Book Talk: Exploring Indo-Caribbean Identity with Tiara Jade Chutkhan

In this episode of The Moreish Podcast, Hema chats with Tiara Jade Chutkhan, a writer and book blogger in the Canadian publishing industry. 

Tiara discusses her efforts to promote diverse literature focused on Indo-Caribbean heritage, her book series 'Two Times Removed: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction,' and the motivation behind it. The conversation touches on the balance of Indian roots, Caribbean heritage, and North American upbringing, exploring cultural identity, representation, and the Indo-Caribbean diaspora. Tiara also talks about her involvement with Brown Gyal Diary and the future projects she is excited about.

Resources:

Connect with Tiara on Instagram, TikTok or on her website.

Two Times Removed: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction

Two Times Removed Volume II: An Anthology of Contemporary Indo-Caribbean Stories

Two Times Removed Volume III: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Futures

Transcript

Hema: Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Moreish Podcast, this is Hema and today I'm speaking with Tiara Jade Chutkhan a writer and book blogger working in the Canadian publishing industry. Tiara strives to promote diverse and culturally specific literature with her Indo-Caribbean heritage the focus of most of her written work, creating representation for her community through her projects. Her first book Two Times Removed: An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction was published in May, 2021. Volume two was released in June, 2022. And the final in the series was released in May, 2024. Let's dive into the conversation. 

Hi, Tiara. It is so great to have you join me on this episode of The Moreish Podcast.

Tiara: Hi, it's so glad, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

Hema: We've had a little bit of a challenge connecting because both of our schedules are so busy, but we made it work. So let's dive right in and why don't you introduce yourself? 

Tiara: Yeah, absolutely. So my name is Tiara. I am a writer, a book blogger, and I also work in the publishing industry within Canada. I specifically work within book marketing and, I have three books out right now. They are a series called Two Times Removed and they are all a collection of stories that are really based on preserving culture, exploring culture, Indo-Caribbean culture specifically. I like to describe them very much as like, if you remember the Chicken Soup books that a lot of people grew up with, they're kind of that. They are like Chicken Soup for the Indo-Caribbean, Caribbean soul. Um, very focused on that first gen experience. And I'm just, I mean, hey, I'm just overall a very bookish person.

A lot of, majority of what I do just all revolves around like writing and reading that is, that's my bread and butter.

Hema: understand that. I mean, I've had a library card as long as I can remember and enjoy reading constantly. So when I came across your, I think it was a TikTok where you're introducing the third in this series of books, I was like, no, no, no, wait, I have to talk to her. So let's talk about the title of the book, Two Times Removed. What does that mean?

Tiara: So two times removed is kind of just an ode to the journey. For any, all of us who are in the diaspora, specifically the Caribbean diaspora, we, we have a few stops on our journey. And when I said two times removed, it was kind of an, like I said, a mention of that. We have, origins in India, then we have our roots in the Caribbean, whatever Caribbean country that may be, and then now a lot of us are settled in different places.

We're in Canada, we're in the States, some of us are in the United Kingdom so there's, that's, you know, two stops on our journey and two, multiple identities that we carry. So that's why Two Times Removed was the title that I went with.

Hema: When specifically you're talking about your authors, which we'll get into a little bit later, are most of them born outside of the Caribbean?

Tiara: There's a handful who were born, in the Caribbean, but immigrated really, really at a young age, but the majority of them were all born, yeah, outside of the Caribbean. There is a pretty healthy mix of writers who are majority Canadian and then American. And then in this past book, the third book, we actually had a writer who was from the Netherlands, which was really, really interesting.

Hema: With a Caribbean, Indo-Caribbean heritage?

Tiara: Indo-Caribbean heritage, but they were born and raised in the Netherlands.

Hema: You are Canadian, Canadian born?

Tiara: Yes, yes I am.

Hema: And what is your family heritage?

Tiara: So my parents are from Trinidad and Guyana. My mom is the one who's from Trinidad and my dad is from Guyana. They were both born, there back home and then they came to Toronto specifically, when they were kids.

Hema: Oh, when they were children. So they spent their childhood here. 

Tiara: Yeah, so they grew up here. They came, I think my dad was five when he came here. My mom, was ten. So they had, they did spend some time, you know, a little bit of time back home in the islands, but then they did come here at a pretty young age, so they had the majority of their, you know, growing up life was yeah right here in Toronto.

Hema: My, my family is Trinidadian and they, my parents moved to Toronto as well, just months before I was born. So I, I have two older siblings who were both born in Trinidad and I was born here, but still for me, it felt like I had very much a, my home life was very much Trinidadian, Caribbean.

