Diaspora Writing: A Memoir and a Collection of Essays

Jasvinder Singh Ahluwalia alias Jassa was born to a white English mother and a brown Panjabi father and grew up between Coventry and Leicester as a white boy who spoke Panjabi fluently. In his book, Both Not Half: A Radical New Approach to Mixed Heritage Identity, Jassa, a British actor, writer, filmmaker and trade unionist, writes about his struggle to find belonging. The work is a blueprint of all the journeys he has undergone — physically and internally, unearths the historical roots of modern mixed identity, and deconstructs inherited binaries and passively accepted narratives. A new collection of essays edited by Anshu Malhotra Punjabi Centuries: Tracing Histories of Punjab recounts how diasporic Panjabi women use folk songs to express their loneliness in California. The historical and territorial space of Panjab has been shifting and changing and determines what Panjab means to different people across time and context. The sense of Panjabiyat (Panjabiness) that one holds dear about Panjab is both emotionally and culturally complex and the book explores it in detail. Punjabi Centuries focuses on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading up to the present, and highlights critically important issues. The chapters explore the cultural, social and economic continuities and changes across this time period. The contributors are from India, Pakistan, and the diaspora. Anshu Malhotra is Professor and Chair, Department of Global Studies, and Kundan Kaur Kapany Chair for Sikh & Punjab Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara.