Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narratives of Nashville's Kurdish Youth

Transcription

1 Wetern Kentucky Univerity TopSCHOLAR Mater Thee & Specialit Project Graduate School Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narrative of Nahville' Kurdih Youth Stephen Ro Goddard Wetern Kentucky Univerity, Follow thi and additional work at: Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Common, and the United State Hitory Common Recommended Citation Goddard, Stephen Ro, "Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narrative of Nahville' Kurdih Youth" (2014). Mater Thee & Specialit Project. Paper Thi Thei i brought to you for free and open acce by TopSCHOLAR. It ha been accepted for incluion in Mater Thee & Specialit Project by an authorized adminitrator of TopSCHOLAR. For more information, pleae contact topcholar@wku.edu.

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3 NEITHER (FULLY) HERE NOR THERE: NEGOTIATION NARRATIVES OF NASHVILLE S KURDISH YOUTH A Thei Preented to The Faculty of the Department of Folk Studie and Anthropology Wetern Kentucky Univerity Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirement for the Degree Mater of Art By Stephen Ro Goddard May 2014

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5 Thi thei i dedicated to the many thouand of young expatriate Kurd who need a place to call home and to my colleague around the world who have acrificed to help them find it.

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It i blatantly obviou that a work of thi magnitude require help, of every tripe and ize. It alo demand gratitude. So I thank, firt of all, my interviewee (Kian, Dahneh, Majeed, Dilman, Klavih, Youza, Dilan, Kajin, Shermin, Kavar, Lava and S.K.) for carving pace for me out of their buy chedule. They were under no obligation to help but they did and did it well. Thi tudy would have been a hollow production without the color and melody their torie provided. I would alo like to thank their familie for allowing me acce to their children. While it i true that mot were of age and o required no permiion to peak, in mot cae their home culture dictated otherwie. My interviewee were granted nodding approval, however, and gave u all a glimpe into another world a a reult. I would alo like to thank two other member of the Nahville Kurdih community by name. The firt i Dr. Kirmanj Gundi, an education profeor at Tenneee State Univerity in Nahville. Dr. Gundi provided hitorical, linguitic, and political aitance which proved to be invaluable. He wa alo incredibly encouraging in the proce and upportive of the project overall. Mr. Jamil Sameen, a long-time acquaintance of mine, paed along wonderful information on the Guam Kurd, thoe who came to Nahville in Hi quick mile brought one to my own face in the midt of a heavy load. My friend and neighbor, Steve Greenwood, erved a my emergency contact for computer-related iue. Hi knowledge and wonderful pirit in haring it made the iv

7 truggle with formatting iue much eaier to bear. Dave Dillard, the director of the non-profit with which I work, wa very graciou and upportive in thi new kind of movement into the Kurdih community. It i tandard practice in our organization for me to addre iue related to cultural adjutment, but not often in the direction of thi tudy and certainly not with the pecific demographic to which it give voice. It wa refrehing and Dave wa there to cheer me on at every point. The member of my thei committee deerve much thank. Dr. Ann Ferrell, the committee chair, wa wonderful to provide me the proper amount of leah to create without inadvertently choking myelf. Her helpful uggetion, quick repone to endle and overall poitivity made me believe I could finih well. Dr. Tim Evan wa no different. Hi ability to provide uccinct, alient critique of my jibber-jabber wa amazing and kept me moving along in the right direction. Dr. Johnton Njoku wa a avior, entering near the project end to erve a my neceary third member, depite a buy chedule and hampering health concern. I thank them all for modeling the bet of academia and the bet of humanity. Latly, I mut reerve my greatet appreciation for my family, epecially my amazing wife, Kim. Each of them ha endured many month of half-time involvement for me in the day-to-day activitie which make a home a joyful refuge. They have heard the oft-repeated refrain, I m almot done, more than they deerve or deire, I m ure. But Kim ha rien above them all, my contant companion in an arduou, pectacular journey, alway miling, alway erving, alway loving. Without her, I would not have taken the firt tep and I am wholly indebted for that alone. v

8 CONTENTS 1 Baggy Jean and Briyani 1 2 Wave of Sorrow, Wave of Hope 21 3 Hearing from the Peanut Gallery Both Side of the Same Coin Girl Have No Freedom 96 6 No Two Jut Alike Deeper, Wider. 147 Appendix A: Map of Kurditan..159 Appendix B: Map of Nahville, Tenneee 160 Appendix C: Thei Interview Workheet..161 Appendix D: Nahville School Survey Form ( ) 163 Bibliography vi

9 NEITHER (FULLY) HERE NOR THERE: NEGOTIATION NARRATIVES OF NASHVILLE S KURDISH YOUTH Stephen Ro Goddard May Page Directed by: Ann Ferrell, Tim Evan, and Johnton Njoku Department of Folk Studie and Anthropology Wetern Kentucky Univerity Nahville, Tenneee, i home to nearly fifteen thouand ethnic Kurd. They have come in four ditinct group over the coure of two decade to ecape the hardhip and horror of brutal central government policie, ome directed toward their extinction. Many of that number are young people who were infant or toddler when they were whiked away to the afety of temporary way tation prior to their arrival in the United State. What that mean i that thee youth have pent the majority of their formative year within the context of the American culture. Thi thei i a tudy of how they view their place within and/or apart from that culture and the one into which they were born, the Kurdih one. My contention i that they all live a double life. Over the coure of a even-month period in 2013, I conducted recorded interview with eleven Kurd in Nahville, age Mot were young women but all repreented a healthy cro-ection of experience a third-culture kid. What I dicovered i preented in three chapter dealing with the iue of emigration/immigration, gender, and identity. That i prefaced by a brief hitory of the Kurdih nation and of their movement out of Kurditan, a well a a dicuion of my fieldwork procedure and vii

10 product. My interviewee preent their perpective on each of thee iue through elect trancript portion provided in each chapter. My thei wa direct: young Kurd in Nahville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdih, i equally valued or hared at all time. They live in two world but are not and, perhap, cannot be fully inveted in either. That i what their word poke to me. But jut a clearly, there wa an unrivaled individuality in the way that every one of the eleven related to each community of which they were a part. Some were cloer to one than the other while other attempted a eemingly uncomfortable traddle. Either way, they managed the hand they were dealt a they deemed proper and mot did o remarkably well. viii

11 1 Baggy Jean and Briyani It came with the cold wind. Not that it could not have come at other time, I uppoe, but thi wa a winter arrival. The crowd had burgeoned inide the mallih room rented for the occaion, and by the time I arrived it wa time for movement. Two or three oon turned into ten, twelve, twenty, hand in hand, ide by ide, moving a one to the recorded ound of az and zirna. There were onlooker aplenty, retrained by age or indifference, ome too deep in converation to bother. Thi cultural oddity (a label many in thi outhern town would freely apply) played well in my opinion, even here in Muic City, U.S.A. (aka Nahville, Tenneee). It wa a cene with which I wa very familiar and, in fact, very fond. On thi night, in thi place and time, to the degree that any outider could feel it, I felt at home. Without warning, the door to the other world wung open, bringing a blat of winter reality. Thoe wind blew in a handful of young men, in their teen/early twentie, who did not look the part. Their clothe were not traditional garb, at leat not their parent tradition, but intead baggy jean, t-hirt and bling, a nod to the hip-hop culture which had taken over much of the world and, by all appearance, their own. I followed them with an odd mixture of curioity, humor and adne, watching a they exchanged pleaantrie but tood aloof, joined the dance but rarely in tep, lot it eemed among thoe who hould have been mot familiar. It wa then and there it came; an awful appreciation for the truggle of Nahville young Kurd who are caught between what wa and what i, the accepted and the expected. I knew from my earliet day 1

12 among thi refugee group that the kid often played the part of cultural broker for their elder, mediating a bet they could with caeworker, health official and educator. But thi wa a revelation of a newer, deeper ort that would pur me to purue relationhip with thi demographic a paionately a I had with their father and uncle before them. Thi work, then, i the product of that night and it ubequent puruit. It i the aggregate of identity marker, communicated in narrative by young Nahville Kurd who vary in age, education, country of origin and fealty to the ancetral homeland. Ray Cahman, in hi preface to Storytelling on the Northern Irih Border, aid that he conider torie that people tell each other to be eloquent of culture, a window into the hared belief, value, and worldview of a given group... (Cahman 2008: ix), that torie enable people to do important, recurring thing with language--entertain, peruade, evaluate one elf and one ocial environment, etablih and revie identity, imagine and enact community (Cahman 2008: ix). Cahman fieldwork in home and at community event did in fact validate the place of tory in revealing what wa important or true or accepted or deeply held by the group, a window into what wa hared. My own fieldwork, however, dicued at length in Chapter 2, wa intended to give voice to the ingular, the individual. Background I had been intereted in the Kurd ince my college day ( ), everal year of which coincided with the wort of the atrocitie committed by Saddam Huein againt Iraqi Kurd. In 1995, I began work with a Nahville, Tenneee-baed non-profit 2

13 organization which had come alongide local reettlement agencie during the greatet period of Kurdih immigration to Nahville ( ). In the proce, I met dozen of individual and familie who had experienced a depth of uffering wholly unknown to me in my homogenou, uburban, middle-cla world. It would, indeed, be a windfall for compaion and cultural relativim in my life. Thoe familie, my accidental intructor, would wretle with an iue in ubequent year, however, which rivaled the long, hurried trek through nowy mountain pae and year of cramped quarter in refugee camp and all, urpriingly, within the land of the free and the home of the brave. What would become of their children? Some familie had arrived in the U.S. with children in tow, while other birthed them later. I watched thi growth from a ditance, a the focu of our organizational work hifted more fully to Turkey and Iraq and I endured a year of cancer treatment. Periodically, new of the common variety (i.e., thi peron went to Kurditan, that peron had a baby, etc.) would pa my way but, by and large, family dynamic among thoe Kurd I had known the longet ecaped me. It wa not that I wa indifferent; I jut had iron in another fire. That would change in dramatic fahion everal year later when new of a community tragedy would become teleprompter material for local anchor. Several young Kurdih men, member of a local ethnic gang, would face attempted murder charge related to a drug deal gone bad. The aftermath of uch public haming wa tark and unequivocal: a new tandard by which parent meaured their own children humanity and Kurdayeti (Kurdihne) wa etablihed. 3

