Race is a touchy issue in Singapore, subject to even more regulation and policing in a context where free expression is already restrained and suppressed. While the trope of multiracial, multireligious harmony gets brought up repeatedly, racial inequality continues to pervade Singaporean society in a structural and systemic manner.

Nuances of social identity and belonging are often lost in public discourse. Singaporeans are sorted into racial categories encapsulated by the CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others) model first developed and used by British colonial administrators. These categories are used across governmental and non-governmental institutions to regulate individuals, families and communal groups. For instance, the Ethnic Integration Policy sets quotas determining how many households of a particular ethnic group can live in a public housing block or neighbourhood. Cultural ideals are emphasised along racial lines drawn up by the state while people are encouraged to adopt their group’s language—primary school students recorded as Chinese, Malay or Indian are generally expected to study Mandarin, Malay or Tamil respectively as their mother tongues; students with double-barrelled races will be assigned a mother tongue based on the first component of their registered races unless they apply to their schools to do otherwise.

• Tags: Ariel Athwal-Yap, Issue 38, Narayanan Ganapathy, Singapore