We went back almost every summer to visit family because that's where all the family was. But for me, it also felt like I was living two lives. When I was reading one of the stories in your book, by Stephen and I think the title of the book, of the story was What Are You?

Tiara: Yes. Yes

 Where Stephen sort of talks about, very similar feelings.

Yeah I think I really resonated so much with Steven's story because it was like even though he he was kind of speaking to like a little bit of a different time it was basically my experience as well, because I, you know, I was a kid from like the early 2000s, that was like my childhood, and that was a question I got all the time.

 I don't know, it was like one day it just became a question, I feel, is what had happened. Because for the longest time, you know, you're friends with everybody. Your main focus is just like having fun, playing, you're in school, and then one day you guys get a little bit older and then everyone's like, okay, wait, where's everyone from?

Like, what are you? Where do you like, do you, do you live in a house or a building? Like, what do your parents do? There's just like all these questions that I guess we start to kind of just build our consciousness around one another and you know, you're just curious naturally as a kid, but being asked specifically, what are you was part of like, yeah, my childhood, my teenage years.

And by the time I got to my teenage years, I just kind of dreaded the question, to be honest, because every time I got the question, I would say where I like, I would say my background I'm Trinidadian and Guyanese. That was all I would have ever identified as, really but then I'd always kind of get the, oh, well, you, like you look Indian. And when you're a kid at like eight years old, I don't have the vocabulary or really the knowledge to explain my entire, like, lineage or, like, culture and things like that. But, and I don't think I really did, honestly, up until like, I was an adult was when I was really able to explain that, truthfully. But, you know what I mean?

You just, you know where, where your parents are from and that's the culture that you, that, you know, we embody. And that was all I knew how to explain as a child. So, I think it was really, I guess it was really isolating at times, too. Because there was other people who could so easily just say, I'm from, or my, my parents are English and Scottish.

And everyone was like Okay, great. And just went with it. There was never any, rebuttal. But I always sort of had to deal with, a rebuttal to what I, you know, my, my heritage, which was always the you look like you're Indian from India. And I can never really find a balance to relate to any of the kids who are South Asians, so that was also, that was also tricky.

Hema: It's a tricky balance and I don't think you really. can explain it unless you've lived it, right? I read an article, in one of the Caribbean newspapers, I think that you were either interviewed or that you wrote, where people were saying, you know, you're Indian, you're not black, how can you be from the Caribbean?

And I get that often. I mean, even as. early as last week, somebody said to me when they found out that I was Trinidadian said, what language do they speak? And I feel like there's just like, there's just this sort of really misunderstanding, about Indo-Caribbean culture in certain circles. 

Tiara: I think, especially for me growing up, and I mean, I know, like Toronto is such a diverse place, and I think it honestly really depends on what part of the city you grew up in, because I know people who grew up in areas of the West End or in Scarborough, and they had a very different experience than I did, but I grew up more, like midtown in the city, which was predominantly I like a white area.

So there was very little understanding or knowledge of Caribbean anything really outside of I mean, everyone knows Jamaica shout out to our Everybody Everybody always knows Jamaica so, you know there were a couple kids in my class who had like Jamaican background and same thing for them like they didn't have they didn't have the same sort of hurdle because everyone on average kind of knows of Jamaica and the Caribbean, right?

So it's kind of one of those main countries that gets associated with the Caribbean. But um, yeah, that was a that all of that kind of contributed to coming up with the Two Times Removed idea. 

So this whole thing was very much born in the pandemic in 2020. At the time, I found myself just reading a lot. There wasn't really much else to do anyway, so I was reading, getting to a lot of books that were just sitting on my shelf and been on my list for a while. And there were a few short story collections in there, specifically Caribbean short story collections. There were, just generally Caribbean novels by Indo-Caribbean, Afro Caribbean authors, and I was just fully immersed in those for months. It was great because it was probably the most Caribbean literature I had consumed in my life up until that point because really growing up I didn't I didn't really because it wasn't something that was in the library and I know I know I looked because I was in the library a lot when I was a kid, but reading all of those were it kind of sparked something for me, because I said, this is all really great.