14 Surely the fear which bubbled to the urface following thoe terrible time had been there all along, gnawing at the mind of mother and father. It wa true their children were now afe, living in a nation ruled by law rather than fiat, the burden of a brutal overlord removed from their houlder. But it wa alo true that mot came from conervative Mulim and Chritian village in the mountain of northern Iraq, communitie with trict overight of growing, inquiitive youth. Immediate and extended family member monitored work and play carefully, epecially that of daughter. Now thee ame daughter, a well a their brother, were pending ix to eight hour a day in the care of tranger and in the company of the oppoite ex. Even more terrifying were the rehekan (black), a population virtually non-exitent in their world, except for the occaional film which howed them tealing car or brutalizing women. Language, of coure, wa alo an iue. A father left for long hour in factorie, retaurant and hotel with other refugee/immigrant and mother cared for mall children at home, taught by the like of Barney and the Rugrat, chool-age children traveled everyday to a place that wa otherworldly. In it, the culture, hitory, language and value of Kurdih life were diplaced by that of their kind benefactor, the United State, and it attendant permiive culture. Children outpaced adult in aimilation. The reult for many wa a great divide. I aw thi for myelf one afternoon in Nahville at a local market. Thi Middle Eatern grocery wa typical of many in the city; the green and yellow and purple of the fruit and vegetable tand, the amazing aroma of frehly baked bread and the hollow tare of a heep head behind the meat counter. Thi Iraqi market wa co-owned by an Arab 4

15 from the outh and a Kurd from the north. The latter wa a longtime friend of mine. He and hi family had fled Iraqi Kurditan to ecape the very real poibility of death at the hand of Saddam Huein, who had vowed to kill any and all Kurd with American affiliation, including thoe working for U.S. non-profit or for-profit organization following the firt Gulf War. After pending everal month on the iland of Guam with hundred of other ecapee, thi family of three arrived in Muic City. The year wa It wa the cutom of the non-profit organization with which I worked to welcome uch familie with a baket of eential and an offer to addre other need. Thi family received both. In the fifteen year ince that time, we continued to tay in touch though, a previouly mentioned, not to any great degree. We greeted each other at the occaional community gathering (i.e. New Year celebration, cultural fetival, wedding, etc.) and caught up on the latet denguba (new), yet the vat majority of our individual live moved along on eparate track. My time at hi hop one day wa one of thoe rare moment of interection, a way to connect with hi world. I exchanged greeting in Kurdih with my friend and aked about hi family. And, a alway, we talked about Kurditan. That day hi teenage on happened to be helping at the regiter and, o, I decided to include him in the converation. Hi word were both alarming and wonderfully intereting, poken not in Kurdih but Englih. I don t want to go to Kurditan. I never want to go to Kurditan, even to viit (my paraphrae). That wa painful for hi father to hear, I could tell. So why would he ay it? More importantly, why did he feel it? The father poke affectionately of the place from 5

16 which they had come, hi eye brightening with each word; the on, trangely, ued hi perfect, accent-free Englih to announce hi eeming didain for the very ame. How wa uch a cham poible after uch a relatively hort amount of time? It wa not naiveté which drove me to uch wonder. I had worked among Kurd for many year by thi time and had, at the very leat, a foundational undertanding of their worldview and it concomitant behavior. A an American I had been conditioned to expect a divergence between parent and adolecent, one that at time and in ome familie revealed itelf in the mot painful of way. But the Kurd come from a world of acute tribal and familial attachment, where the deire of the individual are ubumed by thoe of the group. Beyond that, my expectation concerning thi hitorically marginalized people would be, at the very leat, a feigned fealty to the brotherhood of thoe who had uffered and urvived, a modicum of gratitude. To put it in layman term, young Kurd hould pay homage to parent who had acrificed and to a culture (Kurdih) which had abided. The word of my friend on eemed to be devoid of uch entiment and brought into quetion the trength of or, indeed, the very exitence of cord binding him to a rich yet alien pat. Who then i he? Mary Pipher ha written that identity i formed by art, writing, dance, muic, and other form of elf expreion (Pipher 2002: 319). In other word, identity i formed by folklore (jut a it inform it). Thi thei explore the folkloric mean by which Kurd in Nahville, epecially thoe in the fifteen- to twenty-five year-old age range, expre themelve a hyphenated citizen, a Kurd and a American. From year pent with thi community, I have oberved readily apparent expreion of ethnic identity. Some 6

17 organize cultural and hitorical event to educate the American public about Kurdih heritage. Other attend community event in national cotume or participate in national dance group. Still other create rap muic to extol the virtue of the homeland, get ethnic tattoo or, more nefariouly, congregate around what i in Kurdih-community peak, a gangter lifetyle (albeit with a Kurdih twit). Then there are thoe, like the on of my friend, who eem entirely content to walk away from the world of their beloved familie. Thi i exactly where the other element of my reearch urface and that element i cauality. Why i there uch a diparity between young people who hare both the ame pat and the ame preent? Part of the anwer i clear. Regardle of how thee young Kurdih-American expre their eence, they have not come to their preent tate be tenya (alone). The gauntlet through which their familie had paed included the horrific (i.e., chemical weapon, haty ecape, and barbed-wire encloure), a well a the nearly unbearable (i.e., the other of language and culture, hard work for little pay and eparation from the communal life they had alway known). There i alo the iue of education. Some parent were doctor, engineer, lawyer or teacher in Kurditan; other were merely driver or guard. Each group, accordingly, adapted to life in America in different way and at different pace. All of thee thing contructed the len through which thee young Kurd now view themelve and other. And how do they view themelve? What i their true felt identity? That identity will be revealed through narrative, the torie of third-culture experience every one of thee young Kurd hare. I gathered thee torie to learn two 7

18 thing: how they expre (or hide) their ethnic identity and, more profoundly, why. What element, both experiential and familial, have been part of creating thi inimitable peron they have become? I contend that the anwer to thee quetion betray a contant movement and a highly-individualized hybridity on their part. My reearch will how that young Kurd in Nahville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdih, i equally valued or hared at all time. They are, in fact, neither (fully) here nor there. Methodology The mean by which I gathered the aforementioned narrative wa recorded interview, both individual and group. I met with a total of eleven people over the coure of a even-month period, from January-July Complete detail of the background and conduction of thee interview, including obtacle, interviewee bio, and a dicuion of reultant theme, can be found in Chapter 3. Literature Review Virtually every ubject worthy of cholarly inquiry i unique or, at the very leat, contain element which are. That i no le true for my own ubject, that being the cultural expreion of Kurdih youth in Nahville, Tenneee. The Kurd are an ancient people, a predominantly mountain people, an Indo-European people, both oppreed and oppreor, religiou and ecular, buinemen and artit, refugee and aylee. They ing and dance and draw and culpt. They raie heep, harvet wheat and pick apricot aplenty. They love their children. 8

19 In thee varied apect, they are not unlike many around the world. One thing i certain, however; there i no other group who hare the aggregate of experience, value and viion that the Kurd do. That i true acro the panoply of Kurd and, in microcom, the Kurd with which thi thei i concerned. The importance of thi i how it affect the approach to reearch. Should I conider all the diparate element which inform the cultural expreion of Nahville Kurdih youth or chooe but a few? Should I focu only on thoe ource that peak to their uniquene or alo on thoe which link them to the global village? In ome repect, the lack of relevant cholarhip helped. Through my experience working among Kurd, I wa aware that mot writing on thi group came from hitorian, political cientit, anthropologit, miionarie and traveler focued primarily on thing non-folkloric, and that, in the homeland. A earch through the Journal of American Folklore, Wetern Folklore, Journal of Folklore Reearch and other academic folklore ource confirmed my upicion. Additionally, the information concerning refugee/immigrant alo dealt primarily with political iue related to reettlement and, that too, outide the United State. If the ource did concern thoe within our border and peak to cultural iue, they did not deal with Kurd pecifically, except for one. Thi wa Karen O Connor A Kurdih Family: Journey Between Two World, in which he chronicle the tranition of one family in San Diego, California following their exodu from Iraq. Other ource looked at non-kurdih refugee/immigrant group. For example, Jon Holtzman dealt with thoe from eat Africa in Nuer Journey, Nuer Live: Sudanee 9

20 Refugee in Minneota. There are many point of departure between the pat and preent live of Nuer and Kurdih teen in their repective U.S. citie. Family connection, living condition, level of uffering, etc. are but a few. The ame can be aid for Marcelo Suarez-Arozco tudy of Central American tudent, Central American Refugee and U.S. High School: A Pychoocial Study of Motivation and Achievement, in which he look at how thee tudent aimilate into U.S. life. Granted, all of thee culture (Kurdih, Sudanee, Latin American) are different in many way but one key element i held in common and can be intructive for thi thei: the way() in which thee young people interrelate with American in formal (i.e. chool, work) and informal (outide of chool/work) etting. In looking at the big picture of what i available and germane to the ubject, I have found ource which fall into five broad categorie: Kurdih emigration/ immigration, identity, third-culture tatu, narrative, and gender. All of thee have had a direct effect on how Kurdih youth in Nahville expre themelve a Kurd. Diane King, a cultural anthropologit from the Univerity of Kentucky, ha pent year reearching the Kurdih people, particularly in Iraqi Kurditan and with repect to gender, migration, kinhip, and the tate. Two of her article are of particular interet to me vi a vi emigration/immigration. The firt, Aylum Seeker/Patron Seeker: Interpreting Iraqi Kurdih Migration, look at how Iraqi Kurd arriving in the U.S. between 1991 and 2003 brought with them unrealitic expectation of their new hot (i.e., America). They aumed complete care would greet them at the airport and walk with them every day thereafter. King contend 10

