English/Scottish | Turkish
My Dad (Baba) worked as an engineer on Turkish cargo ships and so had already travelled quite a bit before meeting my Mam. In the early 90's he came to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to learn English and lodged with a woman who acted as a host for international students. My Grandma, as a friend of hers, took the opportunity to introduce her daughter to my Dad. They were engaged eight weeks later.
In the case of my parents, both sides of my family initially approved the match and so they didn't have to struggle for acceptance like other intercultural couples have. However, in hindsight I believe they had some naivety around the realities of marriage in a multicultural context and the mental and emotional work it demands of couples. In addition to the flux and personal development which comes with sharing a life and household with another person, intercultural couples must also undergo another introspective journey together if they are to be 'successful'. This involves unlearning assumptions and prejudices, making a genuine effort to better understand the other culture and in this case dispelling beliefs perpetuated by Orientalism and Eurocentrism.
As an adult who grew up observing interplay and tension between religious and cultural schemas on a daily basis, I have a strong aversion to dogmatic beliefs and Black-and-White perspectives, being conscious of the harm they can cause both on the scale of individual relationships and across our globalised world.
I grew up in a coastal town in the North East which was predominantly populated by White Brits. Resultantly I was primarily raised by English culture. Exposure to Turkish culture was usually limited to visiting the 'Anavatan' (Motherland) each summer; leaning out of balconies in Istanbul, then crossing the Anatolian plateau by car and getting involved in the annual hazelnut harvests my family did and still do as their livelihood.
As a child I went to Turkish school on the weekend to learn both the Turkish language and the Arabic script for reading the Qur'an. When this school was temporarily closed and later reopened I chose not to go back. As an adult I regret this and see this as partially responsible for my disconnection to the culture; yet I give my twelve year old self grace for not wanting to attend school six days a week! I still hope and intend to improve my Turkish in the near future.
In my family, our main way of connecting to Turkish culture was through food and the process of preparing it. As is the case in many cultures, food preparation is usually done in a communal context with (primarily the women of the family) chipping in and contributing different roles. It is just as much of a bonding experience as it is practical. On occasion, my parents would work together to make köfte with rice and cacık (similar to tzatziki). As a young girl it was my job to make the cacık, and I took pride in being able to contribute this simple side dish on each occasion. These days I pop some Erkin Koray on and enjoy making (and eating) köfte and cacık when I have the time.
As a White-passing person, I can relate a lot to Jassa Ahluwalia when he writes that he was perceived as 'acceptably exotic' growing up, as opposed to the more discriminatory perceptions and prejudices that are assigned to POC kids. Weirdly I think the lack of ethnic diversity in my hometown shielded me from discrimination in some ways. I think for most locals Türkiye was the place that people went to for their summer holidays, and Turks were the people who cut their kebabs for them!
Looking back in reality however I can see that anti-Muslim sentiment was still rife growing up and although it wasn't usually directed at me, witnessing its commonality in discourse was still impactful from a young age. The experience of being an involuntary voyeur/subject of racism and Islamophobia has continued into my adulthood, where some people feel free to make comments to me both when they don't realise who they're speaking to, and also when they do. I think my experiences as an adult has made me feel more isolated from mainstream British society than I had felt in childhood; I wasn't old enough to notice the extent to which Western discourses dehumanise Muslims and those from the Global South at that age.
As a Turk who has not been integrated into a Turkish diaspora, I find myself experiencing a familiar mix of excitement and conflict on the rare occasions that 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 can sometimes get a similar feeling in ethnically diverse spaces, where I feel that my chances of being acknowledged as someone who has a place there land somewhere in the 'when pigs fly' category. 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 at university and began to pick apart concepts of race and Orientalism, I began 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 that in my case the term 'White' was reductive; at least in the context of living in the UK. I felt much more comfortable as a 'mixed' person. The comfort I felt from adopting the term 'mixed' was marred by the realisation 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.
Although I struggle with feelings of imposter syndrome, testimonies like Ahluwalia's 'Both Not Half' are helping me to feel ownership of the term 'mixed', and helping me internalise that ethnic and cultural identity is more than the phenotypes we present on the outside.
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 for many mixed-race peoples you can feel that you 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'. It was through a teary reading of a historical account of one mediaeval European monarch who allegedly altered his looks to appear as his 'Arab' father; that I realised that people like us have always existed and have had diverse experiences struggling with and expressing their identity.
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.
Since I have adopted the term 'mixed' I have struggled to find role models that I can relate to, as I imagine is the case with many mixed-race peoples who don't find themselves part of a nationally/internationally recognised mixed-race community. I would argue that Ahluwalia's work and efforts to articulate our experiences make him a role model to mixed people, particularly to those who are White-passing.
I remember on one occasion in high school I was deemed a 'half-Muslim' after I told my peers that although my family weren't necessarily 'practising' Muslims, we didn't eat pork at home or anywhere else. Even as a child relatively sheltered from racism I knew this was a reductive term which stemmed from difficulties imagining what a mixed-cultural household might operate like. In any case it was playground banter and I brushed it off, but I imagine that a comment like that could have been more damaging for any kids who had already experienced frequent and overt racism. I also vaguely remember that I must have heard the term 'half-caste' when I was a child and talked to my Dad about it. He responded passionately with 'I hate terms like 'half-this' or 'half-that'. You are a full person'. I remember at the time thinking that this was pedantic; in adulthood I now see that my Dad understood that in referring to yourself in 'half-measures', you allow both yourself and other people to define your identity and self in reductive, binary terms. By rejecting this I can freely admit that not I nor anyone else really knows where Britishness ends and Turkishness begins.
Both of my cultures have been moulded by their status as post-colonial cultures. Although their legacies are very different, both the British and Ottoman empires sought to bring diverse people under their aegis and integrate them into a globalised culture. With this in mind, I admire indigenous cultures which have managed to maintain their identities, religions, kinship ties etc into today despite the difficulties this entails and often state- sponsored attempts to assimilate them. I also believe that it is often these cultures which maintain a mutualistic, respectful relationship to the land they live on and sustain non-extractive ways of living. I believe we should look to such cultures as guides to inform how we should govern our relationship to land and environment going forward.
If I could I would put some items of traditional women's clothing / jewellery from my region into the box - I think this would have helped me to feel more connected to my ancestry. Another would be photographs of my family when they were younger, reminding me of what they were like and what their lives were like when they were my age; what experiences we might have shared and which were more culturally exclusive.
Finally, any artefacts or books passed down through the family. All of these items would essentially serve the purpose of reminding a mixed person like myself; although it feels like you are a product of twentieth century globalism, you do have a history, a land and a people that came before you.