Ethnic Minority Identity in Malaysia: Between Authority-defined and Everyday-defined Social Reality

Questions of ethnicity and ethnic identity remain ardent in Malaysian community life. Despite having a high ethnic awareness, not many people recognize or fully understand other ethnic groups, particularly minority ethnic groups. This article has two purposes, namely to highlight two cases of minority ethnic identity in Malaysia and to examine the effect of social stereotyping on minority ethnic group’s interactions with the Malaysian public. By using Shamsul’s (1996) two social reality approach, a study was conducted on two ethnic minorities, namely the Peranakan Chinese of Kelantan and the Sikh Punjabi of Kuala Lumpur. The study found that the Kelantan Chinese Peranakan and Sikh Punjabi ethnic identities are very different from mainstream stereotypes associated with Chineseness or Indianness; Kelantan Peranakan Chinese identity, for example, is strongly influenced by elements of local culture, and the Sikh Punjabi identity is rooted in Sikh religious elements. Although living in two areas with different ethnic diversity indexes, it was found that both ethnic minority groups shared the mutual problems of mistaken identity and negative ethnonymic connotations. These problems were most often faced during interaction with the mainstream general public when outside of the respective ethnic minority’s immediate locality. These findings show that Malaysian society has only skin-deep awareness and knowledge about ethnic minority groups living within the country. This can be attributed in part to the overemphasis of ‘authority-defined’ perspective that traced back to colonial knowledge on, and methods of, managing ethnic diversity. Over time, this knowledge has become an accepted, pervasive and dominant social fact in the society.