Interview: Mathusa Selvaratnam – Blogger & Educator

By Angela Tai

We’re familiar with your background from your personal brand, UndercoverChick, as well as your monthly series, #BrownBabesinSTEM. What was the inspiration behind the formation of these efforts and what do you want people to take away from your messaging? 

#BrownBabesinSTEM only started about three months ago at the beginning of lockdown. I’m a Software Analyst and I just started working in Technology this year. The first thing I noticed when I started working was the portion of women in the office, there’s far less women than men in Technology. Once I started working from home, I started thinking about it and wondered why there weren’t a lot of women in Technology. How did I get here? I really believe that it’s the fear of the unknown which is why women aren’t in Technology. It wasn’t presented to us in an equal manner. If I had been encouraged by my social environment that I’m capable of pursuing a career in Technology or Engineering, I probably would’ve gotten here a bit earlier. Growing up, Technology seemed like a difficult area to tackle for me and that only men are usually good at it. Or that’s what society made me believe.  That was when I reached out to my co-founder - I actually found her on Instagram. I thought, if we both feel this way, I’m sure we can inspire a lot of women to join us in the world of Technology but also in the world of STEM as well as my BSc is in Chemistry. 

In terms of UndercoverChick, that’s actually something I started when I was just ten years old. I’ve always enjoyed writing, it’s my go-to for everything. I always want my voice to be heard - I feel like that’s the best way I express myself. From lifestyle to fashion to anything I did at the time, I just wanted someone to be able to hear my voice. It gave me a platform to start writing. Over the years, the topics on the blog have changed, especially with travel and my work as a Life Coach. It definitely gave me a voice when I was younger.

I now use this platform to inspire my readers to travel the world whilst successfully attaining your goals and living your dream vision daily! 

You held fast food and restaurant jobs even before you went to college. What drove you to want to get into the workforce at such a young age?

I was actually looking for part-time jobs when I was only nine years old. When I was little, I would actually google “am I allowed to work at this age and how much am I allowed to earn?” I spent my entire childhood trying to figure out the earliest age that I could work. The youngest age I could legally work was at age ten in Germany. My first real job was in babysitting and I earned €3 Euros an hour. What drove me to babysit my best friend’s younger brother was the fact that both of my parents are immigrants from Sri Lanka and I always wanted to get myself to a position where I could support them and work my way up. I’ve always had that drive - to try new things but to also just give new things a go.

You talked about traveling solo (on a budget) as well as traveling before you graduated from college. What are some of the biggest lessons you learned during your travels? 

The number one lesson I learned is that you don’t actually need that much money to travel and that’s something I really want to get across on my network. Travel isn’t just limited to people who have a lot of money and can afford it; I come from a working-class family, my parents are immigrants and I saved up money from my part-time jobs in order to travel solo. Traveling doesn’t have to be expensive or luxurious, it’s something that everyone can do. The amount of things you can learn through traveling is endless. Every single trip I’ve been on, I’ve learned so much about myself and other cultures, you’re continuously learning new things about yourself. You can visit the same country 25 times and you’ll always learn something new, it’s a continuous process. 

As someone who loves to travel, how have you had to adjust now that traveling is much harder with COVID-19 lingering? 

It’s been really really difficult for me, as someone who is on a plane almost every week. I really struggled with it at the beginning but being in lockdown gave me the opportunity to slow down and to think about the long-term for myself and what’s important for me. That’s when I came to realize how important travel is for me but also realized the importance of slowing down. At the same time, #BrownBabesinSTEM wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for this lockdown. It’s been very difficult but I feel like I’ve learned so much about myself and I feel like I’ve actually grown the most during this lockdown. 

You’re vocal about your hope for building a sustainable future for the next generation in Sri Lanka (your homeland). In your opinion, what are some effective ways to fundraise across social media platforms and how do you plan on contributing to the cause with your own social platforms? 

So, this time last year, I went and visited a few children in Sri Lanka. These are normal kids whose parents have either been murdered in the civil war or have been taken as prisoners by the Sri Lankan government. These people are on the missing list; Sri Lanka actually has one of the highest numbers of disappearing people. Some of these kids don’t know if their parents will ever come back. It’s very important to me - there’s plenty of places to fundraise at the moment. In terms of effective ways to fundraise, people really like to know where their money is going. They look to know where their money is going specifically rather than just sending a random amount; so how I fundraise is I say this is how much the price of a book, shoe, etc. is. It’s easy to itemize it, people were actually telling me which orders they wanted to put through and I received more donations as well so I found that to be highly effective. Your audience should always be aware of where their money is going; you should make it clear that the money will be available to the charities and not going into your own pockets. Going forward, my co-founder is based in Seattle at the moment and we would love to expand as well as take #BrownBabesinSTEM to Sri Lanka one day to give the girls there the opportunity to join a field of STEM.  

How do you think being Sri Lankan has affected your point-of-view on life and career in general? 

