Discover what belonging means through a London football team for the Asian diaspora; how lone Michelin-starred restaurants operate in Thailand; and more
Throughout my life, I’ve been lucky to feel like I belong – at least as much as anyone can hope to. I grew up on the central coast of California, where ethnic ambiguity didn’t raise any eyebrows. I was never made to feel different or like an outsider. “People saw me as white, so that was how I felt,” wrote my colleague, and fellow half-Asian, Shea Driscoll, in a recent essay exploring his own evolving sense of identity. That hit home. And though I didn’t explicitly think of myself as white, I certainly was never forced to think of myself as “different”. I could just be.
It was a privilege I didn’t realise I had until I moved to the United States’ East Coast. There, where the racial demographics are different from California, I started getting the question, “But where are you really from?” for the first time. I met friends who looked like me but had spent their lives feeling like they didn’t fit in.
This issue’s cover feature brought these memories flooding back. At its core, it’s a story about making a space yourself when the world won’t allow you one. Sarah Keenlyside spends a day on the pitch with Baes FC – a women- and queer-friendly football team in London founded by members of the Asian diaspora off the back of discrimination at other clubs. They’ve made a home and community for people who felt like outsiders elsewhere.
