Anwar, Iskander

Anwar, Iskander Sept 11, 2024 20:45:33 GMT -8

Post by Iskander Anwar on Sept 11, 2024 20:45:33 GMT -8

ISKANDER YUSUF NURAL ANWAR

No, he refuses

Nineteen

December 26, 2004

Male

Gay

Monkey

CBCC Student / Barista at Urban Cafe

Tiny 1 bed 1 bath apartment with Jungho

Appearance

Face Claim: Bertrand Tio Christopher

Iskander gives off vibes of being taller than he actually is, but he's only about 165 cm (5' 5"). He is lean and lanky in his build though. He has very expressive eyes and mouth, and wears most of his emotions on his face, much to his chagrin. He has naturally black hair, dark brown eyes, and mid-dark olivey-gold skin that changes drastically with how much sun he's been getting.

Since coming out and getting disowned and living on his own, he's been playing with hair colors and styles a lot and jewelry some. He's got his hair dyed bright red, and he really likes how it looks on him, so he thinks that he's going to stick with it, but he's also done blue, purple, silver, and green. He also has been playing with makeup a lot, and adores eyeliner.

He's still working on figuring out his overall sense of style, but it's working its way to some flavor of flamboyant now that he's not being pushed to wear a very specific sort of clothes by parents.

Personality

Iskander has always been shy of conflict and also worn his emotions very clearly on his face and his sleeve, even if he would mostly have rather been better at being subtle.

His heritage and his connection to it is very complicated to him, and he would really like to eventually reconnect with it in a way that has nothing to do with his parents and general family of origin.

He's quick to learn and clever with words, so even though he didn't start learning English until first grade, he is now a really good writer and speaker, though speaking in front of crowds will never be a strong suit. He loves poetry and writing a lot though.

Iskander hated people trying to nickname him to Xander all his childhood, and part of the reason that he was so excited for Xander to join their friend group is that everyone finally stopped. He hates when people mispronounce his name.

He finds it vaguely funny that he works for a coffee shop and doesn't drink coffee, but the pay is good and the job was right there when he really really needed it.

Family

MOTHER
Name: Iman Rahma Anwar
Birth Year: 1976
Occupation: Housewife, does some work as a volunteer translator in their community for things like medical visits
Feelings Toward: Betrayal. They were close when he was little, and she was always the parent he went to with all his little hurts, but she was also the first to shut him out.

FATHER
Name: Zakaria Imran Arif Anwar
Birth Year: 1972
Occupation: Structural Engineer
Feelings Toward: Betrayal. While they were never as close as he once was with his mom, Iskander definitely felt horrible when his father decided that he was worthless after years of being treated as his pride (he was the only son).

OLDER SISTER
Name: Maimunah Anisa Anwar Hadi
Birth Year: 1996
Occupation: Housewife (still in Aceh)
Feelings Toward: He doesn't know her very well. She stayed behind in Aceh when the rest of the family moved, living with an aunt and uncle, then got married right after she became an adult. When they did talk, which they haven't since Iskander was outed, they didn't have anything to relate about. She has four kids (b. 2015, 2017, 2020, 2022), and Iskander wishes that he could have had a relationship with his nieces and nephews.

OLDER SISTER
Name: Jamilah Nur Anwar Saleh
Birth Year: 1998
Occupation: Housewife (married another Indonesian American)
Feelings Toward: Extremely distant. She hasn't spoken to him since he was outed, following their parents' lead. He misses interacting with his nieces and nephews from her family. She lives south of Seattle though, and she married the son of a family friend, which does mean he at least doesn't run the risk of running into her on the street. She has three kids (b. 2018, 2019x2 (twins)).

