Untitled (Here, There, Nowhere)

by Sarah Alhabshe

“I feel like I’m too foreign for home and too foreign for here.”

This quote from Mira Nair’s “The Namesake” perfectly encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be a second/ third/ fourth/ fifth/ …-generation immigrant—the alienation it entails, the disorientation it provokes, and the perpetual damnation to the liminal space of never truly belonging. Granted, this experience of neither-here-nor-there-ness isn’t exclusive to the n-th generation immigrant or the mixed race child, but the existential confusion that comes with being one is a quandary as old as time. Through personal existential anecdotes and artful interpretations, this article will uncover a fraction of the unequivocal messiness that accompanies the immigrant child experience, and its seeming inextricability to language.

My great-grandparents migrated to Singapore from Hadhramaut, Yemen in the early 1900’s. Singapore was a thriving business port at the time so it comes as no surprise that they’d take their endeavours to the Little Red Dot in pursuit of their own version of ‘The American Dream.’ They’d set up shop and soon became one of the leading generators of income in the country, situating Arabs in Singapore as pioneers of its thriving economy. Fast forward to the early 2000’s and my sisters and I were born. Bred into the Singaporean system, our upbringing was rather similar to everyone else’s—we’d befriend the drink stall auntie so she’d remember our go-to order, we’d attend our tuition classes every weekend, and we’d carry all our textbooks for the school day in our backpacks from the ripe age of six to induce early onset scoliosis. You know, the usual. It was a charmed life, until my cultural rose-tinted glasses slipped off and I started wondering if my experience as an ‘Arab’ thus far had simply been one big larp gig. Sure, I have the facial features, the last name, and the word claiming so written on my birth certificate, but that’s the extent to which I could claim my Arab identity. I don’t speak the language, nor do I don the niqab like many native (Muslim) Arabs do. Hell, my dad doesn’t even like Arab cuisine. So what exactly is it about me that makes me ‘Arab’?

It is especially my inability to speak the language of “my people” that led me down the existential rabbit hole that is wondering whether or not I am, for lack of better words, a fraud. Not only am I unable to converse with my living relatives who speak Arabic as their first language, but it feels almost as though my Arab identity is synonymous with my ability to speak the language—which at the time of writing, I don’t. For example, every time I introduce my Arab identity to someone, their first request would be to say something to them in Arabic; a request which will always be met with disappointment. I’m not one to normally let myself be affected by the words of others, but this disappointment can be so palpable that it almost makes me feel ashamed about the fact I don’t speak the language. I mean, I’m an Arab, so I should be able to speak Arabic, right? That’s quite an interesting sentiment—that one’s identity is often assumed as being closely linked with the language they speak. Which is why it’s always so fascinating to find a Caucasian person speaking in fluent Thai or an East Asian person speaking in fluent Dutch. Oftentimes, this is a result of the lingering effects of colonialism or possibly even the everpresent epidemic of ‘Oxford Study’ couples, resulting in an influx of mixed-race offspring. Though it seems to always return to that—one’s physical proximity to the language. Singapore operates under the CMIO (Chinese-Malay-Indian-Others) cultural framework, which evidently categorises Arabs as a racial ‘Other’. As a result of this, I undertook Malay as my learned mother tongue in school, as learning Arabic would have resulted in a much higher school fee. It’s not that I didn’t care for learning my “actual mother tongue,” I simply wasn’t presented with the resources to do so. Though I won’t go so far as to claim that this is a result of nationalism. After all, it isn’t necessarily frowned upon to learn a different language from the common three in Singapore, but if assimilating to the prominent languages makes for a more financially-responsible education, then assimilate we will. Furthermore, my parents and the majority of the Arab community in Singapore were born and raised into the system just as my sisters and I did, and they, too, chose to adopt Malay as their mother tongue. Some even went on to learn Chinese, which, according to the current economic landscape, is becoming an increasingly important skill to have. Nevertheless, we wouldn’t categorise ourselves as ‘Malay’ or ‘Chinese’ because that’s simply… Not who we are.

Contrary to the points I’ve made in the last paragraph, reality is far too complex to simply reduce our identities to the languages we speak. For example, my leisurely learning French doesn’t automatically make me a French person. I may possess a wider French vernacular than I do Arabic (and Malay), I may have stepped foot in France for all of two days (which is more days than I have stepped foot in Yemen), and I may thoroughly enjoy a crisp, buttery croissant, but I am also missing generations of French cultural history for me to be awarded that right; for labelling myself a French person would be a much bigger larp gig than my Arab identity had ever subject me to feeling. The same logic would thus apply to identifying myself as a Malay person—I simply do not possess the cultural history to let it be so. While Malays and Arabs in Singapore may practice many similar customs stemming from shared religion (Islam), we may still identify ourselves as culturally unique, as the histories tied to our family names play significant roles in our cultural makeup. Furthermore, despite my apparent disconnect with my Arab identity, I have not been exempt from the prejudices faced by Arabs in society. Though I don’t wish to make the claim that identity is derived from stereotypical discrimination, I can’t deny the fact that being subject to this specific set of prejudices further distinguishes me from identifying myself as a ‘Malay’. So, while I maintain my belief that understanding Arabic would better verify my identity as an Arab person, to make the claim that I cannot identify myself with the culture I was born into is discounting the generations of cultural history tied to my family name and the social history associated with the race.

