You know a while ago as a teenager in my prime I wished someone would come and save me, I didn’t want to be Indian. Growing up in my desi household with an immigrant family – where my parents only knew how to survive, wasn’t easy. I’m born in Australia and sure my parents arrived from Fiji about 30 odd years ago now, but arriving here in the 90’s without any of their products, family or friends wasn’t an easy task.
As an adult I can now acknowledge that, but growing up I didn’t understand. We grew trying to preserve our culture, history in a foreign land. I speak to my friends whom are similar age as me and they talk about how one day they will inherit their family’s wealth; you know what I will inherit? My family history, my cousins who my parents help re-locate to Australia so we had family around us, our food, our recipes and our lifestyle. We don’t have family wealth, we are starting from scratch, rebuilding life and hoping one day our future generations get to have generational wealth.
I talk about this impact because it was not easy, it actually was quite terrifying. I’ve had to spend my time figuring out what parts of my culture I choose to share with my children, what parts we choose to leave behind. What parts we embrace living in Australia, all the new traditions we will create together & what we will share with Australian consumers.
Fast forward to 2021 where we have things like sticky chai or “chai tea, as non POC call it”, golden latte, chai spiced candles or scents are being sold. But they are not being sold by POC and we have not given our POC a platform either. Nor are we doing a good job of translating product names into english. Chai tea – translates to ‘tea tea’, it doesn’t make sense… It’s Masala chai for instance or we have golden latte but instead of even keeping to the original name, Australia just gave it a whole new name… BTW golden latte is turmeric milk and it’s drunk in desi households when you are feeling under the weather.
Australia is a country of multiculturalism, a country of diversity. It’s taken a long time for consumers to include POC products in stores. We’ve only just started seeing them, but they are also being sold by non POC businesses. As a POC business owner, I cater for all but when I see a POC purchase our products I do a happy dance & I am so proud. Especially when chai is purchased from our store. Our chai is my family history. You would always be served hot chai if you came to my house or even visited my siblings or mum. It’s our legacy, it’s a story I choose to tell. This is one thing I share with my children, but now all of Australia too.
I share this story in hope as a consumer you would consider whom you purchase products from, especially a POC product. Understanding the damage it does when you don’t credit the origins. Aboriginal art for instance is purchased from our Indigenous people. Same rule should apply for POC products. As a consumer you should have the opportunity to try new products, but help keep POC in business by purchasing from them & letting us tell our story through the products we share with you. For many of us it’s our family recipes & stories that have been passed on from one generation to the next. Where a recipe has been perfected generations ago, let us lead the conversation & hand us over the mic. I look forward to the day we truly are all equal humans & we learn to encourage our POC to tell their own stories & build their generational wealth too.
To help share our story & give us a platform you can purchase our family chai in our store here .
With gratitude & love x
~ Written by Rachel Ram
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Check out more on Rachel’s site and business here:
Website: https://www.botanicalvibess.com.au/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/botanicalvibess/
Diversity Australia Magazine 