To Earn a Birthright

You are a Malaysian woman who conceived while abroad. And though motherhood is a joyous occasion, a gut-churning anxiety roils at the back of your mind as you wonder what this will mean for your child’s future—because despite being born from a Malaysian mother and are thus of Malaysian descent, they were not born on Malaysian soil and as a consequence, not considered Malaysian.

Even when you should not even have to justify why you could not come home to give birth, you do it anyway, because you want to be able to bring your child back to your home country. Yet, despite explaining the dangers of flying while pregnant, the travel restrictions caused by the pandemic, or that you had health complications that barred you from travelling, the way back home is