“My roots run deep – my worlds are two. Both feel like home, and both feel true.”
Neha Jain’s children’s book Standing Proud: A Laddoo & Lamington Story, teaches Indian-Australian children how to fully embrace their dual cultural backgrounds. Infused with warmth and positivity, this lyrical story asks readers to be proud of what makes them different and to find joy in their uniqueness.
“The core message at the heart of this book is that your culture does not define you,” Neha tells Indian Link. “Who you are in essence defines you. Even if you have a dual background, you don’t necessarily have to assimilate or pick one culture over the other.”
Each sentence of this book reads like an affirmation through which the unnamed character embraces the foods, music and stories of India and Australia. In this young girl’s household, it’s typical to see laddoos and lamingtons side by side on the dining table, to celebrate both Christmas and Diwali, and to pair jhumkas with a t-shirt.
For Neha, it was important that she accurately represented this hybridisation of cultures which is characteristic of so many Indian households, including her own.
“I find, as a parent, that my Indian culture is something I really have to make the time and effort to incorporate into my life… and I really wanted my children to grow up with access to both cultures,” she says.
A firm believer in the idea that “you can’t be what you can’t see,” Neha, as a young parent, had scoured bookstores for a children’s story that authentically reflected her child’s experience as a second-generation immigrant.
“Sandhya Parappukkaran’s book The Boy Who Tried to Shrink His Name was really beautiful and I loved it,” she reveals. “But it was hard to find similar books which showed children how their cultural background can enrich their lives.”
Wanting to capture her daughter’s experience as an Indian growing up in Australia, she decided to write her own children’s book.
“My daughter played a big role in the book’s formation,” Neha reveals. “She would point out what she liked and what she didn’t like. In the end, her reaction to the book was ‘this is me. I know what you are talking about’.”
Central to bringing this story to life are the lively illustrations by Gowthami. Based in Victoria, the illustrator was one of the few who was able to craft a character which, in line with Neha’s vision, was obviously and unapologetically Indian-Australian.
Motivated by her experiences as a primary school teacher, Neha firmly believes in the relationship between good representation and the development of a positive sense of self.
“How children learn to navigate their differences shapes the way they see themselves and their place in the world as adults. The first eight years are particularly important in developing a healthy sense of self, as this is a period of rapid brain development when crucial neural connections are formed,” she says.
At the same time, she hopes the book will be empowering to parents – especially those who grew up in Australia and did not have access to accurate representations of their culture.
Having recently earned Miles Franklin Award-winning novelist Shankari Chandran’s stamp of approval (she’s even asked for four copies, one for each of her children), this joyful labour of love has the potential to become a staple of Australian classrooms.
Standing Proud may seem like a simple story, but its message to children is profound: embrace what makes you different, take pride in who you are, and remember, “I don’t have to shrink. I don’t have to hide. Everything I am shines bright from inside.”
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