21 that thi attitude wa innate, born by the patronage they had experienced from tribal leader long before they ever conidered migrating wet. It raie a quetion for me a to whether the diappointment felt by parent, grandparent, aunt and uncle of the Kurdih youth of Nahville, a corollary to the effect of patronage, might have led ome youth to accentuate their ethnic heritage in graphic way. The econd article, Back from the Outide : Returnee and Diaporic Imagining in Iraqi Kurditan i pertinent for other reaon. King i looking at Iraqi Kurd returning to Kurditan from the Wet and what their return create within the reident community, omething he call a diaporic imaginary, a place in which the outide world i brought inide the home of thoe having never left. Thi come through narrative. Though the direction of travel i entirely different, I believe the idea of intimate connection between thoe inide Kurditan and thoe without (to include Nahville) i conitent. Young Kurd in Nahville are able to maintain trong tie with their ethnic homeland through technology and through travel, at leat potentially contributing to a greater appropriation of who they are a Kurd. Thi i evidenced in their folklore or, in ome cae, the lack thereof. Identity i, undoubtedly, the major focu of my reearch. Keith Bao Widom Sit in Place: Landcape and Language among the Wetern Apache, erve a an ancillary ource for dicuing identity. It importance i two-fold. The firt i that it deal with the importance of place in defining identity, in thi cae for the Apache. But thi i alo true for young Kurd; the land of their father (Kurditan) and that to which they themelve belong (America) wield incredible power for good and for evil. Bao 11

22 argue that the land i actually ued by Apache elder to guide their youth to the right path, even if it mean hooting them with an arrow. Kurdih elder in Nahville can appeal to family hitorie lived out in the homeland to do the ame with their youth. The reult thu far are mixed. Three other article related to identity have alo proven ueful. Richard Handler and Jocelyn Linnekin Tradition: Genuine or Spuriou make the claim that tradition i not an objective reality but rather a ocial contruct. If true, that mean there i not a ingular way of expreing identity, for a group or an individual. Some Kurd gravitate toward more overt elf expreion, uch a organizing cultural fetival or oliciting money for earthquake victim in the homeland. Other chooe to participate in ethnic or religiou holiday, adorned in Kurdih cotume. Still other ue violence (i.e., Kurdih Pride gang) to defend the group or poition themelve outide it altogether. Regardle of the proximity to the ethnic core, however, thee are all Kurd. Ellen Badone, in Ethnicity, Folklore and Local Identity in Rural Brittany how that in northern France, identity i reident in local affiliation much more trongly than in regional or national one. Thi i mirrored in Kurdih culture, both in the tribal loyaltie in Kurditan and the political and clan loyaltie in Nahville. Badone i quick to point out the conflict created by uch aociation (which i reflected in each group folklore). Nahville Kurd have certainly had their fair hare of internecine truggle. Another identity article that reonate actually involve Kurd or, at leat, a group ome would claim a Kurd. Thee people come from the Derim region of Turkey but now live in Berlin, Germany. Mutafa Akcinar in Re-invention of Identity: The 12

23 Cae of Derim Community Aociation in Berlin deal with many apect of life in Germany for thee immigrant, mot of whom came for employment, but hi thei eem to be thi: through memberhip in the Derim Community Aociation, the Derimi are taking a claim to memberhip in the greater German community and not the highly volatile Kurdih one. Thi recoiling i common among many Kurd in Nahville a well. Weary of the contant poturing of local political proxie, they chooe to ditance themelve from their own people and move intead toward a non-kurdih identity. Sadly, thi i the choice of a growing number of young Kurd in Nahville. I alo thought it helpful to conider ome of the broader iue related to identity which are raied by folklorit uch a Roger Abraham (2003). He too would ay that identity i created, emerging from the torie one tell on oneelf or one community (Abraham 2003: 201). But even more compelling i hi aertion that identity ha the potential for great harm, ued to toke nationalitic/racit fire that reult in the kind of uffering experienced by Nahville Kurd. In other word, it can be ued to divide rather than imply highlight, a concern of many with Romantic nationalit of the pat. It can perpetuate victim tatu, a well, another propenity of the Kurdih nation. Elliot Oring, in hi article concerning identity and the tudy of folklore (1994b), believe that thi concept, identity, ha alway been at the core of the dicipline, though the term itelf wa largely abent. Retort from other folklorit aroe but the key point I take from Oring article i that, though identity itelf i eluive, we can approach it 13

24 through it expreion. So then, looking at what young Kurd do can help to explain who young Kurd are. It i important to look at the iue of third-culture tatu, a well. David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken have written a wonderful book on the poitive and negative apect of growing up between culture, Third Culture Kid. Thee could be the children of miionarie, diplomat, buinemen or imply thoe who have relocated to a new country a a refugee or immigrant. The young Kurd of Nahville fall into the latter category. Since the majority of them have lived in the U.S. mot, if not all, of their live they are thoroughly Americanized. And herein lie the truggle. Doe their allegiance belong to the firt land, the econd, or to the virtual no-man land that lie betwixt and between? Thi tearing, I believe, i a major contributor to their elf-perception and their elf-expreion. Amy Shuman in Other People Storie and Mary Hufford in Chaeworld deal with omething ele, narrative. Shuman focu on the ability and/or the right to tell another tory ha immediate application to the ituation in Nahville. For many of thee young Kurd, who were very young children when they fled Kurditan, the fullet experience they have of the homeland i the torie of other. The quetion then become, do they appropriate them intact or i there ome maaging taking place? How do they decide what hould be part of their own repertoire? Mary Hufford dicuion of the world of the fox hunter in the Pine Barren i intriguing a well. The chae world can be conjured either by being phyically involved or through torie. A jut mentioned, many young Kurd have walked very little on Kurdih oil; their fullet 14

25 experience i by proxy. How do they create their own Kurdworld? Or do they create one at all? Thee are intriguing quetion. Latly, the iue of gender i a germane ubject for a dicuion of Kurdih identity and, particularly o, becaue of the makeup of my interviewee pool (the majority were women). Work uch a Feminit Meage: Coding in Women Culture (Radner), Women Ecaping Violence: Empowerment through Narrative (Lawle), Feminit Theory and the Study of Folklore (Holli, Perhing and Young), and Cajun Women: Reading the Rule Backward (Ware), were all very helpful in providing a framework to dicu ilent v. direct peech, tradition, creativity and inequity via the narrative of my interviewee. Outline Chapter One introduce my thei, including the background and methodology. Chapter Two i focued on the Kurd and include everal brief hitorie. The firt i that of the Kurdih nation itelf, to include the land which they claim a their own, Kurditan, and epecially the mountain which cricro the region. There i alo a look at political event which led to the final exodu of many Kurd from Iraq and Iran, beginning in the mid-1970 and ending in the late I dicu the four wave of Kurd who made their way to Nahville, Tenneee. during thi period and compare them in their abilitie to aimilate. Tribalim, cultural/ethnic ditinctive and origin legend are dicued a well. Chapter Three revolve excluively around my fieldwork, coniting of recorded interview with tudent in retaurant and home. My purpoe in thi chapter i twofold: 15

26 to create a hitorical and cultural backdrop for the expreion of Kurdih identity among the youth and then to reveal thoe expreion themelve. In other word, I allow the narrative of their journey to be their own. It will become evident through thee torie that, even among Kurdih youth of the ame age and/or gender, there i a wonderful diverity in how they expre who they are a bifurcated folk. Chapter Four i the point at which I begin analyzing the data collected from urvey and fieldwork according to a three-fold grid; emigration/immigration, gender, and identity. Thi chapter deal with emigration/immigration. Concerning the former, conideration i given to the way leaving home and entering a trange land ha affected what thee young Kurd have become, though not in any empirical ene. I am not looking at how many have been ucceful tudent or model employee. I am not intereted in an etic perpective at all but, rather, that of the youth themelve. With what/whom do they mot identify? At the ame time, the parental narrative i eential for the very reaon that many of thee kid never fully experienced the leaving in the firt place, becaue of their age. Conequently, I look at what effect thee other narrative have had on their attachment to all thing Kurdih. Third-culture tatu i conidered comparatively; how i each individual youth poitioned on a propective continuum from fully Kurdih to fully American? Obviouly, uch a line i tenuou at bet and might very well be deemed worthle by my interviewee. But, there i a valid point to be made that third-culture kid do find themelve in a very different place than thoe having never left the familiar and have very imilar way of expreing it. I explore what that look like in thi community of young people. 16

27 Chapter Five concern gender. Entering fieldwork, I had looked for a balanced pool of interviewee voice (equal number of women and men) but it jut o happened that, for whatever reaon, the women were more willing and available to talk. Conequently, I developed quetion to elicit their unique perpective; what I dicovered wa urpriing and telling. I dicu the iue of ilent peech, a well a caue and effect with regard to how and when women ubvert the tatu quo. The majority of my interviewee, both male and female, poke candidly about gender and it place in their daily live and traditional community culture. Chapter Six focue on identity. A ha been mentioned, that include a conideration of everal haunting quetion. I it, firt of all, objectively real? I it related to one hitory or to one preent life? Can it be conferred by thoe outide the group or i it only elf-aigned? I it ueful in the hand of the one poeing or conferring it and, if o, to what end()? What are the danger of uch labeling? All of thee quetion are very valid when contemplating the Kurdih nation and, for my purpoe here, the Kurdih youth of Nahville. Chapter Seven conclude my thei by conidering ome of the leon learned in the proce. Note Several, more pedetrian, item concerning vocabulary need to be addreed before delving into our topic. I ue the term Kurditan freely to decribe the geographical area from which the Kurdih people hail. A you will learn, it doe not exit 17

