Surviving Immigrant Family Reunions Like a Boss

Words by Snigdha Mundra (she/her)

Winter break is approaching fast, and that can only mean one thing. The ultimate emotional whirlwind, AKA good old family reunions. A special kind of event where all your problems have a way of making themselves known, leaving you to think, "How the hell do they know that?"

Family reunions can end up being the highlight of your year, or leave you wishing you had put your therapist on speed dial. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, there’s no denying that these gatherings are never dull. But fear not, as a seasoned veteran who has attended countless family gatherings, I present to you seven tips not just to survive, but to thrive at these events. From the art of the humblebrag to knowing when to make your dramatic exit—follow this guide and you’ll be the Aunties’ favourite in no time.

1. Master the art of the humblebrag

I get it, no one wants to come off as a pretentious show-off. But you don’t have to be a Nobel Prize winner for your family to take an interest in your life. Maybe you’ve taken up a new sport or got a better job—it’s your chance to flaunt those accomplishments and break the ice while doing so. Seriously, don’t settle for awkward small talk. Your cousins are probably doing the same. No shame in hopping on the humblebrag train once in a while.

2. Embrace the gossip

Being a first, second or third-gen immigrant can mean losing touch with the goings-on in your family, but not to worry. The Aunties are often the gatekeepers of all the juicy family drama, so if you want the inside scoop, make sure to spend some time with them. Be warned that if you spend too much time in their company, two days later you’ll find them planning the details of your future wedding while you—a single, broke, and unemployed university student—look on. The Aunties can be a lot, but we love them anyway.

Be prepared for the questions and comments about your career, love life, and pretty much any sensitive topics you can think about. In fact, if you’re feeling spicy, make some comments of your own. Nothing better than a passiveaggressive comeback to leave an impression.

3. Stock up on the antacids

Bragging about your spice tolerance is probably half your personality, but you never know when the spice (or possible food poisoning) will get to you. Better be safe than have to make the bathroom your second home.

4. Expect awkward interactions

If you’ve managed to get through any large family gatherings without a single awkward interaction, kudos to you. I can’t say the same. There’s little avoiding it, but awkward interactions are no reason to hide in the bathroom and scroll through your Insta feed. Sure, you may have to endure an entire conversation with someone who ‘knows’ you while frantically trying to remember who they are (spoiler alert: it was someone who held you when you were a baby). But if you soldier through those awkward interactions, you’ll get to the good part. Like playing blackjack until 6 in the morning and finding out the hard way that your dad’s side are total casino masters (I lost 250 rupees, but it was worth it). You’d be surprised which family members seem to hide a secret double life—it’s almost always the Aunties.

5. Compliment the food!

This one is self-explanatory. The way into a brown family’s heart is always through food. Maybe even bring a dish to share, since there’s no better way to say “I’m a responsible and contributing member of this family!”

6. Bring a friend

In a rare stroke of genius, I once invited a friend along with me, and it was a game-changer. You have someone who you trust and who can act as a buffer. They’re also good company when there's no one your age. Just make sure to introduce and include them in any conversations to make them feel welcome. It’s a win-win situation—your friend gets to enjoy the free food, scandal, and general good vibes, and you get to exploit them as a convenient exit strategy.

7. Pretend to like the sport

Don’t attack me for this one. Years ago, I used to pretend that I liked watching cricket so that I could have a common interest with everyone, but now I actually love it. So fake it till you make it I guess.

Words by Kiran Patel (he/they)

CW: Mission Schools.

Not knowing your native language is like being on an episode of The Chase, waiting to get caught out.

Let me explain.

The predominant parts of my identity are pretty evenly split between my two home cities. In Wellington, I’m one with its creative coolness. My passive enjoyment of Lorde and Fat Freddy’s Drop matches the ‘chill but not so chill’, climate anxious, wacky maximalist vibe we have going on here. I’m the everyman strutting through Newtown with a pair of Dickies on and a dream.

Here, I’m Kieran with an e, sans the ethnicness. It’s fair to say that my adult, Westernised self has been strongly shaped by the wiley winds and poor public transport of Pōneke.

When I return to Auckland, my unfortunate birthplace and where most of my extended family still lives, I become Kiran again—sans the e, full ethnicness. My dormant melanin is brought forth from the ether, backed by a symphony of horns and over-the-top special effects à la cringey Indian soap operas.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my culture. In fact, it’s always been the part of my identity that I cherish the most. My childhood in Auckland is entirely rooted in it. Memories of turmeric-stained kitchen benches, old Bollywood movies looped on the TV, and the organic smell of nag champa floating around the house always bubble to the surface during these visits.

As an adult though, being around my extended family for too long prods a little too sharply at my insecurities. Why? Because they speak an entirely different language to me. No, literally.

Anytime a family members asks me a question in Gujarati, my native language, it usually plays out like this:

The bright studio light beams straight onto my sweaty face as an eager audience watches from the edge of their seats. The pensive music starts to ascend in the background. My brain leaps into overdrive, struggling to sift through years of pop culture references and old Vine quotes to find my shoddy Gujarati-to-English translator. Where the hell could it be?

