English/Scottish | Turkish
As a Turk who has not been integrated into a Turkish diaspora, I find myself experiencing a familiar mix of excitement and conflict when I find myself amongst others of the Turkish community. Whilst I really want to get involved with the chat and activities, and get to know more about my family's culture; I feel my rudimentary Turkish and lack of cultural exposure leaves me sticking out like a sore thumb. I haven't found a way to fully address these feelings as of yet; though I hope that I will get an opportunity to become more integrated into my Father's culture in the future.
When I was studying History I began to pick apart concepts of race and Orientalism, I started to seriously question what I was as a mixed British and an Asiatic Turkish person, and whether or not I could be considered 'White'. After a bout of academic study and a significant deal of personal introspection, I felt much more comfortable as a 'mixed' person. I also realised that I had been perceived as a White British person by most throughout my whole life. When I had introduced the idea of being mixed to others (some of which I'd known for years) they would label me as 'clearly White'. The discrepancy I feel between how I perceive myself and how others perceive me is often jarring but I have accepted that this will be an ongoing occurrence throughout my life.
I would strongly encourage the next generation of mixed-race peoples to make a dedicated effort to delve into their history; whether this be research into their ancestral lineage, or of the cultures they lay claim to. I think you can feel like your existence is the result of random trajectories intersecting in a way which was only made possible through the advent of post-modern globalism and travel. This can lead to a sense of rootlessness, feeling disconnected from the land you live in and feeling that you don't have a 'history'. History is a tool to be used by multi-ethnic people to understand where and who they came from, which great swathes of movement and time led to their being and why they rightly occupy their place in the world.
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