28 in the roll of recognized nation-tate at the United Nation. Though I have tronglyheld belief a to why thi i o or whether it will or hould ever change, I will ue thi term in the implet of ene; to delineate a piece of land to which Kurd take claim. From time to time other Kurdih vocabulary will appear a well. I do thi paringly becaue I find it particularly ditracting in my own reading if I am not familiar with or intereted in the language under dicuion. There are intance, however, when the foreign word perhap convey a meaning or an idea that i either beyond tranlation or more vivid than the Englih. It i then when Kurdih will come into play. The word() will be italicized with the meaning in parenthee afterward. My interviewee will be identified by firt name only, o a to bring ome meaure of anonymity. The identity of one, however, will be even more deeply embedded. That i S.K., my lone adult interviewee, who will appear in Chapter Two. A mentioned in Chapter Three, any attempt at caution wa neceary in order to exercie repect for the wider culture and the familie of thoe who graciouly allowed me into their live for thi tudy. Final Note It i rare, I believe, for a reader to be a paionate about a piece of writing a the one having penned it. The author ha inveted inordinate amount of time with the mundane and the dramatic to proffer a novelty, omething in it entirety which i unlike any other. Thi may be embraced by the reader, to be ure, but becaue the level of invetment i unequal o will the level of emotion be. My upicion i that it will be no 18

29 different for thoe who take time to read thi work on Kurdih youth in Nahville. Some may be drawn by the Kurd themelve, a pertinent ubject conidering the preent conflict in Syria. Other will be intereted in what may be aid about refugee or urban demographic or narrative. I have written thi thei exprely to give voice to a previouly unheard demographic, one for whom I have great repect and affection. I have no expectation that it will be read from a imilar entiment. I would, however, offer two ubtitute motivation, urprie and benefit, both of which come from Keith Bao work, Widom Sit in Place: Stalking with Storie. Hi primary dicuion concern the intructive ue of land by the Wetern Apache but, on a peronal note, Bao tell about hi profeor and how he often taught bet....ome of hi mot provocative thought came in the form of brief aide delivered caually and without apology at unexpected moment (Bao 1996: 37). Bao wa urpried, both by what he learned and when he learned it. The ame wa certainly true for me a I conducted fieldwork among teen and twenty-omething navigating perilou water. I hope the reader will enter their world expecting the ame. There i alo the who of the learning proce. Bao, like hi mentor at Harvard, believed that attending carefully to claim that people make about themelve (Bao 1996: 37), though exhauting, reap the greatet reward. That i, undertanding...who the people involved take themelve to be...can be richly informative and highly worthwhile (Bao 1996: 37-38). Hi point i that fieldworker themelve can and hould learn from thoe they tudy and preent. One way to do that i to defer. It i inevitable and proper that the ethnographer would lend hi/her voice to the dicuion at 19

30 hand but that voice mut not muffle the ound of thoe who might not otherwie be heard. If we heed thi warning, they will be honored and we enriched. My hope, then, i that in the page to follow the reader will find urprie that benefit, unforeeen treaure that provide travel through and beyond the truggle of Nahville young Kurd to a new and wonderful place, a place where they find...themelve. 20

31 2 Wave of Sorrow, Wave of Hope Admittedly, there i more than one way to paint a picture, more than one vantage point from which to view beauty and/or horror. Indeed, what i gloriou to one i repulive to another. But who get to decide and how? Thi real-world aethetic dilemma i fraught with poibilitie and with danger. It could provide an informed appreciation for individual or group affinitie outide of one own or, converely, provide ammunition with which to detroy any emblance of affection for the ame. Thi i, of coure, amplified exponentially when attaching approval label to other human being and, in reality, can only come from two ource. The firt i from the ubject himelf/herelf. That i, a peron can elf-aign, howcaing qualitie he/he alone deem worthy of repreenting who he/he really i. Thi i an intructive and valuable portrayal and that which I have aggreively ought in thi preentation of Kurdih youth. In fact, the lat quetion aked of each of my interviewee wa thi; If there i one thing that you could ay to a non-kurd about who you are and who the Kurd are, what would that be? It wa important for me to get to the core of Kurdihne a they aw it. But a we all know, there i another ource from which valuation of merit flow. That i the outider. Two week prior to thi writing, a new friend at down beide me at a Kurdih wedding, and amidt the jubilant clamor aked thi out-of-the-blue, totally nebulou quetion. What do you think about Kurd? A a Kurd, he could have extolled the virtue of hi people a he knew them (an exercie to which I had been ubjected 21

32 countle time), but choe, intead, to olicit the opinion of one outide the group. I gave him everal of the qualitie, poitive and negative, that tood out to me; hopitable, prone to quarrel, trong tie to family and tribe. Other, who alo travered Kurdih land and tated Kurdih life, have offered a much. Journalit Jonathan Randall decribed the Kurd a eternal outider, prize loer and poor boy (Randall 1997: 4) among the people of the Middle Eat, each painful moniker laced with more than a few element of truth. Some labor to marry expectation with realitie, a in thi paage from Chritiane Bird book, A Thouand Sigh, A Thouand Revolt: Journey in Kurditan. From the moment I arrived in Kurditan, I felt a if I had fallen through the back door of the world and into a tragic magic kingdom-- the kind of place where tyrant catle reigned over mit-filled valley, beautiful damel ran away with doomed prince, and ten-foot-tall heroe battled caly green dragon a good clahed word with evil. In reality, there wa no kingdom-- at leat not the type found in fairy tale--but I did find evil, a well a good, and catle and valley, damel and prince, magic and tragedy (Bird 2005: 7-8). So, who are the Kurd? The anwer reflect what Fatema Mernii ha called the mot triking feature of the Middle Eat: complexity (Bird 2005: ii). It i certainly beyond the cope of thi chapter to elucidate the entire hitory of the Kurdih people, a point at which even David McDowall voluminou work, A Modern Hitory of the Kurd, fail (by hi own admiion it hould be pointed out). However, a brief outline of major point 22

33 of time and place will be given, followed by event which created the Kurdih-American diapora and the acculturation arc() on which thee refugee have traveled. Any dicuion of the Kurd mut begin with land. Their, a they ee it, ha been in the family for thouand of year. It i called Kurditan. Mehrdad Izady ha likened it hape to an inverted letter V, with the joint pointing in the direction of the Caucau and the arm toward the Mediterranean Sea and the Perian Gulf (Izady 1992: 1). It i large, covering 200,000 quare mile, and reaching acro the border of Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. In an area o vat, it i undertandable that there be variation, ometime extreme variation, in topography, climate, wildlife, fauna, etc. Kurditan doe have it arid plain and treele hill, heat oaked element of the land which upport the tereotype of the Middle Eat a a wateland. Yet there i one feature which tand above them all, literally. Thee are the mountain. It i impoible to hyperbolize with repect to the Kurd and their mountain, the Zagro, Tauru, Pontu and Alburz range which cricro the geography of Kurditan. They are pectacular and have worked their magic on many a traveler. Such a view a tretche out before the two great window in my room, it eem to me, cannot be urpaed by any in the world. The decent from our mountain home, the plain o green and beautiful, with here and there a high, pointed mountain, looking trange and alone, a though it had wandered away from it fellow. The blue lake beyond, bounded by the lofty ridge of now-capped mountain on the other wie. I am never weary feating my eye on thi ight (Speer 2009: 32). 23

34 So wrote Deborah Cochran in 1868, twenty year after he and her huband, Joeph G. Cochran, had arrived in wetern Iran (eatern Kurditan to it modern inhabitant) to work among Ayrian Chritian. It wa aid of their on, Joeph Plumb Cochran, who erved the entirety of hi adult life a a phyician...diplomatit,... counelor,...public character, [and] miionary leader (Speer 2009: 8) in hi father tead, that he wa eldom happier than when able to look from ome commanding poition a far a hi viion could carry (i.e., the mountain) (Speer 2009: 174). It wa a repite from the demand of hi exhauting, beautiful life. It wa the ame for my friend, Jeremiah, who erved a a teacher in an Englih-peaking high chool in Suleymania, Iraq, The Claical School of the Mede, until hi death there in Throughout hi ix year in Kurditan, Jeremiah would explore the mountain urrounding hi adopted city for many of the ame reaon a Dr. Cochran: freh air, adventure, and extended time of reflection. A curiou apect to Jeremiah jaunt to the hill, though one befitting hi natural gift a a teacher, i that he ignited a paion within hi tudent for going there a well. That i curiou for the very reaon that Kurd are, at their core, a mountain people. In fact, it ha been famouly aid of them, though no one eem to know by whom, that they have no friend but the mountain. Thi i a reference to pat treacherie but, that aide, thee peak remain an ecape for the population at large, for wedding, for holiday and for picnic. Jeremiah tudent had undoubtedly been there on many occaion. They hould have had no need for a foreigner to prod them, to help them ee thoe peak a more than an occaional detination. But a i the proclivity of u all, they failed and 24

35 they forgot. They failed to recognize the tunning beauty an attentive eye could never mi, the green and yellow and purple and white of each eaon choni (hello). And they forgot the red, the bloodtain of untold ancetor who walked the crag and crevice of Kurditan, driven by fury or fear to afeguard the only world they had ever known, left at lat to expire. They forgot the account of the Karduchoi, perhap the firt mention of Kurd in the annal of hitory, in Xenophon Anabai. In 401 B.C., ten thouand Greek oldier on their way to the ea via the mountain north of Meopotamia encountered tiff reitance from the native. In the country of the Karduchoi... there wa fighting all the time (Randal 1997: 21) between thee two partie, far wore it wa aid than what thee battle-hardened Greek had uffered at the hand of the Perian army they were ecaping. War, eemingly, wa the lot of thoe living in land betwixt and between, Europe to the wet and Aia to the eat. The Kurd fate often depended on their ucce in fending off force-- tarting with Ayrian king Shalmaneer III and Sargon II in the ninth and eighth centurie B.C., repectively-- who mounted punitive expedition acro Kurditan (Randal 1997: 21). The Greek, the Roman, the Perian, the Mongol, and the Arab were all foe which would not be deterred. The land of the Kurd ha been a playground of the powerful for millennia. To be fair and completely honet, I mut ay that thi lape of memory to which I refer i metaphorical for mot young Kurd. In Iraqi Kurditan, Kurdih hitory i now being taught in the chool, both private and public. Likewie, expatriate communitie in Europe, the U.S. and elewhere are making attempt to pa on cultural knowledge to a 25

