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Turkish‐American immigration history and identity formations

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 24; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1360200042000296672

1469-9591

İlhan Kaya,

Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy

Abstract This study surveys the pattern of Turkish immigration and integration in the United States, and examines Turkish‐American identity formations in the context of American society. The paper begins with an overview of Turkish immigration in the United States by classifying it in three distinctive immigration waves. It then analyzes Turkish‐American struggles for re‐constructing new identities by looking at how Turkish identities in the United States are constructed, maintained, and re‐constructed, and how Turkish‐American ‘meanings’ are negotiated and contested. The study emphasizes the multiplicity, complexity, and contingency of Turkish‐Americanness in regard to Westernness, Middle Easternness, Americanness and Turkishness, and problematizes ethnic labels such as ‘Turkish’ or ‘Turkish‐American’ by showing their multiple, complex, and contingent meanings. The study is based on the author's observations and in‐depth interviews with members of the Turkish‐American community during the last two years in the New York City metropolitan area. Notes H. Varenne, ‘Diversity as American Cultural Category’, in eds C. A. K. Greenhouse, Roshanak, Democracy and Ethnography: Constructing Identities in Multicultural Liberal States, Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1998, pp. x, 305. According to the US Department of State, the number of Muslims in America is over six million and is rapidly increasing. For more information, see Fact Sheet: Islam in the United States, 2001, available online at: ⟨http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/islam/fact2.htm⟩ (accessed 20 May 2003). I. Hayani, ‘Arabs in Canada: Assimilation or Integration?’ in ed. W. M. Suleiman, Arabs in America, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999, pp. 284–304. K. Karpat, ‘Turks in America’, in ed. T. D. Stephane, Les Annales de L'Autre Islam (Annals of Islam), Vol. 3, Paris: Erism, 1995, pp. 231–252. F. Ahmed, Turks in America: The Ottoman Turk's Immigrant Experience, Connecticut: Columbia International Press, 1986. Ibid. Frank Ahmed provides an interesting history of early Turkish immigrants. See ibid. During my interviews in New York City in 2002, I met several physicians and engineers who came to the United States during the post World War II period. Rochester, NY still has a significant number of tailors who came to the United States during the 1960s. Also, most refugees were from former Soviet Union who escaped from the Soviet oppression after WWII. For more information on migration and globalization, see A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Turkey experienced dramatic social and political changes with the vision that Turgut Ozal introduced. According to a report prepared by the Turkish Council of Higher Education, more than 50,000 Turkish students are receiving an education abroad, with 15,000 studying in the United States. This map is based on US Census data: US Bureau of the Census, available online at: ⟨http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/ancestry/Turkish.txt⟩, Internet release date 18 February 1998 (accessed 28 July 2004). For more information, see 2000 Census data on ancestry. FTAA is based in New York City, while ATAA is based in Washington, DC. Both full time schools belong to a religiously‐oriented movement under the leadership of Fethullah Gulen whose followers opened hundreds of schools in Turkey and Central Asia. In addition to formal interviews, I spent the last two summers in New York City and met with many community leaders as well as community members by attending weddings, conferences, picnics, and religious gatherings. According to US Immigration and Naturalization Service, 3,229 Turkish immigrants came to the United States in 2001. S. Pile and N. J. Thrift, Mapping the Subject: Geographies of Cultural Transformation, London, New York: Routledge, 1995. For more on space and identity, see D. Massey, ‘Politics and Space/Time’, in eds M. Keith and S. Pile, Place and the Politics of Identity, London and New York: Routledge, 1993, pp. viii, 235. Ibid. For more information, see A. Kadioglu, ‘The Paradox of Turkish Nationalism and the Construction of Official Identity’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 32, No. 2, 1996, p. 17. B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, revised and extended edn, London and New York: Verso, 1991. For more on space and identity, see Massey, ‘Politics and Space/Time’, op. cit. P. Jackson, Maps of Meaning: an Introduction to Cultural Geography, London and New York: Routledge, 1994. Pile and Thrift, Mapping the Subject, op. cit. M. H. Yavuz, ‘Five Stages of the Construction of Kurdish Nationalism’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 7, No. 3, 2001, pp. 1–24. A. Appadurai, Modernity at Large, op. cit. S. E. Cornell and D. Hartmann, Ethnicity and Race: Making Identities in a Changing World, Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 1998. E. Soja and B. Hooper, ‘The Spaces that Difference Makes: Some Notes on the Geographical Margins of New Cultural Politics’, in Keith and Pile, Place and the Politics of Identity, op. cit. For more information on identity and space, see Massey, ‘Politics and Space/Time’, op. cit. E. W. Said, Orientalism, 1st edn, New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. B. Aras and O. Caha, ‘Fethullah Gulen and His Liberal “Turkish Islam” Movement’, Middle East Review of International Relations, Vol. 4, No. 4, 2000. M. Erdogan, Islam in Turkish Politics: Turkey's Quest for Democracy without Islam, 2002, available online at: ⟨http://www.liberal‐dt.org.tr/Ingilizce/articles/me_democracy.htm⟩ (accessed 13 January 2003). H. J. Barkey, ‘State–Society Relations—The Struggles of a “Strong” State’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, 2000, p. 20. M. H. Yavuz, ‘Cleansing Islam from the public sphere’, Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 54, No. 1, 2000. Aras and Caha, ‘Fethullah Gulen’, op. cit. Barkey, ‘State–Society Relations’, op. cit. Aras and Caha, ‘Fethullah Gulen’, op. cit. Ibid. This sort of representation is shared by both the Turkish State and non‐governmental organizations. E. W. Said, Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World, revised edn, New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Ahmed, Turks in America, op. cit. Karpat, ‘Turks in America’, op. cit. In regard to answering my question about what they like most about America, virtually all people that I talked to said ‘freedom’ was the best thing they liked about America. In his study on Arabs in Canada, Hayani provides an interesting picture of identity negotiation among second generation Arabs, which has many parallels with second generation Turkish‐Americans. For more information, see Hayani, ‘Arabs in Canada’, op. cit. E. W. Said, There are Many Islams, Counterpunch.com, 2001, available online at: ⟨http://www.counterpunch.org/saidattacks.html⟩ (accessed 16 September 2001).