I love seeing stories about, you know, my, my culture, my people. But I feel like there's a bit of a gap, because a lot of the authors were a bit older. They were maybe my parents age, some of them even, my grandparents age, just very well established authors who had been around for, for some time. But I think there was that gap, with like a newer generation, a newer voice who could speak on the experience of being Caribbean, and, growing up somewhere else, right? Because some of the stories would, have the, the part where like a character immigrates. They maybe went from, say, Guyana to like Toronto or Trinidad to the UK, things like that. But it wasn't, the focus of the character wasn't that they were, they were mixing identities and growing up in that place. They were choosing to go somewhere else because, you know, for whatever reason, right? They wanted to live a better life. They wanted more opportunities. The same reason that of course, like a lot of our parents and grandparents came, and did the same thing. But I wanted to fill that gap because I said, well, what about all of us who, who are here in the diaspora and we also have this whole other perspective, of balancing our identities. We don't really have, we have, like, as much as we have a connection to, our islands, we also are rooted somewhere else, you know, where we carry multiple identities, and I think that that was something that hadn't been explored yet, and something that I really wanted to I really wanted, to pursue and, and look deeper. I just wanted to know kind of everything. Who else, who else is writing? Who else, has similar thoughts to me and things like that. And I had connected with quite a few writers just on Instagram. Same thing, just like a lot of us, it was in the pandemic, people were in their creative bags and, and, looking for outlets to express.

So that was how I connected with the first couple of writers who were, who were in the first book. And then, I had about five or six people who were on board and I said, okay, I need like 10 more. So I put out a call for submissions 

and and the rest was history from there. 

Hema: Are most of the authors and writers in any of the three books within a certain generation?

Tiara: I think most are. Millennials, or maybe on the younger side of the Millennials, and then a bit of Gen Z as well. I think on average, I would say, just age range, the authors are 20 

to 35.

Hema: the third volume, which is your final volume, um, me as I can identify with a lot of the things that they're saying, because not much has changed from when I was a kid to, you know, in, in sort of understanding my own identity. But what I did recognize is in my family and in my house, I had all sorts of Trinidadian, Caribbean literature around. We had, I don't know if you've ever seen those like little red primer books that, um, they used in, in, I guess, in back in the day. We home and, and Anansi stories. And, um, We even this is, I'm, I'm dating myself, but we even had a couple of records Um, that talking about folklore so that we could 

Tiara: it, 

but that's so cool. That's such 

a 

cool

Hema: that really, you know, what I found in looking at social media, um, and talking is the younger generation, millennials and maybe younger feel like there's a bit of a disconnect and I don't want to sort of speak for everybody, but it feels like what I'm hearing is there is a little bit of a disconnect from the Indo-Caribbean culture. And in fact, I believe it might've been one of your colleagues from Brown got Brown Gyal Diary who was on In We Blood speaking 

about 

Tiara: Yeah, yeah, it actually was not too long 

Hema: speaking not understanding and not being able to connect herself to being Indo-Caribbean. I, 

Tiara: I totally was able to relate. Ashley and I have had that conversation, honestly, a lot between the two of us. And I think a lot of it, too, also kind of relates back to that experience. For her, she grew up in Scarborough, so she had a lot more at least Caribbean culture around her. For me, outside of my family, I didn't grow up with a lot of Caribbean culture.

So I think in a way, as I got older, and then I think when I met more Caribbean people, as I got older, who grew up around more Caribbean culture, I think for me, sometimes I would sit there and be like, I would feel kind of a bit isolated from some of their experiences because people who, naturally you had a lot more of that community around you, kind of influenced some of your, your experiences and some of the things that you might have grown up doing or spaces you were in as a kid and things like that. Whereas my spaces, weren't like that at all, you know, outside of, outside of my family. When I was with my family, it was a different story. But the minute I was outside of the space of like my home or my grandparent's home or anything like that, it was, it was almost like that all turned off for me, at least like, again, in the spaces I was in. I wasn't really one who was going to show up to school with like, chutney song blasting or something.

But I know I know people who did were like they were sitting there at school on their lunch break, and they had their music playing, but that they had a huge group of friends who all shared their background. There was that commonality there to make that a comfortable experience, whereas that wasn't something that wasn't something I could do. My lunches, as much as I wish I could have brought curry for lunch sometimes, it just wasn't going to happen. It wasn't going to happen. It just wasn't the space. It wasn't the space for it. Right. I think it really depends for sure on some of the environment you had. I think growing up around more Caribbean culture definitely influences a bit of that connectedness, but I think it also just ranges per person too, right?

 There's always holes and gaps in our experiences because whether or not, even I think whether or not you grew up with a lot of Caribbean people around you, at the end of the day, we're not there. We're still in another place and even outside of the safe spaces of like friends or temple or, you know, parties and things like that.

There's still the whole rest of us the city or the rest of our society that isn't really based in our culture or doesn't really have a heavy understanding of our culture. There's a lot of people who don't really understand a lot of Caribbean culture, don't really understand the larger context about even to why there's people who look of all different ways who are from the Caribbean, or don't understand what Carnival is all about and have no idea why we're jumping up in all these costumes and stuff like that. It's something that I think we've got a 

ways to go for in Canada for sure.

