I am more than the white woman's daughter...

Whenever people heard my story many told me to write a book.  Write a book about Mummy, Abbas and Fatima.  And how they all lived together in the same house with their combined children.  People were fascinated that my white Scottish mother chose to live with my Pakistani father and his Pakistani wife.  I always knew we were different. Nobody else had our crazy family set up.  Everyone else I knew had just the one mum and dad.  Even the Pakistani people in the community had one mum and dad.  Some might have lived with a mum and step dad or a dad and step mum, still it was one mum and one dad.  There were Pakistani men who used the rule of more than one wife to keep a white Scottish woman, always separate in her own house away from his Pakistani life.  Not Abbas.

The Gori’s Daughter is my struggle of being accepted by my father, and Pakistani side.  Gori means fair skinned but has been twisted to imply easy, of loose morals when describing white woman.  Fatima, the evil stepmother in my story, took joy in telling us we were white trash bastard children.  I grew up believing the Pakistani side was far better than the white.  It’s only now at the age of 42 I see that neither side is better than the other.  For me personally it’s the white side who accept me and see beyond my Pakistani father.  My Pakistani side find it difficult to see beyond my white mother. I am not pure enough. And I no longer care that I am not accepted.  I accept me.  Pakistani and Scottish.