Dude, are you really Eurasian?

Malaysia is a melting pot of different races. Apart from the 3 major races, which we are all too familiar with; we also have the Kadazans, Muruts, Orang Asli, Dayaks, Eurasians and yang lain lain. This article as its title suggests, is about the Eurasians. Just precisely who are the Eurasians? Simply defined, a Eurasian is a product of mixed parentage between a European and an Asian parent.

But seriously, are all Eurasians; really Eurasians? My bet is that not all of them are. Don't be fooled by certain individuals who profess the Christian faith (especially Roman Catholicism), having surnames like Sta Maria, Fernandez, Gomez and some other Anglicised names at the end, to be Eurasians just because they say so. If you do, you are hopelessly naive.

Many who are Christians and have English sounding names are in fact, different race altogether. In actual fact, these people can only trace their ancestry to a vast country in South Asia. Their forefathers came to Malaya as menial labourers and peons. Majority of them were classless in the caste system, something tied to their religion. As long as they followed the religion they were born into, they would be treated as outcasts by their brethrens who occupy higher strata in the highly discriminating caste system. To escape such an identity marker, some converted to Christianity where the caste system is not present. But just converting to a foreign religion is not enough, they had to completely change their names too. And so they changed their names and adopted the English sounding ones. After changing religion and names, what's left for them to do was to call themselves Eurasians and that's what they did.

Their descendants in turn started calling themselves Eurasians until today.