Belonging Everywhere and Nowhere: Toby Myles & Urmi Hossain on Turning Dual Identity Into a Superpower

Mm-hmm.

I almost feel like, like maybe you can, maybe you can think this now looking back, but I almost feel like had you not been so restricted in the things that you could do and h- had, had you not witnessed, um, you know, that w- um, women were, you know, only meant for certain things, women couldn't do certain things, like maybe you wouldn't have gone on to do the amazing work that you're doing now and being really a, um, an advocate for like women in leadership and things like that.

So what...

So when you started to like really develop your own ideas and, and identity, um, and sort of break out of that, like how you were raised, was that, um, when you went to college? Was it after college?

No, it was a bit, uh, [laughs] it was a bit late, I would say, even after college.

Uh-huh.

Well, we call it university.

Um, so for me it was...

Okay, so first of all, you're so right about what you said.

I feel like if I, I did, if I did not have that upbringing, I would have not done the things that I do because I feel like I have something to fight for.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and for me, that realization just came later on in life, like mid-20s, even closer to my 30s, that I suddenly realized that, okay, these are some of the things that I have to change, and th- and this is how I can do it.

But I already had those conversations before.

I just never acted on them.

I think I was always questioning things, especially in my mid-20s.

I would talk about this with friends, and I would openly talk about, let's say, the inequality that I would see among men and women, especially in South Asian community, which was something that was always bothering me.

Like, why are we put in second place? Why are we-

Mm-hmm

... not given the same education as a boy or a man would have? Why do men have so much more freedom and no one questions anything about them, but then us, we just get so much backlash and so many comments and criticism? And so I would always have this conversation, but I would just never act on them because I just felt like I had to do something that was massive and big to make a huge impact.

Like, I never thought that I could start small-

Mm-hmm

... and just build upon that.

I just felt like I had to be a celebrity and just work for an organization like UNICEF or things like that and just change the world.

But then my friend of, a friend of mine made me realize that you can just start small, and you can start locally.

And so that's when I started to think a bit deeper.