Hema: Um, all of those things that you just mentioned about people not really understanding, uh, the beyond a vacation spot, and, and all of the things that you talked about is really what drove me to start this podcast, right? Which is how can, how better to explain it than through the history? Because history dictates who is in the islands, why we look the way we look, depending on which country you're at, um, means and the meaning behind it.

All of that really stems from our history and really the colonial era. And so it's really, it's really interesting for me to hear from you, a different generation, that you're also still feeling the same way that I felt all along is people just don't understand the Caribbean as a place where people actually live. It's not just a vacation spot. There's a whole dynamic, rich history of people and each country is slightly different.

Tiara: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's, it's interesting too because given how many cultures, are in the Caribbean and how many different, cultures have influenced and passed through, I have found, and I don't know, maybe this might just be in my experience, but I have found that even a lot of the original cultures that have influenced don't actually, there's, even for a lot of people, there's not an understanding, about their influence that they have in another place, you know?

I have met people who are of, Indian, South Asian background who have no idea that indenture happened or that there is like people of Indian descent in the Caribbean or even people who are of like different European descents who, same thing, don't really actually have that, that knowledge of the fact that there's a, an influence there and things that are tied, you know, that tie their culture to the Caribbean as well.

So I think, it's one of those things where Caribbean culture is, or Caribbean history, I should say, is not very mainstream at all, outside of the Caribbean. It's not really common knowledge, at all. There are larger world events and, and parts of history that I think for the most part, we tend to know about anyway, even if they directly affected us or directly we were in contact with them, but Caribbean history specifically just tends to be, I don't know, I always look at it as a really interesting pocket of, history, that there's so much layers, so many influences, so many things that happened over spans of a, you know, a couple hundred years, but there's just so, so little knowledge about it, and it is, it ties our history, ties to so many other things around the world as well.

Whether it was indenture, whether it was slavery, the, the labor that was done in the Caribbean ties to bigger parts, you know, larger perspectives of history of why that labor was needed, what was going on there, why people came to the islands or what they were looking for there. And it's, we're very tied to a lot of parts of history that I think are more commonly known, but I feel like we somehow just kind of don't get the, the, the acknowledgement of the role that we have played. And it was a, it was a laborious role. It was a traumatizing role that we played within history, but a lot of things wouldn't have, have happened. Countries would not have profited if not for parts of history that we contributed to, but we don't ever really get any sort of, just larger recognition as to the role we played in history.

 At least not, you know, overseas in like Canada and U. S. and things like that. I know, I mean, of course, if you're in the Caribbean, I'm sure that's all a big part of the history that you would naturally learn in school, but yeah, overseas here, it's just not something that, you know, is really ever talked about or ever really connected to like the broader history that we're taught in 

school or just broader history that people have a knowledge 

of. 

Hema: It's, it's you know, people, South people don't necessarily understand. the connection, um, and how who, you know, look like you and I also live in the Caribbean. There are people who are of Chinese descent, don't understand how there are Chinese people Um, people with heritage and ancestry who are also Caribbean and consider themselves Caribbean.

So it's, there's so many layers and, you know, hopefully through of the work that you're doing, through some of the work that I'm doing, we can help spread that knowledge. 

One of the things that you talk about is the delicate balance of Indian roots, Caribbean heritage and North American upbringing, which I think speaks a lot to what you were just talking about, but do you want to elaborate on that a little bit?

Tiara: I say it's a delicate balance because we, there's, it's really, it's something that we carry at all times and it's, it shows in different ways in who we are. That delicate balance is, okay, we have roots in India, for example, so that may, play a part in the way I look, my hair, my skin color, things like that. Then there's also that Caribbean heritage. That is where my parents are from, my grandparents are from, my great grandparents. Like, at least six or seven generations before I was born, that was all where we were rooted. That's the culture that our families know. We're more connected, of course, to our Caribbean culture and more rooted in that culture than we are in the culture of our origins because it's been so long since we've really been in those places and the culture that we carry is influenced by so many other cultures as well that it's just the culture that we are more connected to is not even as much of the rooted culture, right?

Like even being Indo-Caribbean is not the largest makeup of that culture isn't really even your Indian roots. It's not really largely, just because I have Indian roots doesn't mean that my culture or the, my experience is largely influenced by what my origins are because Caribbean culture is influenced by so many, so many others. So that's really that, that balance. And then growing up in Canada, for example, Canadian culture is a completely different, you know, a completely different thing. And one day you could be, you know, you're at home, you're eating some Trini food, Guyanese food, whatever the case is, but then you go out Canadian, you're eating definitely grabbing at Tim's. I know I love Tim's. I'm loyal to Tim Hortons. I'm a true Canadian. I love my Tim Hortons. For example, that's like a more cosmetic thing, but you know, it's just the these, these balances where we look, we look one way, the culture we carry is one way, we're growing up somewhere else, and that also dictates things like that.

