Vogue Life Viewpoint: Blood Line

Obviously, I am a minority woman, but I’m also a minority within the racial minority communities in Singapore. My dad is Arab and my paternal great-grandfathers are from Hadhramaut, Yemen, where most of the Arab community in Singapore comes from. My maternal grandmother, on the other hand, is Javanese. She came here with her parents from Indonesia when she was young. They set up a satay stall in Geylang Market which still exists today, and she met my maternal grandfather, who is part of the Minangkabau community from Malaysia.

ONE SIZE DOES NOT FIT ALL

People often ask me: “What are you?”, probably because they can’t put me in a box. They’ll look at me and go: “Hmm, you don’t