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Once you’re here, you’re just another Indian-whether you like it or not. The way I see it, once you cross the ocean, nobody cares what subset or group you come from. They don’t necessarily see themselves as Indian, nor do they see themselves as English, just as the Indians don’t see them as Indian and the English don’t see them as English. That’s a bit of a thing for AI’s-you’ve got to be specific about saying that you’re one of them. I still get some flak from older Anglo-Indians because I usually just say I’m Indian instead of specifying that I’m Anglo-Indian. My cousins have surnames like Brown, Paige, Waike and Matthias and first names like Mikey, Gordon, Bruce, Andrew, Patty, Tina, Ann, Claire, Stephen, Tanya, Marissa, Darren, Charlene. Anglo-Indians come in all shades-from blond-haired and blue-eyed to dark-skinned with very traditional “Indian” features. Anglo-Indians are a very small, unique community as well as a dying one, a remnant from the Raj. That’s why my name is Russell Peters instead of something you’d be more likely to expect for a guy who looks like me, both of whose parents were born in India. Anglo-Indians, or AI’s, mixed with the British when they occupied India. Somewhere in your genes is a British father and an Indian mother. Both of their parents were Anglo-Indian, and before that one of their greatgrandfathers or great-great-grandfathers was British, Welsh, Scottish or Irish-one of those ishes. Anglo-Indian, South-Asian, South-Asian-Canadian? Jeez, even I’m confused. Both of my parents are Anglo-Indian. They just call me Russell. To me, I’m just a comedian who happens to be Indian. To my friends and family, though, there’s no hyphen. people think it needs to be qualified by something else. I guess that’s what happens when you’re the first at something.

Obviously, I’m not the first stand-up comic in the world, but I know that I’m the first stand-up who looks like me, and the first to have done some of the things I’ve done. There’s always that hyphen: South-Asian comic, Indo-Canadian comic, South-Asian-Canadian comic, Canadian-born-Indian comic, Brampton-raised stand-up comic. No matter how people describe me, there’s always something before my name or my profession. Summary: CHAPTER 1 CALL ME RUSSELL  I’M NEVER just a comic.