36 new generation through programming at Kurdih center and moque and impromptu converation in home. Two ummer ago in Nahville, I led a Kurdih hitory cla (aptly named in it relation to the eence of thi thei), Who Am I? for thi very reaon. The point i that while factual competency with regard to heritage remain an iue for many young Kurd, a evidenced by ome of my own interviewee, the greater concern i that all too often even thoe poeing the knowledge move ahead a if they did not. In the end, it ha little to no bearing on their day-to-day attitude or activitie. That ha been my experience, at leat, among Kurdih communitie in the homeland and hinterland and that which i foremot in my mind when dicuing forgetfulne. One of my own interviewee affirmed the indictment;...thi i the thing...with the kid now and the people now it like they forgot about Kurditan. It like they forgot about Kurditan. But who are they, thee long-uffering legion of mountain folk, thee rugged reitor of mighty nation-tate? And from where did they originate? A ha already been noted, that anwer i immenely complex, requiring much more time and pace than the preent tudy will allow. I would refer the reader to uch work a Mehrdad Izady The Kurd: A Concie Handbook and David McDowall A Modern Hitory of the Kurd for a more complete picture. Our curory glance, however, reveal a few of the major point of emphai. Paradoxically, the Kurd are both ditinct and inditinct. They are not Arab or Turkic, a mot would aume, but more cloely akin to Perian (though not purely o, a Wadie Jwaideh note). 26

37 Succeive wave of conqueror, imperial armie, and avage horde wept acro thee land, and each left behind a trace, however faint, on the racial, linguitic, and cultural character of the inhabitant (Jwaideh 2006: 11). A American, living in a o-called melting pot, we undertand the bevy of racial and cultural combination which have produced the familie of our nation, regardle of peronal proclivitie. Mot of u do not realize, however, that other, including the Kurd, mirror that mixing. Yet, they are alo et apart from thoe other culture, ometime fiercely o. Journalit Jonathan Randal contend that the Kurd over the centurie have not harbored exitential doubt about their identity (Randal 1997: 19), though Kurdih cholar, particularly thoe concerned with nationalim and geopolitic, might beg to differ. Regardle of where that line of identity recognition lie, the truth remain that Kurd conider themelve unlike thoe who contain them. Thi eparation begin with the beginning, with their origin narrative, of which there are everal. The firt involve King Solomon. He deired to add to the number of hi harem and o ent jinn (pirit) out to find the mot beautiful in hi kingdom (number range from one hundred to five hundred). The jinn completed their tak and returned to their king, only to find him dead. In repone, they flew to the mountain with maiden in tow, begetting children throughout the enuing year. Thee offpring are the Kurd (from whence come the often pejoratively ued moniker children of the jinn ). Another tory claim that Abraham wife, Sarah, wa a Kurd from Harran. 27

38 It i the third, however, which eem to offer the mot impreive diplay of Kurdih otherne. Thi one would have them decended from young men and women who ecaped the murderou clutche of a uurper King of Peria, a giant mythological tyrant named Zohhak. Snake growing out of hi houlder required a daily meal of young men brain. Ingeniou miniter, determined to ave the race, ubtituted calve brain, and the few urviving boy and girl were muggled to the mountain, where they begat the Kurd (Randal 1997: 19-20). In thi account, a in thoe I have heard from everal Kurdih friend, the enemy i Perian (a it remain to thi day). There i a glaring omiion however, at leat concerning the manner in which the king wa overcome. In thi retelling it i done through cunning; in another it i done through heer power, at the hand of a lowly blackmith named Kawa. Thi champion, a you might imagine, wa Kurdih. It i an undeniable fact that the Kurd are inextricably linked to Perian, Turk, and Arab, the paucity of mutually beneficial relationhip notwithtanding. Thee different accretion, a Wadie Jwaideh call them, thi intermixing of culture and language that reulted from invaion and migration, produced a hybrid race (Jwaideh 2006: 11). What ele could account for o much hared vocabulary or, even more conpicuou, blue eye and red hair among a Middle-Eatern ethnic group? And yet, there remain a remarkable, abiding remnant of uniquene to the Kurd which i jut a irrefutable. Although Kurdih ociety i multilingual, multiracial, and multireligiou, Kurd nonethele hare a long common hitorical experience and collective apiration (Randal 1997: 14). In hort, a Jonathan Randal ha o aptly 28

39 tated, Kurd certainly do know who they are (Randal 1997: 13). On more than one occaion a well-worn narrative ha emerged in converation with friend in Nahville; Iraqi Kurd traveling through Turkey are given a tongue-lahing by airport official. It i not what you think. It doe not concern drug or weapon, threat againt the flight crew or even the Kemalit government itelf. Their rebuke concern a imple tamp, a paport tamp. Thoe leaving the airport of the Kurdih Autonomou Region and everyone along the route are given black and white reminder that the Kurd of thi locale conider themelve apart, perhap above, their o-called national brother. It i true, they might live within the national boundarie of the tate of Iraq but they are not Iraqi; they are Kurd. Their paport reflect thi proud reitance and it irk the hegemon. The tamp read Kurditan. The final element of the Kurdih character which i important for one to conider i ocial tructure, particularly tribalim. An outider arriving in Arbil or Diyarbakir or Sanandaj, all major citie in the Kurdih contellation, would be hard-preed to look through tarry eye and beyond high-rie building and Wetern-tyle amenitie to omething deeper; but it i there. All cholar agree that Kurditan i imilar to the vat majority in the Middle Eat in thi repect, that loyaltie lie much cloer to home than ome would upect or prefer. In fact, it i to thi abiding feature of Kurdih culture which many attribute the perpetual failure of Kurdih nationalim. The Kurd are the larget people group in the world without a tate of their own and tribalim i to blame. One of their mot-beloved leader and the jailed head of the Kurditan Worker Party, Abdullah Ocalan, aid a much in a converation with a National Geographic reporter. 29

40 We are a feudal ociety...and our leader have been chieftain who betray u. Our cultural and political level i low (Hitchen 1992: 53). Evidence of thi betrayal of higher goal i not hard to find, globally or locally. Sheikh Mahmoud Barzinji i one fine example. Barzinji wa appointed by the Britih a governor of Suleymania in 1918, with a view to controlling the former Ottoman territory by proxy, with a light but efficient hand (McDowall 1996: 154). The heikh had other idea and, in time, threw off the Britih yoke, declaring himelf King of Kurditan and garnering upport for an independent tate. It wa not to be, a two unlikely allie faced him down, both eeking a maintenance, if not trengthening, of their power bae. The firt wa the Britih, the econd other Kurdih tribe. All around Sulaymania, the Shaykh had hi opponent, among the Jaf and Bajalan tribe and notably among the haykh-- the Talabani haykh of Kirkuk, who were hi Qadiri rival, and the Nahqhbandi haykh of Biyari and Tawila (McDowall 1996: 156). There certainly eemed to be an overbearing colonial pirit among ome of Britain enior political officer within Kurditan at war end (WWI), an entrenchment of the lord/ubject ideal. Thi wa ad but expected. But what of thi oppoition to an independent Kurdih tate baed purely on dilike for one of it chief proponent? Indeed, it eem unfathomable that Kurdih oppoition hould arie to Kurdih freedom but it i, a ome contend, an oft-repeated refrain. It happened during the hopeful day of the Pari Peace Conference (1919) and the reultant Treaty of Sevre 30

41 (1920), which guaranteed Kurd the right to elf-determination. Kemalit Turkey, perhap, played the larget role in revering thee fortune, through military action and a replacement treaty (Lauanne in 1923). But the conduct of Kurdih leader, both thoe in the Pari delegation and thoe in the homeland whoe fate would be determined by conference pronouncement, erved only to reinforce the thinking of thoe dividing war poil that a tribal mentality wa not ufficient to govern a new nation. In the decade to follow, and epecially in the lat few of the 20th century, thi mentality would make trange bedfellow (Iraqi Kurd and Iran againt Saddam Huein, Iranian Kurd and Saddam againt Iran, etc.) and, almot alway, guarantee that one Kurdih group would be violently oppoed to the goal of the other. Thi wa to ecalate into full-cale civil war in 1994, a rival political partie vied for power in free Kurditan, claiming thouand of live and poioning relation for year to come. Even in Nahville, Tenneee in 2013 the animoity wa palpable. Hitorical and cultural event are boycotted imply becaue they are hoted by an oppoing group, a ad tate for a people deperately needing to preent a unified front. Perhap it will change with a younger generation more accutomed to multilateralim; it cannot come oon enough. We now turn to the iue of wave, for that i how the Kurd arrived in Nahville. But why did they come and when and what proce did they endure? The anwer to the firt quetion i almot embarraingly obviou for anyone even vaguely familiar with Kurdih hitory, with thi often-overlooked ociety that ha been rocked and at time devatated by ome of the mot catatrophic event and tragic political policie of the lat 31

