Jan. 13, 2025
By Sena Fidan
Editor
This article is part of a four-part in-depth reporting project about culture.
A bell rings. I am surrounded by my classmates, and my lunch box is staring at me. The room becomes filled with laughter and similar combinations of sandwiches, buttered pasta, cups of fruit, small sugary treats and snack-sized bags of chips.
I unzip my bag to reveal the leftover fasulye my mother packed me. Slowly pulling out the Tupperware, I don’t have to look up to feel everybody’s glance shifted forward on my food. Though they mean no harm, their questions and comments remind me how different I am.
This troubling feeling of being different lingered throughout my adolescence. The 5000+ mile distance between the United States and Turkey has never felt large to me. For as long as I can remember, I have been bridging between the two countries and cultures, trying to balance where I live and where my roots run deep.
Since childhood, I have struggled to fit in and find my place among the people around me. I spent my days at a traditional American school having routine conversations in English. However, when the final bell rang, and it was finally time to go home, it was as if I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean with the simple act of opening my front door.
With a Turkish soap opera playing as background noise, I felt a sense of relief come over me. When I entered my home and took off my shoes, I was leaving the Americanized version of myself outside, free to embrace the part of me I constantly had to explain and simplify for the surrounding world.
“Our nights, filled with sips of Turkish black tea and bilingual conversation, have filled me with a sense of belonging and pride.“
School expanded further than academic education for me. Through my teachers and classmates, I learned what being American is: hugs and handshakes instead of a kiss on each cheek, the importance of boy bands, the difference between Disney World and Disneyland…. These cultural markers gave me a sense of American identity; I felt a bridge forming between my two worlds.
However, as much as school served as an educating factor, it was also a reminder. Following every holiday break, I couldn’t help but feel like I had missed out on something I was never invited to in the first place. With every explanation of the annual familial traditions my peers shared, I had a silent longing in my heart. I have only one memory of celebrating a holiday with my extended family back in Turkey, and it pained me to accept that I would likely not have experiences similar to the ones of my classmates.
Family is not an explicit concept, though. After they arrived in the United States in the late ‘90s, my parents found and connected with other Turkish individuals like themselves. These relationships have lasted decades and carried into younger generations. This community has become my second family, one filled with cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents and more, not bound by blood but by our heritage and love. Our nights, filled with sips of Turkish black tea and bilingual conversation, have filled me with a sense of belonging and pride.
Balancing my heritage and my residential environment has never been easy, but it has provided me with strength and satisfaction. I am happy to be the product of two worlds, each shaping me differently and contributing to my overall being. With each day, my Turkish and American identities weave together into something unique, something I can call my own; within it, I find my authentic self.