I also know like quite a few friends of mine too who, same thing, we're Indo-Caribbean, born here, and a lot of them don't actually like Caribbean food that much, or there's only certain things that they will eat, or their spice tolerance isn't, isn't that heavy, for example. It that all kind of plays a role.

 We're still Caribbean, we still like a lot of these things, things, we still grow up in a certain way and, do a lot of things. But then coming up, growing up here, changes a lot of things too, right? We're exposed to so many other cultures and you try, you get to try different things and then maybe you realize, I like a different cuisine a lot better than what I grew up eating, for example, for some people, or I don't have the same spice tolerance as, like, my parents or things like that, for me, for example, like, I love my Caribbean food, I very much grew up eating majority Caribbean food, but there's just certain things that, I don't eat that my parents will eat, especially my dad, there's things that my, my dad's the kind of guy who like crunch bones and all that stuff.

And I, I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. Like, I'm just not doing that, you know? And maybe that's, that's the Canadian in me as well. I'm not that girl. I'm just not, I'm not going to do that. But he's very much, you know, even though he, came here at a young age, he still, he still has a connection to his culture and things like that in a, in a way that's a little bit different from me even though it was only a couple years, a few, a handful of years that he was in Guyana but it still made a difference because he still knew a different style of life, a different style of growing up before coming here whereas I've been here 

my whole life so this, like, this is what I know. 

Hema: It's, uh, it's true and, and the influences, right? We, we carry these influences with us from the South Asian influences and some people get upset when I say this that I'm going to, about to tell you, but to me, it sort of feels very similar. When our ancestors, whether it was Indian, South Asian, um, Chinese.

Uh, any or any of the African, um, countries that had, you know, the forcibly over to the Caribbean. Once they got there, they also had to adjust and assimilate based on what was available, who was around them. And I think that's what created the culture that's in the Caribbean right now, which has influences in their history. So what you're talking about is, you know, you and I were both raised in Toronto in North America. And so also we assimilated, we morphed and changed and still have our Caribbean roots and heritage, but also have that Canadian side of us. And I think it's just natural that that happens.

I mean, I'm sure your author who is from the Netherlands also has some of that influence in their daily life.

Tiara: Absolutely, I know they are, they're completely fluid, fluent in that language, and I think that's so cool and it was so interesting to me at first too. I know English wasn't their first language, but I think it may not have even been their first or second language, it may have even been like third or so, and I've seen like on their Instagram, for example, their posts that are in, Dutch. I think it would be Dutch is the language. And that's, it's a completely different strain than even what I think,I'm used to. Cause, Caribbean people in, in Canada and Toronto, you know, that's, you know, something that we're familiar with. In the States we know like New York has Little Guyana. There's a huge population there. We also know like through Windrush a lot of people went to the UK. So there's that side of like a Caribbean Community there too, but the Netherlands just wasn't something I was super familiar with and at first I said, how did we get to the Netherlands? Like, how did that happen? Just cause it honestly, it wasn't like a common spot that a lot of Caribbean people immigrated to. So I just thought it was really, it was really interesting, to know that we're, we're kind of everywhere. Sometimes we have our bigger communities around the world, like Toronto and New York, but then there's also like pockets of us in so many other places. I think a lot of Caribbean people went to the hotspots because it was already, you already had a, family there. I know for my family, they already had, siblings who had come up here already, so you heard about come to Toronto as, like, a word of mouth. My mom's parents, my grandma's brother was already here. And then passed on the message, come to Canada, come up here, it's great, life is good, you know, it'll be good for the kids, come up here. And I think same thing with even, my dad's mom, when she came here, there was already, she already had a couple siblings who had come up before her, and, when she was, I think, I, like, I think she knew that she wanted to leave Guyana and then I, in that toss up of, where do I go? Well, she already had siblings who, who were here and settled here. 

 We tend to go where, you have people who have established and, and told you, hey, it's great here, come here. I think it's interesting that people have also settled in different places that you wouldn't expect and I don't know what what the driving force behind it is, but I 

think it's really

Hema: I mean, my parents came in the seventies, obviously, and you know, that big sort of open immigration for people from the Caribbean to come to Toronto, So I feel like that, um, and I think probably when a lot of People came here. Um, and 

talk about your book series because it's three books and you've said that this one, the third in the series is the final.

Why is that?

Tiara: It's been a really fun journey putting together these books. And when I first, when I first, first of all, when I first did the first Two Times Removed book, which came out in 2021, I didn't really have intentions of doing a series to begin with. The project was very much a passion project.

