Motion's Commotions

I’ve been thinking a lot about belonging lately—not in the poetic, abstract way, but in the very real sense of who gets to feel safe in public. Because when right‑wing white nationalist movements rise, people like me don’t just feel “uncomfortable.” We feel scrutinised. Conditional. Like our place here is suddenly up for debate. 

I spent most of my life trying to shrink myself to fit into a country that kept shifting the goalposts. I grew up being called a “curry muncher,” like my culture was a punchline. Kids wrinkled their noses at the food my mum packed, as if turmeric was a personal attack. I was “greasy” before oil cleansing became a skincare trend. I was “smelly” before wellness bloggers discovered the same spices they mocked and rebranded them as “superfoods.” 

It’s surreal watching the things I was bullied for become fashionable—chai lattes, yoga, turmeric shots, “decolonised” recipes written by people who’ve never set foot in the countries they’re profiting from. Meanwhile, the people who actually come from those cultures are still treated like intruders. 

For a long time, I didn’t even see cultural appropriation as a problem. I thought exposure was good. I thought seeing bits of my culture in mainstream spaces meant progress. But eventually I realised it wasn’t us being welcomed. It was just our aesthetics. 

People loved the turmeric, but not the brown hands that cooked with it. 

They loved the yoga, but not the immigrants who brought it here. 

They loved the “chai,” but not the aunties with strong accents who brewed it long before it was a £4.50 latte. 

The culture was attractive. The people who created it were not. 

That’s when “exposure” stopped feeling like progress and started feeling like erasure dressed up as appreciation. 

And the thing about allowing one group to be marginalised is that it never stops with just one. Prejudice is never contained. Once a society decides it’s acceptable to treat one community as less deserving—less British, less human, less worthy of safety—it quietly builds the infrastructure to do the same to anyone else who becomes inconvenient. 

That’s what scares me about the rise of nationalist movements. They don’t just target immigrants. They target anyone who doesn’t fit their narrow idea of who belongs. Today it’s people who look like me. Tomorrow it’s people who pray differently, love differently, speak up too loudly, or simply refuse to shrink themselves. 

Marginalisation is never a single‑issue project. It’s a template. 

And it forces me to ask questions I never wanted to confront. 

Where do I belong. 

Who gets to decide that. 

And how can nationality mean anything when the people yelling about “protecting their culture” are the same ones who stole pieces of mine and sold them back to me at triple the price. 

And part of what makes all of this harder is realising how much damage I’ve done to my own identity along the way. I spent years trying to be less “other,” less “ethnic,” less of whatever made me a target. I chipped away at parts of myself because I thought assimilation was safety. 

Now, when I look back toward the culture I came from, I feel like a stranger there too. I don’t speak the language fluently enough. I don’t know the references. I’m too Western for them, too foreign for here, and too diluted for myself. It’s a strange kind of exile—one that doesn’t come from being pushed out, but from slowly stepping away until you realise you can’t find the path back. 

That in‑between space is lonely. It’s the kind of loneliness you carry quietly because you assume it’s just you. You assume everyone else has figured out how to belong somewhere. But so many immigrants live in this same limbo. We’re fluent in code‑switching but not in feeling at home. We’re experts at adapting but novices at being accepted. 

Most of us choose silence because it feels easier than admitting we don’t fully belong anywhere. 

But silence doesn’t protect us. It isolates us. 

We have to acknowledge each other’s strife—the grief of losing parts of ourselves to survive, the confusion of being split between cultures, the ache of wanting to belong without having to perform for it. Because once we start naming it, we realise we’re not alone in this in‑between place. Belonging isn’t something we inherit or earn; it’s something we build together, piece by piece, by recognising the fractures in each other and choosing to hold them with care instead of shame. 

So maybe belonging isn’t a destination. Maybe it’s not a passport, an accent, or a perfectly balanced identity that makes sense to other people. Maybe belonging, for people like us, is something we build in the gaps—between cultures, between expectations, between who we were told to be and who we’re still becoming. 

The loneliness of being in‑between isn’t a personal failure. It’s the inevitable result of growing up in a world that asked us to erase parts of ourselves to survive. And yet, when we finally speak about it—when we stop pretending and start naming the grief, the confusion, the in‑between—it becomes clear how many of us are walking the same tightrope. 

Maybe that’s the beginning of a different kind of belonging—not one granted by a nation or withheld by bigots, but one we create ourselves. A belonging rooted in honesty, in solidarity, in the simple act of saying: I see you. I’ve felt that too. You’re not alone in this in‑between place. 

And maybe that’s enough to keep going. 

But if you’ve ever felt this same quiet in‑between, this same tug‑of‑war between cultures, expectations, and the version of yourself you’re still trying to reclaim, I’m curious: how have you learned to carry it, and where do you find your sense of belonging now.