German | Afghan
I am the youngest of three children, me and my brothers grew up within German and European culture. My Mum didn’t speak Persian with us growing up, partly because she wanted to improve her own German as a young Mother and partly because there was just a lot of German influence around, being surrounded with my Dad’s side of the family. So, it’s very understandable, but she regrets it a lot now that we’re grown up, and so do we. I have tried to learn some Persian at University, but language learning as an adult is so much more difficult! My parents both love traveling and exploring different cultures, and they both speak multiple languages. In fact my Dad probably knows more Persian than me. I was really fortunate to travel around the world with them as a child and teenager and they have passed on their love for exploring the world to me.
I feel positive about my heritage and happy to share it with people who are interested. This is in stark contrast to my Mum, who is always extremely uncomfortable when people ask her where she is from. I know that she has faced many challenges living in Germany and situations in which she isn’t taken fully seriously, because she is a woman of a different ethnicity, whose first language isn’t German. This makes me sad and frustrated.
Unfortunately, I don’t find it easy to frequently connect to the Afghan side of my heritage. I have never been to Afghanistan and it is obviously hard to judge when it will be safe to visit in the future. Sadly, my Mum also hasn’t been back in nearly fifty years and all of her family are now spread out across the US, Germany, France and Denmark. She came to Germany when she was only 18, so I imagine it wouldn’t be easy going back these days. Her older sister, who is a medical doctor, spends half the year working in a hospital in Kabul these days and seems to have a stronger connection to her native country.
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