42 eighty year (Bird 2005: xxii). An from an Iraqi Kurd during the buildup to the American invaion of 2003 convey the raw emotion of their daily experience. About me, I m alo preparing with my family to ecape; you don t need to be o mart to know that there will be a bloody conflict. And it will be like a hell...in the middle of the turmoil I will cro the border out of Iraq. I m not going to wait till the war to end, there will be no end to it (Bird 2005: xix). In hort, there wa the need to ecape an unbearable ituation, a deadly ituation. And if that meant leaving behind all that wa familiar and lovely, o be it. That firt major leaving would take place during American preparation for celebrating it own break from tyranny. The year? The backdrop to thi tory i a complicated one, involving oil and border and one fraught with political intrigue and broken promie. For year, the Kurd of Iraq had been at odd with the Iraqi government, eeking ome meaure of autonomy; the early 1970 offered hope that thi dream might oon be realized. The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and U.S. Preident Richard Nixon had agreed to arm the Kurd, to generally heat thing up o a to ap the Iraqi reource and ditract them from Iran (Blum 2004: 242), a reference to a border dipute between Iraq and Iran in play during Nixon trip to the latter in Implicit in their colluion wa an undertanding that the goal wa not victory for the Kurd but, rather, for the two partner. What would that victory look like? Stalemate. The Pike Report detail thi no-win attitude. Neither 32

43 Iran nor ourelve (i.e. the U.S.) wih to ee the matter reolved one way or another (Blum 2004: 243). The Kurd were clearly pawn in a game of uperpower and once the game ended, o did any chance for ucce. In March of 1975, following an agreement between Iraq and Iran to end hotilitie, upport for the Kurd wa removed by their former patron, Iran and the U.S. Thi wa eerily reminicent of Soviet withdrawal from Iranian Kurditan three decade previou, a move which ealed the fate of a fledgling Kurdih republic in Mahabad. Iraqi Kurd were imilarly cruhed by the refocued Iraqi army and no aid wa forthcoming. In fact, their uffering wa met with tony ilence by the U.S. government. Our movement and our people are being detroyed in an unbelievable way... and we feel...that the United State ha a moral and political reponibility toward our people who have committed themelve to your country policy (Blum 2004: 244); uch wa the deperate cry of Kurdih leader. That cry wa ignored and within a month the caue wa lot, hundred of their leader executed and thouand of their people on the run. The calloune of U.S. official toward the decimation which, among other thing, drove a many a two hundred thouand refugee into makehift camp inide Iran, wa immortalized by Henry Kiinger remark to the taff of the Pike Committee. Aked what role the U.S. played in the tragedy, he replied tartly, Covert action hould not be confued with miionary work (Blum 2004: 244). A long-time friend ( S.K. ) I interviewed for thi paper lived in one of thoe Iranian camp. Moreover, he wa reponible for the dipoal of good and property ued during the truggle with the Iraqi government and for the ubequent ditribution of 33

44 proceed to the many thouand of other refugee. What intereting, however, i that S.K. venom wa reerved for the Iranian, even though he wa well aware of American complicity. I hate the Shah of Iran becaue he wa, he caued u all thee damage, he topped the war (S.K. in dicuion with the author, September 2013). He told of how hi movement from city to city, camp to camp in ervice of hi people were tightly controlled by Iran intelligence agency, SAVAK, a tricture which only erved to intenify hi feeling. That made me hate Iran and the people of Iran and the Shah of Iran (S.K. in dicuion with the author, September 2013). In late pring of 1976, after completing hi work for the then defunct rebellion, he wa able to divet himelf of thi form of lavery, arriving in New York with a hundred other, urely relieved, urely traumatized. Mot of the new arrival, I wa told, were ent on to San Diego, other to Virginia, Texa and the Dakota, where they were met by American ponor (more than likely familie recruited by reettlement agencie uch a Catholic Charitie). My friend choe Nahville over San Diego, depite warning from New York official about going to a country tate (S.K. in dicuion with the author, September 2013) which offered no ponor, exprely becaue he had contact there. Thee were Kurd who had followed the ame route but had arrived ome month previou. Hard number are difficult to come by (Catholic Charitie had no record from that era and mot of thoe Kurd are gone) but it eem there were two hundred or o who arrived in the U.S. during 1976, perhap a dozen who made Nahville home (per the author converation with S.K. ). 34

45 Two qualitie were prominent in thi firt wave of Kurd, qualitie that were o interrelated a to be nearly ineparable. Take, for example, independence. S.K. poke glowingly of hi group eagerne to work and learn, to take advantage of newfound freedom, to be elf-ufficient. Yet becaue of the lack of technology and the everwatchful eye of the Iraqi government, they were cut off from their beloved Kurditan and thoe they cared for within it, an independence of a darker ort. There wa alo education. A large part of the impetu for puhing my friend to San Diego wa hi college degree, a common poeion for thoe arriving in Thi wa a learned group who, depite their recent travail and deperate ecape, brought with them many of the tool neceary to aimilate in a timely and proper way. A we will ee, the third wave would not be o lucky. What of the econd wave, which arrived in 1979? Wa it genei alo in terror? It abolutely wa, though at the hand of a religiou (Ayatollah Khomeini) rather than a ecular leader (Mohammad Reza Pahlavi). In fact, thi contrat could not be more tark; a megalomaniac friend of the Wet and an exiled cleric who championed abolute theocracy, trict adherence to Ilamic teaching. The Kurd of Iran welcomed the end of the monarchy, indeed had acted to throw out the hated old regime (McDowall 1996: 261), but they had no deire to uher in an Ilamic republic (McDowall 1996: 261). They wanted freedom but not of that ilk. The Ayatollah Khomeini would countenance no dient however, hi apiration being to rule a united Mulim populace in which minoritie were non-exitent. The table wa et for further conflict between Kurditan and Tehran. Many thouand would die, in battle and at the hand of executioner, and 35

46 many more emigrate. That i how a new group of Kurd arrived in the U.S. in I found no one in Nahville with knowledge of thi group (depite a large number of Iranian Kurd in the city) but ome external ource peculate that mot of them could be counted among the five hundred thouand or o Iranian who entered during thi period and ettled in outhern California ( Southern California Kurd ). Interetingly, thoe ame ource ay that perhap a many a fifty thouand of that number were Kurd, though that eem unlikely. Suffice it to ay, thi group remain enigmatic at bet. The third and fourth wave came again from Iraq, a land of increaing horror following the full acendancy of it leader, Saddam Huein. Since the 1968 coup which uhered in the rule of the Ba ath Party, Huein had worked tirelely to ubume every apect of Iraqi life and all of it inhabitant. Thi included, of coure, thoe Iraqi in the north (i.e. Kurd). A ha already been mentioned, thi wa unacceptable to a people yearning for freedom, leaving but one viable option; continue the fight. Thi they did in earnet after the failed revolution of 1975, both with the central government and amongt themelve (an all-too common activity addreed in my fieldwork). David McDowall, in hi eminal work on the Kurd, called thi period ( ) The Road to Genocide, exprely becaue the ummary execution, forced reettlement and brazen Arabization of Kurdih town and village wa not enough anymore. The call had become more trident, the goal much more initer; the Kurd mut ceae to exit. Some contend that to claim Iraqi power broker were earnetly eeking the wholeale extinction of fifteen to twenty percent of their population i nothing hort of hyperbole. It i true there were thoe among the rank of Ba ath loyalit who cried for 36

47 reconciliation, for a ceation of the mot brutal policie but, without quetion, their view did not carry the day. In fact, many of the mot vocal did not live to ee another day. Thi tinge of retropection notwithtanding, one ha only to viit the town of Halabje to undertand the betial nature of Baghdad malevolence toward it enemie, genuine or perceived. I wa there in 2004 and walked the hall of it newly opened memorial, palm upraied to cradle a barely viible globe, ignage leaving nothing to the imagination, Baath Member are not Allowed to Enter. I aw the picture of ga victim, littering the treet or lying haphazardly in the bed of a truck, one upon the other like o many ack of grain. I heard the torie of exploion and weet mell and deperate retreat. And I went to cemeterie in the valley and on the mountainide which preerved remnant of Chemical Ali many, many victim. Thi attack in March of 1988, the wort ingle violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol on the ue of chemical weapon (McDowall 1996: 361) ince 1935, wa horrific in it cale (five thouand dead) and yet, amazingly, thi wa but the firt in a erie of eight major aault againt Kurd that pring and ummer. For many, the time had come to run. Thouand upon thouand poured into Iran and Turkey, ome in uch fearful hate that what could not be carried or walk by itelf wa left behind, including children. To one ecapee, a Kurd from Duhok I met in 1995, thee day were remembered a a ingular woeful event, The Day of Tear (the title of hi book of poetry). In hi own muted, lilting fahion, he recalled for a crowd gathered at a Nahville teahoue a cene of pathetic death, of a young child deperate to live. Sadly, the tear of a caregiver were the only ource of relief for quenching her overwhelming thirt; they would not be enough. 37

48 Thoe who did manage to run the gauntlet of mountain pae and hotile oldier, all with a determined enemy at their heel, were houed in overcrowded, under-ourced government camp for two to three year or longer. It wa from thee condition and thee people, pecifically from camp in Turkey, that the third wave, the larget wave of Kurd made their way to Nahville following the firt Gulf War (1991). A with previou arrival, it wa impoible to locate reliable number but I do know thi. When our family arrived in Augut of 1995 to begin work among thee refugee we were told there were fifteen hundred in the city. In contrat to the firt wave, thi group wa largely rural, if not in location urely in worldview. Mot hailed from mountain village in northeatern Kurditan, dangerouly cloe to the border of unneighborly neighbor, Turkey and Iran. My friend S.K. wa quick to point out their incredible limitation (i.e. lack of language kill, ponor, etc.) which prompted him and other of the 76 group to do all they could to help. S.K. himelf ponored one hundred to one hundred fifty people, going houe to houe to ae need, jut two month after undergoing major urgery. I did ak him directly about expectation a well, wondering if there might be ome ene of entitlement felt by the refugee due to America involvement in the recent war and the aid (late a it wa) given to thoe in the camp. Thi wa an important quetion, a well, becaue it wa a very real iue with the fourth wave, many of whom were told that every need would be met by the United State which, when tranlated, meant job, houe, car and the like. S.K. did not give a direct anwer one way or the other. He only aid they needed help badly (S.K. in dicuion with the author, September 2013), a 38