A vision of Bradley Walsh begs me for an answer as time is about to run out. With milliseconds to spare, I abandon the translation route and decide that the question must be about food—it always is! I garble out something about not being hungry. My aunty looks confused. My cheeks start to burn. Instinctively, I prepare myself for the humiliating reminder of how whitewashed I am.

“I asked what you’re studying at university,” she repeats in English.

“Oh, haha. English Literature,” I respond dejectedly. Sounds about right, her eyes seem to tell me.

My desire to be perceived as a real Indian has once again failed. Bradley Walsh reappears to echo my entire Gujarati-speaking ancestral line’s disappointment in me. “Unfortunately for you, Kieran, The Chase is over.”

✦ ✦ ✦

The struggle to understand and speak your native tongue takes the meme of 'just smile and nod y’all' to a whole new level. You’re told to bluff your way through life, but in this case, you’re literally bluffing your way through an extremely important part of who you are. I mean, it’s my language. How do I not know it?

I decided to ask my mum about why she didn’t speak Gujarati to my brothers and I as kids, and basically doom our bloodline to being whitewashed English speakers for all eternity (just kidding, love you Mum). Her answer… was that there isn’t really an answer. “It just happened. Knowing both languages was a gift I took for granted, and I didn’t realise that until you were all grown up. It was too late for me to teach you organically.”

Okay Mum, you’re forgiven. Given that we’re thirdgeneration Aotearoa immigrants, and our day-to-day upbringing was no different from Dave and Debbie down the road, it does check out that speaking English at home would’ve just been a subconscious decision for my parents. But why is that? When I decided to dive a bit deeper, I was shocked to find (not really) that it all comes back to everyone’s favourite c-word—colonisation.

The Crown’s attempts to eradicate te reo Māori in order to establish a Pākehā hegemony probably isn’t new to anyone. The sparknotes version is that the Education Ordinance of 1847 declared that “for reasons so obvious as to not need repeating” (???), all children in New Zealand should be brought up to read and write in English. By the early 20th century, tamariki would be prohibited from speaking te reo Māori on school grounds entirely.

As Dr Rachael Ka'ai-Mahuta notes, stamping out knowledge of te reo Māori through the schooling system provided Pākehā with their best chance to establish long-term cultural dominance. “[Mission schools] sought to interrupt the intergenerational transmission of language and culture, thereby invalidating the world-view of Māori and paving the way for their own world-view to replace that of Māori.”

While I can’t speak to the feelings of tangata whenua, I can certainly empathise with the lasting impact that Pākehā assimilation has had on minority communities across Aotearoa.

Between 1887-1920, stringent immigration laws were put in place to trap English-speaking Asian immigrants in Aotearoa, and keep the so-called ‘undesirables’ out. Our proudly racist government did this because they believed English-speaking migrants could be stripped of their roots more quickly, and would help propagate the colonial dream of a dominant, white Aotearoa.

Even today, assimilation continues to rear its ugly head in our lives. The choices we make as migrants, especially through language, are measured by how useful they’ll be within Pākehā systems. Will speaking fluent English translate to better job prospects? Will hiding my ethnic background mean that I’ll avoid being discriminated against? Will teaching my kids their native language still make them Kiwi enough to fit in at school?

In my experience, growing up assimilated to Pākehā culture and speaking English as my first language has rewarded me with a lot of social mobility. But it feels like the price of that privilege is leaving behind the strength and importance of my Indian heritage. Our rich history and lineage has anti-climatically whittled its way down to me: a poorly-built caricature that has too much of a culture that’s not mine, and not enough of the culture I was born with.

Beyond my own personal embarrassment of my half-sketched cultural identity, my lack of Gujarati skills is actually kind of terrifying when I’m reminded of oral tradition in Indian culture. We’re totally reliant on passing information down through generations verbally rather than through writing. My family’s history is scattered across various elders’ memories, and can only be accessed via hours of conversation in Gujarati. While my Pākehā mates can order a 23andMe and call it a day, I somehow need to learn an entire language before Granny kicks the bucket.

Is this it then? Is my entire family’s legacy set to fall at the hands of my own ignorance?

I don’t think so.

Maybe the opportunity to organically learn Gujarati has passed by me. But rather than being the elusive ‘one that got away’, I’m constantly looking for ways that I can pursue it. There are so many cultural nuances wrapped up in language that I’m still excited to explore for myself.

Language is more than just conversation. Language is culture, and no amount of Google Translate or English subtitles can fill in that gap. But on the flip side to English, Gujarati is about more than just putting the right words together. Making meaning relies on feeling, and that’s something I do know.

The Kieran in me will probably always stick out like a sore thumb. But at the end of the day, my family named me Kiran, which means ‘a ray of light’ in Sanskrit. Even if my ancestors don’t understand the language that I speak, and would probably die again if they saw the life that I live, I’d say it’s pretty damn miraculous that our ancestry has made it to this point in history. With what little light remains, I’ll proudly continue to carry the torch of my culture forward.