OLDER SISTER
Name: Hamidah Alya Anwar Baccay
Birth Year: 2000 (early in the year)
Occupation: Housewife (married her high school sweetheart, who is Filipino American, and their parents are Conflicted)
Feelings Toward: Probably his favorite sister. She moved out to get married quite young like their other older sisters, but at the distinct displeasure of their parents (Iskander is pretty clear now that she wanted out). She has been talking about going back to school and he is encouraging her. They still talk, and he's really relieved about it. She has three kids (b. 2018, 2020, 2023), and Iskander dotes on them. She offered to let him move in with her when he got kicked out, but he didn't feel like he could go with it because she and her husband and the kids live in a three bedroom house with her husband's parents (he joked that he'd have had to sleep on the roof, they were mostly able to laugh it off).

OLDER SISTER
Name: Halimah Latifah Anwar
Birth Year: 2002
Occupation: College Student (Nursing School, grad 2025)
Feelings Toward: Tense but still talking. She's the only one of his sisters to have pursued higher education to date (he's proud of her). Only two years older than him, she didn't hit the ground running nearly as well in the US as he did, struggling with English for a long time. They did rely on each other quite a bit in elementary school, but he was definitely discouraged from spending time with her by their parents as they both got older, especially as they saw her as the rebellious one. She's still supported by their parents, but somewhat grudgingly. They do appreciate that she at least went into a "caring" profession.

History

Iskander was the fifth child born to Zakaria and Iman Anwar. They lived in the Province of Aceh, Indonesia at the time, and he was born on the day of the horrible tsunami that hit Aceh in December 2004. The only reason that the family wasn't swept away with their home and most of their possessions is that they were all at or near the hospital significantly further inland.

Zakaria Anwar (Iskander's father) was a fairly successful structural engineer, so despite losing most of their possessions and having to move in with Zakaria's older brother, his wife, and their four children, they managed alright for themselves in the rebuilding period. However, due to political unrest, the opportunities presented in it, and a slew of other things, they had already been considering trying to relocate to the US.

Zakaria was able to get a position at an architectural and engineering firm in Seattle in 2009, just before Iskander turned 5 years old. All of the family except his eldest sister, Maimunah, moved to WA, finding first an apartment, and later when they had settled, a house, in Cedar Beach. Maimunah remained with the uncle and aunt who had taken them in when Iskander was born, already tentatively planning to marry the son of a friend of the family in Aceh. While she communicates regularly with the family, Iskander hasn't seen her in person since then, and she was married very shortly after she turned 19.

They settled into the Indonesian-American community in the Seattle area, especially connecting with other families from Aceh, and Iskander went to a small private kindergarten when he first arrived attached to the mosque that they attended. He would switch to public school for first grade, and that was when he actually started learning English, being placed into ELL. His older sisters (Jamilah - 11, Hamidah - 9, and Halimah - 7) had been put into public school right away. Jamilah and Hamidah had learned some English in school, so they started to adapt pretty quickly, but Halimah struggled a lot. Iskander, it turned out, picked up language very very quickly, and he was starting to experiment with writing little stories by the time he reached second grade and was put in his first non-protected ELL class: Mrs. Pace's class. She was the first and last teacher until high school in the US to correctly pronounce his name without his prompting continuously. She is his favorite teacher forever because of it.

In second grade, he met Joey Rochana, and immediately latched onto the other SE Asian kid in the class, not caring that they didn't share a language, his English was getting better fast. Joey was a sweet friendly kid, and they got along well, even though Iskander was much much more serious than him. They also bonded with Yuuki that year, who had been left adrift without their best friend, but Iskander already knew at age 7 that they would never, ever mention Yuuki's gender to his parents. Joey he would occasionally invite over, but not Yuuki, which meant that he didn't go over to Yuuki's house either. On the other hand, he ended up over at Joey's house a lot, and he enjoyed spending time in the much more relaxed Rochana household, where he and Joey were both slightly spoiled.

By middle school, Iskander was fully fluent in English and was starting to win writing competitions. Something that his parents looked at with bewilderment, but as something that would probably serve him well in his college applications. At the same time, Iskander was becoming aware of the politics of where he'd come from (that his parents were pretty in agreement with) and that he was very very gay. This made him try to be more and more reserved around his parents and made him a pretty melancholy awkward middle schooler. He relied a lot on the safe haven of the Rochana household during that time, and when Xander joined their friend group in 7th grade, he was immediately thrilled to be able to go to his beloved second grade teacher as one of the parents of his friend group. Mrs. Pace is amazing, and he's a tiny bit jealous that Xander gets her as a mom.