49 obering truth which propelled him and other to action. Interetingly, many of thoe other who extended a hand to thi largely Mulim group were member of the Nahville Chritian community, a fact not lot on thee people with uch long memorie. Latly came the fourth wave, traveling a very different route but, in other repect, very imilar to thoe which had come before. Following Saddam Huein lo to America and it allie in the firt Gulf War, a no-fly zone wa etablihed along the 36th Parallel in order to prevent a repeat of previou atrocitie, when the ound of flying machine meant trouble would oon fall from the ky. Thi protection awarded the Kurd a prize which, heretofore, had been incredibly eluive and for which many of their compatriot, both military and civilian, had given their live in a frantic earch to find: freedom. It wa a hard fought victory, and bitterweet at that, becaue thi buffer zone came only after many thouand had died, reponding to a call from U.S. and European leader to rid themelve of their preident (the inference being that they would not be left to their own device). Saddam ruhed hi bet troop, the Republican Guard, northward, upported by aircraft, heavy weapon and tank. The rebel were illequipped to confront uch technology (McDowall 1996: 372). It not difficult to interpret that euphemim. Horribly late a it wa, the no-fly zone did have at leat one redeeming quality; it allowed for the creation of an autonomou region, in which the Kurd could and, in fact, did govern their own affair, with only a tangential link to power in Baghdad. It eemed to be a beautiful arrangement, monthly oil revenue from the central government, totaling many million and a virtual carte blanche to pend at will. But there were two problem; 39

50 Saddam till at on hi throne and Kurdih leader till made war with each other. A ha already been mentioned, the two major political partie in Kurditan at the time, the Kurditan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurditan, met in a bloody civil war over a three-year period ( ) to determine, above all, who would control the lucrative trade route from Kurdih territorie into Turkey and Iran. Jonathan Randal point out that Saddam Huein wa poied to exploit the ituation and regain ome of the pretige he had lot following the 1991 Gulf War (Bird 2005: 151). If the American, their Wetern allie, the Kurd, and the oppoition were beet by uch oul-earching anguih, Saddam Huein wa not...when he finally decided to move in the hour before dawn on Saturday, Augut 31 [1996], he truck with characteritic deciivene. In a textbook demontration of overwhelming force, Saddam Huein deployed 300 artillery piece, more than 350 tank, and between 30,000 and 40,000 troop, motly Republican guard (Randal 1997: 300). Thi barrage wa directed at the Kurdih capital, Arbil, and it plethora of oppoition figure, both mall and great. Thouand were eliminated and the emptine of the carefully contructed fiction that the Wetern power were protecting Iraq 3.5 million Kurd (Randal 1997: 301) wa now broadcat to the world. Though the U.S., acting in it own interet, did nothing to intervene militarily it did move quickly to extract thoe it felt to be mot at rik, including many Kurd who were in the employ of American organization. 40

51 Some ix thouand were airlifted to the iland of Guam for proceing, prior to their arrival in the U.S. proper. It wa aid that the deciion to move the Kurd to Guam [enabled] them to be conidered for what i called parole into the U.S. without preliminary deciion on via and refugee tatu that would be neceary if they were proceed overea ( U.S. Begin Flying Kurdih Refugee ). Mot would be on the iland for two to three month, receiving medical care and cultural training before tranitioning to life on the mainland, mot notably in Virginia and Tenneee. I firt met member of thi group when they began arriving in Nahville in March of 1997, part of a houe to houe canvaing/welcoming by our non-profit organization. They were needy, a all refugee are, and yet thi group wa ditinctive, quite unlike that which had come earlier in the decade. There were guard and driver among them, to be ure, but there were alo an inordinate number of engineer, doctor and teacher. In thi repect, they mirrored the very firt wave, better prepared (at leat externally) to face the hardhip to come; the deep ene of lo, the loneline and the orrow amidt a land of plenty and peace, buoyed by all they brought to the table (i.e. education, experience, international expoure). Each wave of Kurd wahing up on the hore of thi country have brought with them experience that are, at once, both commonplace and extraordinary, peculiar to them and hared by all. Each one wa driven out by deprivation, whether it be of food, water, land, love or hope or all of the above. But becaue they came at different time and from different location, it wa impoible for there to be abolute unanimity in the hort-term entry or the long-term abiding. What that mean for thi preent tudy i that all the 41

52 Kurd of Nahville have partaken of or rejected American culture in vatly varying degree and, even more pertinent, o have their children. Not long before thi writing, I had a converation with one of the Guam Kurd, a they are known. The goal wa to confirm the number of evacuee brought to the iland that fall of 1996 but what I got wa omething much deeper, much more profound. I wa perplexed by the preent-day paion of Arbil reident for the Kurditan Democratic Party, knowing it wa a mere eventeen year ago that their leader, Maoud Barzani, aided the Iraqi dictator in hi vengeful and violent retaking of the city. Why then would they be o quick to hout hi name, wear hi color and puh hi (party ) number? My friend anwer made perfect ene. In a boom economy, a Kurditan in general and Arbil pecifically are experiencing in 2013, all i forgotten, epecially by thoe who have known o little peronal uffering (i.e., the young). The preent become a pied piper, of ort, leading to who know where or to who care but clearly, away from hitory pain. A a teacher in a private chool in Arbil, I have een it with my own eye, Kurdih tudent memerized by the very ame thing which enrapture their American counterpart: toy and treaure. The chapter to follow, which concern my fieldwork in Nahville, conider whether the lilting tune removing young Kurd from their pat i a trong in the diapora a it i in the homeland. 42

53 3 Hearing from the Peanut Gallery Love torie abound, in mot culture if not all. Traditional boundarie concerning the publicly permiible vary, to be ure, but the romantic narrative remain ubiquitou. One from Perian lore immediately come to mind, the tory of Shirin and Farhad ( Shirin and Farhad ). Actually there i more than one name attached to thi narrative (Shirin and Khorow) for, a folklorit Carl von Sydow reminded u, there are often many localized verion of the ame primary tale. That i certainly true of thi one, a character and plot reflect the enibilitie of hot culture that are at once diparate and undeniably connected; Kurdih, Perian, and Afghan. Thoe variation, notwithtanding, there i a generic tory which emerge. A beautiful prince wa to be married to a man of royal blood, Khorow. Her name wa Shirin. She dutifully accepted her betrothal until new reached her of another uitor, one whoe love drove him to reject food in favor of muic, playing hi flute in praie of hi beloved. A meeting wa arranged and he too wa mitten. But how could their love ever deepen, their courthip ever progre when he wa a prince and he but a common tonecutter? The king had an idea, though it intent wa purely criminal; cut a canal forty mile through the mountain by hand and then he could have her hand Farhad et to work, determined to win hi prize regardle of the cot. It took year but teady progre wa made. The king wa now deperate to foretall what would urely be a blight on hi kingdom if Farhad were to ucceed, an epic breakdown of age-old barrier eparating 43

54 noble from ignoble. In conultation with hi advior, the king devied a rue, one o odiou it merit little attention and yet, apart from it, the tory remain incomplete. An old woman wa ent to tell the tirele dreamer, Farhad, that the prince wa dead. Completely broken, he dipatched himelf with the very hovel he had hoped would win her. By ome mean, perhap the meenger of doom herelf, Shirin received the new of Farhad death and ran to the mountain, a place he often viited to admire hi progre. She found her lover lifele body where it fell and her repone wa quick and calculated. She took the bloody hovel and, a Farhad had done, inflicted a mortal wound on herelf. The king wih wa now realized; Farhad wa dead. But, then again, o wa the wih of Shirin and Farhad; they were at lat and eternally together. I hare thi familiar plot (i.e. Romeo and Juliet) for one very pointed reaon. It mirror the extreme I found in my fieldwork among Kurdih youth in Nahville. Great lo and great gain and deep paion were par for the coure. Jealouy and intrigue and unwie counel abounded. And in the final analyi, there were no happy ending, at leat not fully. I uppoe, then, what I found i what I hould have expected to find; thee kid walk about in human fleh, with all it fantatical and foible-ridden element in tow. In the page to follow, I do my bet to let them peak for themelve concerning what the exceptional and the quotidian have brought/will bring them. To begin, a brief compoite of my interviewee will be given (i.e. gender, age, country of origin, mean of emigration, etc.). I will try to be a pecific a poible within the parameter informally et by the Kurdih culture within which I operated. What that mean on a practical level i that firt name only will appear (with the 44

55 permiion of my interviewee), except for the lone adult a noted. Neither total anonymity nor full dicloure are ideal in thi context; a happy medium eem to be. Next, I will conider the collection method itelf, the mean by which I gathered the Kurdih youth perpective and the context in which we met for interview. In retropect, I am not ure if it wa orthodox or ideal but, again, it wa that which wa culturally acceptable and alo particularly helpful to me within the time frame allotted. Latly, I will look at theme. Chapter Four to Six of thi thei will involve the filtering of my finding through the grid of emigration/immigration, gender, and identity. Thee are, of coure, thematic in nature. In thi chapter, however, a dicuion of theme will be curory and, perhap, outide the bound of larger wath of thought dealt with in thoe later chapter. That i to ay, there were many thing which came to light in my interview which were more or le idioyncratic, peculiar to a pecific interviewee (i.e. repone to parental authority). Thoe will not be dicued. Even thoe that are will be more fully developed perhap in later chapter. Interviewee Let me now introduce my interviewee, in order of date interviewed. The firt wa Kian, a 21-year old male from Iranian Kurditan. Hi mall family came to the U.S. in after traniting through Turkey, coming firt to Phoenix, Arizona. He i a college tudent who work occaionally in hi father buine. He travel to Kurditan every two year, though only to the Iraqi ide, due to hi age. If he were to go to Iran, he 45