It was very much something that I was interested in and wanted to explore and wanted to put this together. And just in like the broader sense, it had always been a dream of mine to, from the time I was a child, to publish a book. And this was something that was so aligned and with everything, everything that was just, so necessary in my life at the time, and that cultural exploration, that connecting to culture that I had just needed really, really badly in my life. And it had helped me, it helped me grow so much, I think, and come into myself, one, as an adult, I'll say, and two, just like also figuring out my, what to do with like the interests I had, because I didn't really know what to do with them before then and it really kind of set me on on on my path I felt. Two Times Removed was probably one of the best things that could have ever happened to me because through that I think I figured out my larger purpose for life. But after that, I got a lot of requests and a lot of people who were messaging me. They loved the first book and then they were curious if there was going to be a second book. And then I said Oh, okay, um, I wasn't really planning to do a second book, but after, you know, a few messages, I said, Okay, well, why not?

That'll be really cool. Like, let's keep it going. And there's all these people who are interested and people who really enjoyed the book. Why not continue? And especially because the feedback I was getting from Two Times Removed was so different, I think, than what I was planning, because my original plan was I wanted to target the book to people my age, which is, again, like the writers who are roughly around my age group.

And the specific experience that we were speaking from, I wanted to continue to connect and share that voice with other people who are first gen like myself. And so they can see themselves in literature because this was really what what the purpose of the book was for. But, people were sharing it with their grandparents, they were sharing it with their kids, they're older kids, so it was age appropriate, but they were sharing it generationally and I had a couple people who sent me pictures of their grandparents reading it and their grandparents felt so seen and heard for the first time, and it was it just transcended generations and it wasn't what I originally had in my head but obviously it was so much better and so much more than I could have thought of. So I went for the second book and that was a whole each book has just been a completely different set of stories and at this point I think we've just covered, we've covered almost every topic I could possibly think of. It's just, there's been such a diverse range of perspectives and so much coverage of different topics that, that are really important and I think conversations that we're having largely in the community and opening, just helping to open the dialogue for that. But after this book, I, I knew that this one was going to be the last one in the series. I said, you know what, like, three's a charm. Three is usually, like, the magic number, a trilogy, to end a series. And it was also just because for me, personally, putting together these books and working with multiple people,the first book was 16 people, including myself, 17 if you include the cover artists. The second book was 18 people, 19 including the cover artists. And this past book, the third book, was the largest, of the three, so 23 people all together. And it's, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of coordination, and I mean I've absolutely loved it but there's other, there, there's other projects I have in mind and other stories I want to tell and I think I had to just know when it was time to wrap up, when it was time to say this has served its purpose.They're out there in the world now so it's not like they're ever gonna go away or okay the books are done, you can never get them again or anything, it's just, this series has been told.

I feel like it's it's been told, like I said, the stories have covered so many different topics at this point too, and I, I, it feels for me personally, like just inside myself, I feel it's been very complete. I feel like what I set out to do is complete

and I think too sometimes you have to kind of know when to Yeah, just when when to call it, right?

This project completed what it was set out to do. I also really want to start pursuing, some novels and writing some novels as well. There's a few things that I've started very slowly but surely over the last couple years, but Two Times Removed was at the, you know, forefront for me, so the other things kind of just hung out in the background.

And now that the series has wrapped up, I'm excited to be able to put, that energy that had been going into Two Times Removed now into some new projects and 

some other stories that I've been really eager to to tell and work 

on.

Hema: In, in the writing of the book, and I can't remember whether this was in the book or on the jacket, you referenced the Indo-Caribbean identity for the new generation. That's who you thought your audience was going to be. That's who the writers are and the authors are, but what does that mean to you? Indo-Caribbean identity for the new generation?

Tiara: For me it means the the newer generation like myself or even people who are younger than me and and growing up now too, the identity has changed with with each time we have moved to a new location. And just with the world the world as the world shifts, like my brother who's we're 11 years apart he's going to be 17 this year and he has he's a very like he's a different perspective and generation from me and His identity and the way he moves through the world is influenced a little bit differently than the way mine was, right? Um, and then so that that new generation just it kind of changes it kind of changes with each new generation. What's going on in the world? What influences the way generations are? We know kids right now, technology is their bread and butter, they're on everything. That's largely, largely the way they grow up now is closely with a lot of technology. So that new Indo-Caribbean identity just kind of encompasses where we're at in the world. Because for my parents generation, for example, their identity and their connection to culture was very different than what my generation and connection to culture looks like. Each generation passes down to, to the other, but I think naturally we leave and take certain things behind, right, with each generation.