There is also the unsettling reality of the unspoken obligation to converse in the language in which this article was written—English. Despite Singapore’s national language being Malay and its majority population being Chinese, we are taught English in schools as our first language and our mother tongue, second. Like New York City, the expectation to be literate in the English language stems from its cosmopolitan disposition, and learning a universal language would allow for a better understanding of one another. Though with a ‘global understanding’ of one another—more often than not, comes the sacrifice of nurturing one’s mother tongue. Especially within a global economy running much faster than we can chase it, we are required to maintain the highest levels of language proficiency (particularly that of English) and financial literacy so as not to fall behind. However, our acceptance of English as our proclaimed ‘universal language’ is suspicious and can find its origins in colonial and linguistic imperialism, which is why we may find today that it largely benefits the Western ruling class, allowing them to distinguish themselves as a group separate from the Global ‘Other’. This universal adoption of English allows for more efficiency in the larger capitalist picture, as progress can mostly be made when everyone understands one another. This could explain why megacities like Singapore and New York City primarily make use of that language despite the sum of their multilingual parts. In spite of the English language taking precedence over all others in contemporary times, Singapore has devised a way of sustaining its identity as an Asian country, and that’s through the creation of Singlish. Pulling influences from the Malay language and several Chinese dialects like Cantonese and Hokkien, Singlish is evidence that linguistic imperialism can only exist so far as its speakers allow it.

In 2024, I enrolled in the BA (Hons) Art Histories and Curatorial Practices program at LASALLE College of the Arts Singapore to pursue curatorial studies. During this experience, I found the creation and interpretation of art to be one of the most privileged vehicles to translate what can often be difficult to express through words. Where language falters in theme and concept, sometimes it’s in the emotional resonance provided by form and technique, that an artwork’s expression lies. While working at the 2026 Loewe Foundation Craft Prize exhibition at the National Gallery Singapore, I encountered a work by Jane Yang-D’Haene that further refined my understanding of art’s translatory powers. My interpretation of Untitled [Fig. 1] is that it is a visual manifestation of the conflicting nature of being tied to different cultures. Yang-D’Haene is a Korean-American artist, and in her work she draws from both Korean and American references, translating the dual nature of her identity into one object. Untitled (2024) takes the form of a Korean moon jar, which typically  is constructed spherically and left unadorned. The surface of the jar is covered in glaze drips and abstract scribbles, leaving behind our preconceptions of the moon jar and harkening to the techniques of American Art History’s revered stars such as Jackson Pollock and Cy Twombly. The motifs inscribed throughout the jar’s surface are indeed reminiscent of Twombly’s iconic spiral motifs which were inspired by handwriting and mark-making. These illegible markings further point to the incomprehensibility of the self and its expression, particularly heightened by the complex experience of immigration.

[Fig. 1] Jane Yang-D’Haene, Untitled. 2024. Stoneware, porcelain, glaze.

Loewe Foundation Craft Prize 2026. Image courtesy of National Gallery Singapore.

I found myself constantly gravitating toward this craftwork during my shifts, and when visitors would inquire about it, I’d jump at the opportunity to share my knowledge on it with them. It felt as though my identity was trapped within the confines of its material, and by sharing, I was letting my true self be known. Me, with all my intended imperfections and complexities, finally given shape by an intricately crafted piece of pottery. The organised chaos that gives life to this artwork can be representative of my inherited culture growing up as an Arab in Singapore—the Twombly-esque scribbles in all its incomprehensibility representing my inability to understand the Arabic language and my simultaneous resonance with its inscriptions, and the impulsive splashes of mint-green at the top right representing the persistence of my upbringing as a Singaporean.

As the saying by B.J. Neblett goes, “We are the sum total of our experiences,” so my inability to speak the language of my ancestors doesn’t make me less of an Arab, it simply offers a unique perspective to my relationship with it. The perplexing experience of being neither here nor there is not as uncommon as one might think, and being more comfortable speaking in the language you had always spoken as opposed to your supposed ‘native’ language is nothing to be ashamed of. In the comprehensive tale of the complexities that surround being tied to two cultures that could be read from Yang-D’Haene’s Untitled, I may take that ‘translation’ with me as a sort of closure to my search for my “true identity.”

FOOTNOTES

 1 - Like ‘The Big Apple’ is to New York City, the ‘Little Red Dot’ is a nickname given to Singapore for its minuscule appearance on the map.

2 -  A portmanteau word combining the words ‘Singaporean English,’ Singlish is a colloquial “dialect” of English which draws influences from the country’s three most common languages (and extended dialects, such as Cantonese and Hokkien).