisterhood? Where was my tribe? More importantly though, besides seeking others to be part of a nurturing, supportive, inclusive clan, who did I want to become as a first generation immigrant in Brisbane? 

I had been coming undone for a while now and that petty exchange with Kathy was a mere catalyst. What can and do I bring to this table which is both metaphorical and literal when I am offered a seat at it? Stripped of all the labels I once used to adorn without a keen sense of consciousness, I began to interrogate who I was and what my purpose and place on Yuggera and Turrbal land was all about.

Eventually, I stopped going for Pilates on that particular day of the week and therefore had no reason to meet the ladies. Although they were warm and lovely, I knew I needed to grow into my own without seeking external validation from them or others. And not long after, I found out that I was actually growing a life of my own. 

Motherhood was a form of rebirth for me. It unleashed a spiritual awakening like no other but I found that this seismic shift in my identity only pushed me further into the crevices of time and space as the needs of my daughter grew significantly along with her appetite for milk and Life. The more I gave myself to her, the more I faded into the blurry lines of a routine where I physically did not seem to exist. I was unrecognisable to myself. The pandemic which followed a year later only drove me to stay in a bubble not entirely of my own making.

I craved for intellectual stimulation and spiritual connection in equal measure. The story then showed itself to me, bringing forth desires I had long harboured and kept buried in my being. Two years before I had become a mother, I had purchased ‘My Place’ by Australian Aboriginal artist and writer Sally Morgan at the Lifeline Bookfest at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, but had never read it until lockdown hit me hard. I also had no idea how this literary work- a monumental undertaking was going to shake my world. 

In the margins of my time, I read in dribs and drabs and though it seemed like I was indulging in literary escapism, I was not. I was facing head on my deepest yearning to visit my ancestral land. Author Sally Morgan’s quest to delve into the deep trenches of her Aboriginality and selfhood was personally awe-inspiring. It spoke to me in whispers.

My maternal grandparents were first generation immigrants to Singapore. They came from V.S. Kottai Kurumbapatti, a village located on the outskirts of Dindigul, a city situated in the heart of Tamilnadu. My feet had yet to touch the soil of my mother’s mother’s country but the house that my late maternal grandfather, my Thatha, built for his family awaited my arrival. I hung onto the words of Sally Morgan’s narrative and ached for something that seemed out of reach to me. I teared when I finished it and wept harder when I realised that travelling in a post-pandemic world was potentially going to be a challenge. Or not. Who knew?

A couple of months after reading the book, I headed to the The Storytellers exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane. A casual outing turned out to be so much more than that as I checked out the artworks of Kuku Yalanji/Kalkadoon artist Kim Ah Sam.  I picked up on the words ‘Torn,but not broken’ which were used to describe the paper she had made and scorched. The words were resonant. Incidentally, she was also the artist in residence and I saw her seated on the floor weaving a basket. 

Experiencing a little bit of social anxiety in that moment almost stopped me from approaching her, but my husband who was adept at making polite conversation broke the ice for me. I sat down next to her and composed myself to talk to her.

‘If I may, how do you experience Country?’ I asked nervously.

‘Good question,’ she said with a smile.

‘Through this, through my weaving and my art-making. This is how I experience Country.’

It was an honest and profound response. Tension left my body and I warmed up to her enough to share with her that I felt the weight of the words : ‘Torn, but not broken’. 

‘Not too long ago, I wrote that I was distant, but not disconnected. I would love to visit and experience my maternal ancestral village,’ I said ruefully. ‘I just finished reading My Place by Sally Morgan and was completely moved by it,’ I added.

Much to my surprise, her eyes lit up as soon as I said that.

‘Do you remember a Peter Linch?’

‘Well, yes, I do. It was in the Daisy Corunna story, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes. He was my great-grandfather. That’s my mob.’

The smile on her face was priceless and I felt that that precise moment was bigger, much bigger than the both of us. It was orchestrated by a spiritual force that wanted our paths to cross. 

I returned to the museum a couple more times to weave and have a yarn with her. By this time, I had begun addressing her as Aunty Kim. The moments I spent with Aunty Kim were special to me. For the first time since relocation six years ago, I finally felt like I had a place on this land and under this sky.