Unzipping the Suitcase of Identity: Roots Across Continents

Identity has become a laden word in recent years. Within its four syllables, there lies a storeroom filled with suitcases of various sizes and shapes. Each leaning against the next, labeled by race, culture, and faith.

In many corners of the world, identity remains a source of misconception and conflict. In some cases, there’s movement to rectify the erasures suffered at the hands of dominant identities—think colonialism. Then there’s my intersecting identities—multicultural, queer, and neurodivergent—which have influenced my sense of belonging and self-worth.

Unzipping my own suitcase, removing one label at a time, I stare into the silk lining. Unsurprisingly, I discover wonderful treasures within. Among these treasures are the strong words passed down to me by my ancestors, enveloped in stories shared from one generation to the next. I also find my worn-out shoes from my vast travels, and enough life experience to last several reincarnations. In the middle of my suitcase, tucked beneath the branches of a grand tree representing my rich lineage, is a handful of healing for all the abuse and intolerance I’ve experienced as a marginalized person.

Despite those who’ve tried to displace me, my multicultural identity has always mattered. Born in a country foreign to both sets of my immigrant grandparents, and specifically, in a nation that has oppressed both sides of my heritage, I was raised within a unique panorama that spans a complicated and confusing backdrop.

My patriotism has never faltered. However, there have been moments when the actions of historic Britain have hollowed out a part of my soul. Despite the challenges posed by British imperialism, I protect my interconnected cultures, embracing the customs, values, and histories of the nations of my ancestors. From the copper-hued island of the Mediterranean to the ancient echoes of the Nile, and further into the kingdoms of the East, before returning to a cold Gaelic front in the West, my heritage is as diverse as it is beautiful.

The identities we carry aren't always an easy thing. I have an entire childhood of memories where I faced tension for being too foreign for my Anglo-British school friends, too English for my Northern Irish family, and not dark enough for my Cypriot family. I somehow always fell through the cracks of normalcy.

For much of my adolescence, my identity read: Not Valid—Foreign Object. Proceed with Judgment. One of the lighter memories is how my mother would pack my school lunches. It was the mid-80s, and as diverse as London was, the great integration hadn’t quite happened yet. Intercontinental foods were still a mystery, including couscous, hummus, taramasalata, patsas, revithada, and other such yummy foods.

One day at school, I opened my She-Ra lunchbox, pulling out a meze of dolmades, pita bread, garlic-stuffed olives, hummus, and chopped vegetables. The blonde, blue-eyed girl who was sitting across from me—Katie Hart—rumpled her nose at my lunch. “Ew! Yuck! What is that stuff?!” She screeched, drawing the attention of the other kids and their strawberry jam sandwiches. Before I could respond, she leaned across the table and said, “It stinks!”

I handled myself well. I shut her down the way I had shut down all the kids who didn’t eat “ethnic” foods, or who weren’t blonde and blue-eyed, and who were different-looking for Western appreciation. Internally, though, I was embarrassed. I was mortified to be different, self-conscious of all the other dissimilarities that illuminated boldly. That wasn’t the last day I had a She-Ra lunchbox of meze, but it wasn’t too much longer before I pleaded with my mum to make me dreary jam sandwiches like those of my peers. Funny, really, because to this day I can’t eat a jam sandwich.

That childhood embarrassment would pale in comparison to the rejection I faced in adulthood. When I was twenty-one, my identity as a queer woman cost me more than I could have ever anticipated. Friends I’d grown up with suddenly withdrew from me. My family disowned me. Overnight, the foundations of my world crumbled. I learned that coming out wasn’t simply about telling the truth about who I am; it was also about losing people who only loved me under the condition of silence. I still carry the scars from those early experiences, just as I’ve never forgotten that my identity isn’t safe around everyone.  

While queerness exposed me to rejection, neurodivergence revealed another truth entirely. For years, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t fit into the molds so easily inhabited by others. I punished myself for being too much, too intense, too “different.” I worked endlessly to sand down my edges, rehearsing the performance of “normal” until it nearly broke me. When I finally discovered that my brain worked differently—and that this difference wasn’t a flaw but a truth—something shifted. Naming my neurodivergence saved my life. It permitted me to exist as I am, unapologetically, and it turned years of self-blame into a fierce kind of self-recognition.

Woman, lesbian, mixed race, and neurodivergent are the primary labels that initiate how I’m going to be treated, laying out the expectations of who, what, and how I am as a person.

Are those presumptions about me even accurate? Some, perhaps, may ring a little true. But for the most part, the expectations are ludicrous. They see ‘mixed race’ and think I’m inferior. They hear ‘lesbian’ and assume I’m a misandrist. They read ‘neurodivergent’ and expect me to be asinine. But the truth is messier, fiercer, and far less humdrum than their labels will ever concede.

Identity isn’t a linear concept. We are so many things, all at once; contradictory things, unpredictable things, and enigmatic things.

In the end, we’re all walking suitcases. Even those whose ethnicity isn’t varied. We can see the outside of someone else’s case, but what remains inside is yet to be discovered. That’s where the beauty of being human lies, not in creating assumptions or predictions conjured by stereotypes and bigotry.

It took me a long time to come to terms with some aspects of my identity. It took an even longer time to forgive those who've punished me for being who I am. My suitcase of identity carries decades of stories, documenting a life too layered to be labeled, and too vast to be contained.

It’ll forever spill open with the scent of olive oil, the echo of many tongues, and the unshakable truth that I am all of it, always. It’ll forever be a sense of activism, defending love in spectrums, and it’ll always advocate for those who color outside the lines.