A question for diaspora-born Mallus: Do you identify as Indian, Keralite, or (insert diaspora nationality) first, and why?

Hi so yeah the question is self explanatory.

For some context though, I am a diaspora mallu, born and raised in Canada. I identify as canadian first, BUT, if someone asked me what my ethnicity was, I would tell them "i am a mallu/keralite" before i say "i'm indian". Im curious to what other people think.

See, the thing is, here in Canada, the vast majority of the south asian immigrants here are Punjabi/North Indian. Because of this, indian identity in canada has pretty much become equivalent with Punjabi/North Indian culture. If i tell people I am indian, they immediately assume I am sikh, or hindu, that I should be wearing a turban, and that I speak hindi/punjabi. But i dont! i speak malayalam and I grew up eating meen curry, saying the kontha with my family and watching malayalam movies. I have no idea what bhangra is, but i do know kathakali. My favourite movies are Premam and Minnaram, nothing from bollywood. So you can kind of see why I just can't identify as "indian" first over "keralite." Im not saying india is bad, like, sure it's amazing, but I feel like the term can just be damaging and kind of culturally erasing to say we are all Indian rather than Mallu, tamil, punjabi, gujarati, etc. It's a very beautiful thing to be from these unique cultures, and i feel like saying im "indian" would be to just put a blanket term that doesnt have an actual proper culture.

As an analogy, it's like... imagine your from europe, right? Italian, english, german, french, whatever etc. et.c. and whenever someone asks you your ethnicity, you just say
"i'm european."

I mean, its TRUE and all, but, isnt that kind of weird? Like, wouldnt you rather say "im french, im english, im german" etc.?

India is like that too. We are not all the same race or people, that doesnt make one culture any worse or better, no, what I am saying is that I feel like we cannot just erase or blanket-cover ALL of these BEAUTIFUL, unique cultures of india all under one term such as "indian" or even "bharati" like, it just feels wrong to me. But yeah. Curious to know what you guys think.

also disclaimer: this isnt a seperatist post or anything, lol. im just genuinly curious here.