High school was a weird weird time in Iskander's life because he got a lot more freedom of movement, and was able to do things like join clubs and go do things with his friends. He did GSA and Asian-American club, but he also felt a lot of cognitive dissonance interacting with the other Indonesian-American students in his class. His parents had applied for US citizenship, and he along with them got it right before the start of his senior year of high school.

This order of events was very important in his life because a month into his senior year (when he was still seventeen) one of the other Indonesian-American kids at the school called his parents and told them that he was in the GSA and that their son was gay. He cannot understand why they would choose to do that, but he came home from the Rochana household, during a surprising storm in early October, to find his parents glowering. They questioned him about his behavior and sexuality, and by the end of the conversation, kicked him out of the house with nothing with what he'd been carrying back from Joey's house.

He walked back to the Rochana household, not knowing where else to go, and the Rochana family took him in and gave him a place to stay. Halimah reached out to him that night, and told him that she'd help him sneak back in and get the rest of his important stuff when their parents were out, and he did manage that over a few short trips in the next few weeks. He felt awful to burden the Rochana family, and even though they told him not to be, he was incredibly guilty. While Mrs. Pace also offered to take him in during this time frame, he declined because he would have to share a room with someone at any of these places, and he felt less of a burden sharing with Joey, who he'd been having sleep overs with since he was seven.

When he turned 18, a few months later, he changed all of his contact information to match up to the fact that he was staying with the Rochana family, incredibly grateful that Joey's parents were willing to let him stay but still feeling guilty. He also got a job at Urban Cafe, working evenings and weekends. He'd originally been looking to try to go to a school with an esteemed creative writing program (with something else that his parents would also agree to, maybe pre-law), but those plans were dashed with being disowned, and he spent the second half of his senior year setting up plans to go to CBCC for the first two years of undergrad so that he could get as many credits as he could, save up, and have time to look for programs that he could afford (or scholarships he could apply to). He's doing a degree for transfer with a focus in English, that he should finish in 2025, and then he hopes to get into a creative writing program somewhere). He's also been doing a lot of personal writing, a mix of poetry and prose, and has been trying to get published. He's had a few small things accepted places, but he's definitely not had a big break anywhere. He doesn't really talk about it much with his friend group, though it's come up in passing some, wanting to make sure that he's really come into his own.

When Jungho came out semi-disasterously during his own senior year, he and Iskander started to hatch a plan that they would get their own little place together as soon as Jungho graduated high school so that he could stop relying on Joey's parents for a place to live, since even though Urban Cafe paid quite well, it wasn't enough for him to get a place on his own and pay for college (and he felt less bad with getting housing help than getting financial help).

Hamidah, the oldest sister he's closest to, did offer to take him in very shortly after he was kicked out, furious with their parents on his behalf, but she and her husband and their kids already lived in a small three bedroom with her husband's parents, and there was really no place for him. He has accepted a little bit of financial help from her (especially when she's been able to kind of get it from their parents in a roundabout way), but he's reluctant to do so because she has her own family to take care of. His parents are much better off than her husband's family, but because they didn't really approve of the match, she's also not gotten a lot of financial support from them (though it seems to be getting better with grand kids in the picture, he's pretty sure that their parents willfully ignored the math of when her first kid was born). Hamidah has been talking with him about maybe going to take some classes at CBCC since he's been having a positive experience with it, and he's really proud of her.

His life is starting to find a shape again, but he's really uncertain about the future still, and he hopes that his big dreams of writing as a career will maybe work out. The coffee shop (even if he doesn't drink coffee) is OK for now, and the people there are pretty great. He appreciates how queer friendly it is, and that it's a place his family of origin wouldn't frequent (except the two sisters closest to him in age, who his parents bemoan have become so Americanized).

Member Information

Hello! My name is Etienne!
I was born in 1989.
My pronouns are he/him.
This profile is complete.