WHEN I moved to the US in 2016 for graduate school there were two things I struggled with: understanding how health insurance works and understanding why I had to list my race on all kinds of forms. I understand the US government collects racial data for census purposes and to create policies or ensure (ahem) racial equality but it was really fascinating how often it showed up. One time, at a Chicago food festival, a member from the organisation asked me to answer some questions about their event which ended with “how do you identify?”

I was two months into the programme so I’d say Asian before they completed the question.

“You don’t look Asian,” he told me.

“What do I look like?” I asked — a perennial favourite question of mine to people who have a certain image of what Pakistanis look like.

“You look Middle Eastern,” he replied after some thought. I asked what he identified as; he said he was LatinX — this was the trend that year to describe Latino with an X — so I said someone the day before had asked if I was Hispanic.

Mamdani’s victory reflects a seismic shift in Democratic politics.

“Oh yeah, I guess you could be Hispanic, too. That’s white. So is Middle........

© Dawn