There were things that my grandparents did that my parents were you're never going to catch me doing that. And there's things that, you know, my parents did where I said, I'm not going to do that. I'm not taking that one with me. And I'm sure it will be the same, right? Whenever I have kids, I'm sure they'll reach a point when they get older and say, okay, my parents did that I'm not going to do that. Or even in the vice versa. I really liked how they kept a certain aspect of something alive, the way they taught me about my culture, the way they did, the way they raised me in a certain way, et cetera, et cetera. I think, taking, taking pieces and we take and leave as, as each generation passes, which I, I honestly think is a good thing because I think we all know that there's a lot of Caribbean culture and Caribbean history can get very layered and there's a lot of things, within our community that there's deeper dialogues on, of things that we, we all want to work on and, and come to a better place in.

Hema: There's, there's a lot of, generational trauma, that's whole other topic that we can't get into here in this short space of time. 

 I'm going to go back to the book and the three, the three, volumes. You have a number of different writers you've talked about, you know, sort of what generation they're from. Are all of the stories fiction or are there some non fiction?

Tiara: So they're, they're a mix. The first book was entirely fictional stories. The second book, I did open it up because, just through, conversations I had with people, they were also curious if I was open to taking, a non fiction story because they really had something they wanted to share, but it wasn't fictional. And I did notice, too, even from the first book, that although the stories were fictional, a lot of them were also based in reality, so a lot of them were based on people's experiences or things that were just, things that were very close to them, but, they fictionalized the story itself for the book. So I did open it up for the second one, and the second one is a mix of fiction and non fiction, and you can, you can usually tell from the story, because just through the perspective it's written in. Whether it's, they're saying I and things like that so you can kind of distinguish it that way.

And same thing for the third book, it was a mix of, of fictional and non fictional stories. I really liked opening it up to be honest after the second one because I think there was that healthy mix of the two just really complemented each other. And I think because even the fictional stories were so personal anyway, it, it just was really complimentary and it opened up an opportunity for people to share things that were on their mind that they held really dearly, that they, they had something to say about.

They had, something they felt really strongly about, something that was personal and what they, their message that they wanted to leave to the readers, their, their mark. 

Hema: With these three, the full series, I can't remember how many, you said how many stories are in each book, I didn't do the math, there are multiple stories and multiple authors. What do you really hope that people take away from these books?

Tiara: I, I would really like for people to, ultimately, just kind of going back to the roots of, of the idea, even before that first book came out, I, I wanted people to feel seen and heard and have a set of stories that they could relate to in a way that maybe you hadn't been able to before. 

to 

 Specifically Indo-Caribbean young people, in newer generations of Indo-Caribbean people, I wanted them to, to yes, to feel seen, feel heard, see themselves represented, see experiences that they could relate to. When I was growing up and having a million and one issues about trying to figure out my identity and where I belonged in the world I would have loved to have something like this where even if I didn't have the people around me, I could read stories that would make me feel, I think, a little bit less alone and a little bit less isolated. 

 My thought process behind Two Times Removed when I first had the idea was just, I didn't, I mean, I had no idea how many people were going to read it. I didn't even think that far ahead about like putting marketing and readers or like how many and things like that. But I just said, if one person read this book and it was able to support them and make them feel the way like I wished I could have felt at, a younger age, then that I, like, I goal is accomplished.

That, that was, that was all we wanted because books, I think books in general, right, for anyone who's a reader, we look to stories for so many different things, whether it's an escape, whether it's because we relate to a person or the story that they're telling, or we're looking for information. And I think that Two Times Removed can really be that tool that does that.

It, it's not information in a sense of like hard facts, but it's information that is still really valid because it's, it's all experiences that are really, really valid. The experiences of, motherhood or experiences of trying to figure out your identity and what that looks like or wanting to connect deeper to your culture.

That's the purpose of the books is to give us a chance. We're already, we're already growing up somewhere else and we have a bit of distance between our culture. But I want this to be something that's a tool to kind of help bring us closer to culture and to each other. To see that you're not alone, because there's actually a lot of people who feel the way that you feel.

And I didn't realize that until, a few years ago, just being more active in the community. Because I didn't have that growing up and I felt like my experience was so specific to me and I was the only one who felt this way. And then I met so many other Indo-Caribbean people who were yeah, um, my identity is just, just a mess.

Hema: It's not just your generation or younger. I feel like. It's all circumstantial, right? I think about my own, my own upbringing is my family was the first to move outside of Trinidad. So all of my cousins have a much more, have a bigger connection because almost all of them grew up in Trinidad. And even though many of them live abroad now, they have a much deeper connection. And so when I was around family, as much as I loved that, and I felt quite immersed in the Trinidadian culture, there was always that recognition and understanding that I still don't have the same experiences that they do, having grown up in the culture and living the life day to day.