I don’t identify myself as being Sri Lankan. On the island, Tamil people were facing a ruthless genocide and ethnic cleansing for many years. The government didn’t take accountability for the still missing Tamils. The second generation immigrants and the diaspora,  we still face the daily mental struggles in which this genocide has affected us. Therefore, I would like to identify myself as Eelam Tamil and then German - the country I was born in and gave my parents a safe new home which I’m forever grateful for. I would also like to add that I’m very proud to see how the Eelam Tamil community has established themselves all around the world, despite everything. We have very successful individuals, contributing to the society and economy of the countries that provided us a new home. 

In terms of it affecting my life, I know the financial struggles my parents went through as well as the importance of working hard and an opportunity for education. I’ve grown up watching traumatising videos of genocide of my own people.

As a child of immigrants, what we do see is hard work throughout our entire lives. Sometimes, we fall into the trap of working constantly and we find it difficult to slow down a bit and not work as hard as they do. I personally always struggle to find a balance between finding all of the privileges I have compared to my cousins who still live in Sri Lanka and all the struggles they face. It’s almost this sense of guilt that I feel - my grandparents chose to send my mom here over my uncle so I do feel super privileged to be able to do the things that I do right now. Giving back to my family and community overseas is also very important to me and something that I always have in mind.

Your (Tethani Time) podcast is so fascinating and honest. Your topics run the gamut - discussing anything and everything from matchmaking to brown culture and your refugee stories. You also brought awareness to Black Lives Matter. I thought it was brave that you mentioned that Brown people have not always showed up to the fight against racism (by not speaking up against it). Can you elaborate more about that? Do you feel a sense of personal responsibility that you have to do more?

Of course. In terms of Black Lives Matter, especially when it comes to relationships or dating preferences, it’s something I’m glad I’ve learned through this movement. For example, I’m aware that some people will say that I’m allowed to marry a white man but it’s a complete taboo for someone to marry black. There’s a common saying among Asians — especially South Asians in the UK — which is, you can’t date a BMW. And by that, I mean you can’t date a Black, Muslim, or White man.  Preference is something else but if you’re picking and choosing between the races, that’s not a preference, it’s actually the fine line between preferences and racism. A lot of this thinking has to do with colonization - we only gained independence less than 100 years ago. Colorism is very real in the Asian community and it’s still instilled in all of us. Even in terms of marriages and raising girls, we’ve always been told that being fair-skinned is nicer and to not spend too much time outside because you’ll look more black. Just because we’ve made a mistake - it’s never too late, even now we can start. It hasn’t always been direct racism but it’s the way we contribute to the racism towards black people that hasn’t helped. I’ll take personal responsibility for having been scared of being out in the sun for too long in fear of getting dark. That’s the fear the community had instilled in me. But I will say that it’s never too late to change your line of thinking, even now. 

In your podcast, I thought it was interesting that you discussed the difference between preference vs. discrimination. A lot of people do use the excuse of preference to mask their racism. What propelled you to want to address this issue specifically? 

It’s actually just a regular conversation - what we record on our podcasts are conversations that my friend Tish and I have all the time. These are real things that bother us so we don’t plan ahead much, we just choose a topic and freeflow the entire conversation. The things that come to our minds are things that people in the South Asian community talk about. I also think that some people are too scared to talk about these kinds of things so we wanted people to be able to listen to our podcast and either relate or just to get them thinking. It doesn’t have to be right or wrong but I believe that change is already happening if you make someone think about a topic and question their way of thinking. I believe that change is happening already as I’ve learned many of my own lessons as well. 

Do you think Black Lives Matter has influenced how you plan on making your mark in society? 

Yeah, whenever my black friends would talk about this with us, I would say that I didn’t actually always understand because I couldn’t imagine the things they go through. Having heard about this and all of the information being shared across social media, I’ve learned a lot. I know that there’s initiatives similar to #BrownBabesinSTEM for black women in science but we’d love to collaborate with other ethnic minorities to give everybody else a fair chance. Going forward, it is definitely something that’s on our mind.

Life in quarantine has been incredibly stressful for a lot of people. As a Life Coach, what are your tips on managing mental health during COVID? 

Mental health is something that I haven’t dealt particularly well with during this lockdown. Initially, I struggled just like everyone else. As a Life Coach, it’s smart to take each day as it comes and don’t scare yourself off. I practice gratefulness every single morning and I wake up and think about the little things I’m grateful for: full-time employment, everybody is healthy and well, and my family is here with me. Planning is how I have navigated myself throughout this lockdown; that’s how I’ve been able to take it week by week. 

If you have to use one word to describe 2020, what would it be?

Growth - it’s a time of reflection; all of this reflecting is great but then it’s about taking the reflection further and going forward with your actions. It’s easy to forget the thoughts that we’ve had during lockdown now that restrictions are easing and to go back to our old habits but I think it’s important to use this difficult period of time as a place of growth and to not forget the reflective thoughts as life slowly resumes to the ‘new normal’.