Maria: I'm Maria. On the internet I go as Hatecopy. I make art/memes by combining old American comics and desi Aunties. I started really pushing my art last year, when I was unemployed from my desk job and wanting to take full advantage of all the free time and freedom that comes with living outside of mom and dad's house.

Sanaa: I'm Sanaa! I'm an artist working primarily with photography. It aims to explore my Pakistani-British identity while rejecting the narrative that it should be painful to not "fit in." It's not my attempt to assimilate, it's my attempt to build and decide who I am on my own terms...unapologetically. I have a background in photography and graduated back in 2014.

Jasleen: Hi Everybody! I'm Jasleen (Sassleen) Powar aka Horsepowar. I'm a rapper, theatre graduate, wordsmith, foosball champion, a90's Bollywood fanatic, and a desi gyal who's trying to unlock the universe one verse at a time. I started rapping from spoken word poetry at the Vancouver Poetry Slam at Café Deux Soleil. From there I joined the Van Slam Youth team while being involved in my school's theatre program. In my second year of uni, I wanted to be like Andy Milonakis and Tom Green, and rap about funny stuff because I was tired of my depressing teenage poetry that was too dark for my own good. I've always been obsessed with music.

Priya: Growing up, being Indian meant being different, and I definitely went through a period of feeling that difference was a burden. It was something that happened to me rather than who I was, and was never something to celebrate. How did you feel about your Asian identity growing up?



Maria: There were no role models for young desi immigrants to look up to on the Disney Channel, so we looked down on ourselves. As a child I assimilated too quickly. I figured if I was going to be attacked for being a desi, I could pretend to be something else and, for my sanity and safety, was forced to mask my identity. However, at home nothing made me happier than a solid 3-hour, corny-as-hell, desi Rom-Com.

I always told myself that the end goal was to be "normal." Normal just meant white, because nothing about hanging out at the mall with boys without parental supervision until 9pm was normal in a desi home.