Decision on newborn's racial identity as Anak Malaysia and later Chinese slammed in Malaysia

Selangor MCA has expressed its sympathy to the Indian community who are unhappy with Subang Jaya assemblyman Hannah Yeoh over the racial identity of her newborn baby girl.

The Public Complaints Bureau said it regretted Yeoh’s action in not putting the ethnicity of Shay Adora Ram as that of her Indian husband.

Bureau adviser C.K. Lim told a press conference that based on convention, the child’s ethnicity should follow that of the father, The Star reports.

“Her husband is an Indian and it is customary to name the child''s ethnicity as Indian,” he said, adding the assemblyman''s initial stance to define her baby as anak Malaysia (child of Malaysia) was politically motivated.

The issue began when the baby was defined as Chinese after the NRD in Putrajaya declined the couple''s initial proposal to use anak Malaysia as an ethnicity or race of their child, The Star reports.

Yeoh had claimed she and her husband opted to leave the column for “race” blank but was rejected by the NRD official who attended to them.

To safeguard their daughter''s interest, the couple then registered Shay as Chinese, for the time being.