I am, a step away from it or, you know, one step removed from that because, they have different experiences. And so it can be a little bit interesting and isolating, at times. 

So we have just a few minutes left before we end this, this podcast. And I'm gonna ask you a couple of quick questions.

Do you feel through all of this exploration that you have a better connection with who you are and your identity,

Tiara: I do. I absolutely do. I think coming together and creating through these books, we've created a community, it's in itself. A lot of the writers, I know have gotten in contact with each other just through social media and, have made friends within each other that way.

I'm in contact with some of them, everyone who's passed through these books and we've created an ecosystem, a little, a little, you know, community of writers. 

Hema: To have that sort of community of support. Because you have these, these books in common, but there's also lived experiences that are in common.

Tiara: Yeah, exactly. 

Hema: 

This could be a bigger discussion, this question, and I've asked many guests the same thing, and I've seen a variety of answers all over social media is the people who say, if we weren't born in the Caribbean, we can't claim that identity.

There are people who say I was Canadian born, I'm Canadian. What do you think about that?

Tiara: I think, I understand both sides and I agree that it's a matter of opinion, to be honest, of perspective. I personally don't look at it that way because if somebody asks me, what's your background? Where are you from? I'm going to say I'm Trinidadian and Guyanese before I say Canadian. 

I was born in Canada, but where I'm from, even though I'm not actually born there or from there, from there directly, I will still claim that culture because that is largely for me, that's more largely what makes me me, my DNA, my everything. That's so much more of a big part of who I am, I think, more so than just saying like I'm Canadian. 

Hema: I agree. Everybody can have their own thoughts around it, it's very unique, right? Some people, were raised more with the culture, even if they were living abroad and some people weren't. And, I know people say, if you're not born there, you can't claim it. I'm claiming it. I'm claiming my Trinidadian heritage.

Tiara: I agree, I will forever, I have my, it's like a little Guyana coin necklace that I got here. I, I rock my stuff everywhere I go. I'm in my corporate job and I will still be wearing a big Trinidad flag pendant anywhere in there too. And that's also why I say, I think there's just certain things about us that regardless of the fact that we weren't born there. We, we still just kind of wear our culture on our sleeve and it's kind of hard to not say, like, to not do that. 

Hema: Yeah, you are, there's a you have a lot of projects and a lot of it is based around the same thing about the Caribbean, identity, West Indian culture. You're the Editor-in-Chief for, Brown Gyal Diary. Tell me quickly what that is.

Tiara: So Brown Gyal Diary, we are a non-profit based here in Toronto, and we have a few different pillars of the work that we do, but largely it's programming and mental health resources directed at women and young girls, Indo-Caribbean women and young girls. Right now we actually have a girl's summer program coming up, we are going to be teaching them about like multiple aspects of Carnival. So it's an eight week program and each week they're going to get to walk through something different. They're going to learn, for example, have a session with a DJ, have a session with costume making, have a session with, like different forms of dance.

We have our, our mental health, professional resource list as well. It's a directory and you can find specifically Indo-Caribbean therapists from a lot of different places. Most of them are in, the places that we tend to have bigger populations. So New York, Toronto, but we're working on trying to expand that and find, if you're an Indo-Caribbean mental health professional from anywhere around the world, just to add that to the directory so anyone can access it and find somebody hopefully who's In an area that they're in or connect with somebody who they feel really resonates with them. So it's largely the the work that we're doing right now. 

Hema: I guess to get the best glimpse of all of the other work and all of the other projects that you have, where can people connect with you?

Tiara: I would say the best place to find me is on Instagram. It's where i'm most active and you'll see the majority of like the updates and the things like that. So you can follow me at bookwormbabee, and it's babe with two e's, you know, one e was taken, so that's where, that's where I'm at, and you can, yeah, you can see all the updates, all the things.

Hema: Great. And I will add a link to your social and your website in the show notes, any clips that I put out, I will tag you so you can see all of it. I want to say thank you so much for joining me today. It was such an enlightening conversation. I have a copy of the third volume of the book, but the first two I haven't seen yet. I do encourage people to take a look at those books. I'll link them in the show notes as well. And so you can see and dive into what we've been talking about here today. Tiara, thank you so much for joining me.

Tiara: Thank you so much for having me, it's been such a great conversation, I'm really glad I got to be here today.

Hema: Thank you for joining me for this episode of The Moreish Podcast with Tiara Jade Chutkhan. This is the final episode of the guest series, and I'll be taking a break for research and interviews with new episodes coming in September. 

In the meantime, you can find us on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. And if you haven't listened to Season One, head over to your favorite podcast player to hear as Mireille and I talk about Barbados, Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Dominica and more. See you soon.