56 would be preed into military ervice, omething he i unwilling to do. The econd wa Dahneh, an 18-year old female from Iraqi Kurditan who came to the State in 1995, ettling firt in northern Georgia. She come from a large family that ha been very ucceful in the U.S. She i a practicing Mulim but doe not wear the hijab (head covering). She ha been back to Kurditan on more than one occaion though he cannot imagine living there long-term. The third wa Majeed, a 22-year old male from Iraqi Kurditan who came to Nahville in 1993 with hi large family. Previouly, they had pent year in a Turkih refugee camp. At the time of our interview, he wa working in hi family retaurant. He i now operating hi own buine and i married. The fourth interviewee, Dilman, wa a 26-year old female from Iraqi Kurditan, the only married peron with whom I poke. She wa a dental hygiene tudent whoe large family alo pent time in the refugee camp, arriving in the U.S. in Their firt home wa Boie, Idaho. She, like Dahneh, wa a proud, practicing Mulim who choe not to cover. The fifth wa a 22-year old female from Syrian Kurditan, the only Syrian Kurd I had met ince coming to Nahville that actually lived in the city. Some had come to viit but never tayed. Klavih family wa different, and in more way than one. Her father wa alo one of the firt Kurd to come to Nahville in the 1970, after pending a few year in Miami, Florida. Klavih wa a recent college graduate bound for work in a Metro Nahville claroom and her mall family wa led now by her widowed mother. Klavih i in contant contact with family in Kurditan, viiting when he can. The ixth and eventh interviewee were Klavih 15-year old iter and her mother who wa in her late 30. Thi wa a group interview that involved Klavih a 46

57 well and took place immediately following the one-on-one interview with her. Her iter, Dilan, wa a tudent-athlete in the local high chool. Her mother, Youza, had come to Nahville a a teenage bride and had truggled over the coure of the next twenty year to fully embrace American culture, a truggle which would have real-world effect on her children, epecially her daughter. The next interviewee, the eighth and ninth, alo participated together. They were couin Kajin, a 25-year old female, and Shermin, a 26- year old female. Both left Iraqi Kurditan a young children to pend year in a Turkih refugee camp before arriving in Nahville in They had adapted well to American culture but till felt a trong, abiding connection with their Kurdih heritage. It hould be noted a well that thee young women belong to one of the larget Kurdih clan in Nahville, numbering in the many hundred at leat. The tenth interviewee wa Kavar, an 18-year old male from Iraqi Kurditan. He wa a pecial part of thi reearch, for it wa hi puzzling comment concerning Kurditan which prompted it in the firt place. Interetingly, hi manner of peaking during the interview itelf eemed more tempered than thoe initial remark. He and hi family left Iraqi Kurditan in 1996 and went to Guam, then later made their way to Nahville. He ha been back home (hi word) three time to viit extended family but i unure if living there i in hi future. The eleventh and final interviewee wa Lava, a oft-poken 18-year old female from Iraqi Kurditan. She too had pent time on Guam and had come directly to Nahville after arriving in the U.S. A recent high chool graduate, he planned to go to pharmacy chool, tay unmarried and live a quiet life in the U.S. Like everal of the other women, he mentioned that he i a practicing Mulim. 47

58 Unlike them, however, thi i a very new part of her life which ha only recently come to dominate all other affiliation. Methodology Having never done reearch of thi depth previouly, I wa perhap a bit overzealou in my initial goal. It could have been linked to the previouly mentioned urvey I had done among Kurd in Metro Nahville chool, in which nearly two hundred participated. Surely, I thought, I can gather of them, add other who were in or jut out of college and be on my way. I mean, really, how much trouble could that be? I found out it wa urpriingly difficult, though I am not ure that it wa more o for me than for any other reearcher. Farmer or firemen, ymphony muician or tay-at-home mom preent a many challenge to the fieldworker a do the Millennial Kurd I wa puruing. That thought came in hindight, however, and wa not much encouragement in thoe frutrating month of calling, texting and ing. My firt lit of potential interviewee wa compried of youth from familie I had come to know through my work in the community, thoe who had come in the third and fourth wave ( ). Mot of thoe kid I had little or no intimate knowledge of becaue my contact had been with their parent. That i to ay, if I knew them at all it wa only when they were mall children, climbing on the ofa or watching a cartoon a I at with Mom and Dad to ae family need. There were everal other, though, who fit the criteria even though they were now young adult and I had never met them. What wa 48

59 that criteria? They mut be of Kurdih heritage, between the age of 15-25, male or female from any part of Kurditan repreented in Nahville (meaning from Turkey, Iraq, Iran or Syria) and living in Nahville. The reader might correctly note that two of my interviewee were 26-year old, outide of my etablihed parameter. I made an allowance for that, again, becaue of the amazing difficulty in getting thee young Kurd to it down for an extended period of time to talk. Other than thoe two, however, everyone fit the criteria well and, in fact, provided a full cro-ection of gender, age, family ize, route of emigration, educational interet, etc. which yielded wonderful commonalitie and conflict in the torie they told. One urpriing development wa the number of female willing to be interviewed. My initial thought wa to get a cloe to a 50/50 plit between the exe, but many of the young men I approached were overwhelmed with chool and/or employment reponibilitie. That not to ay the women were unencumbered; mot of them houldered the ame load. It jut that they eemed le avere to adding omething to their already buy chedule, epecially if it involved educating the American public about their people. And in the end, it wa a lifeaver for me. From January to April of 2013, I found only three people to interview (Kian, Dahneh and Majeed). A college-age woman I had approached earlier, who by her own admiion wa too hy to be recorded, paed on the name of a friend through Facebook. That wa #4, Dilman, who brought the count even, two male and two female. Then an American friend of mine contacted Kajin, who wa only a girl when my friend and her huband became cultural broker for Kajin family after their arrival in 49

60 Nahville twenty-two year ago. In the lengthy, complex proce which followed they became more than that; they became fat and lifelong friend. In fact, at the wedding of my friend daughter lat ummer, there wa only one Kurdih family in attendance, Kajin. That bond, in conjunction with a love for her people, propelled Kajin to find other to peak with me and by the end of July my interview were complete (except for one in September with S.K., a 1970 adult arrival). All but one of thoe ummer interviewee were female. The obviou benefit wa a different perpective on the iue at hand (i.e. identity), the relational health of the community and the blatant inequitie experienced by thee young women in our day and on our oil. The narrative of the latter were a totally wonderful urprie and will be explored in detail in Chapter 5. For now, let it be known that thi i a ubject of great dicuion within the wall of the Kurdih home but not many place beide. With each interview, from January to July of 2013, there were two contant component, one which had to be endured and the other modified to make the experience all it could be. The firt wa the phyical etting. Due to cheduling iue and cultural contraint, all but three of my interview took place in public area (i.e. retaurant and hop) where the battle to obtain a quality recording wa contantly waged. Cutomer chatter, clinking glae, emergency vehicle and even the wind vied for every available econd of recording time. The reultant recording are, therefore, le than ideal but, when taken with the companion trancript, till provide a olid collection of reearch material. 50

61 Let me ay a word about the attendant cultural iue which were uperimpoed on every potential interview. Better yet, let Klavih, the 22-year old female who met me outide a Starbuck in full view of the walking/driving public: It a hame to talk to thi peron or like what if like I m itting here talking to you [Steve] and my Mom like, what if omebody Kurdih walk by? They re not gonna know you re interviewing him or you re interviewing with him or he interviewing you and aking quetion about your culture. They re gonna think omething ele. That wa exactly the ituation I worked to avoid and the reaon why every female I interviewed wa recorded either in a public place or in their home urrounded by family member, particularly father. My aim wa to create a reource for the community, not a candal, and that neceitated ample caution. Two of my female interviewee even provided their own cover by bringing along friend or family to the public venue. Again, the dicuion in Chapter 5 will help to explain thi eeming exce. Secondly, the mot baic methodological component of all wa alway at hand, the quetion. How would I elicit the narrative I o deperately wanted? What quetion would prompt a poitive or, at leat, active repone? And in what order hould they be given? How deeply hould I probe into private, perhap painful matter? How could I engender a ene of trut? Wa it poible to divet my interviewee of community anwer to gain their own? Could I do more than gather information and offer hope to what appeared to be an ungrounded group? All of thee quetion and perhap more were condened and codified into what you ee below, the main portion of what became, for 51

62 me, a tandard thei interview form (thought it mut be aid that thee were merely tarting point for a healthy converation). The complete form can be found in the appendix. Give me a little background on your family in Kurditan and how they came here How ha your life/your parent live been here? When did you undertand your family wa different? How did you deal with that? Tell me about your chool. Were they good/bad? Mixed/not? How have they affected your image a a Kurdih-American? What would you ay i your relationhip to Kurditan? Do you think/read about it/viit it? Why/why not? Do you read, write and peak Kurdih? Why/why not? How do you expre yourelf a a Kurd? Why? What location/etting? How do your friend expre themelve? Are there ome way that are right and other wrong? Why? In what way have thoe expreion helped or hurt the undertanding of non-kurd about your culture? How do you think the community i viewed by non-kurd in Nahville? Are there thing that the older generation ha done to create problem for the community? Do you ee thing changing? How? If not, why not? How can the youth contribute? If omeone who not Kurdih were to come to you and ay, Tell me about your culture/people in 5 minute, what would you ay? In other word, what are the mot important thing they hould know about Kurd? I mut ay that thi ytem came only after much trial and error and, even now, could undoubtedly be improved. That aid, the mot telling information could be had from 52

63 anwering thoe quetion, one which revolved around three larger quetion lying at the doortep of their tripped-down elve: 1. Who do you think you are? 2. How did you become who you are? 3. Who helped you become who you are? It i very hard for mot of u to think in thee term, in abtract. Converely, it i much eaier to think concretely/materially. So, for intance, I could ak an interviewee, Do you talk to family and friend in Kurditan? The black and white preent only two poible anwer, ye or no. The follow-up quetion(), Why? or Why not?, preent() endle poibilitie which, when anwered, brighten the room from which mot of thee young people operate. In other word, when the immaterial i addreed by the interviewee we are allowed into a pace which i many time hidden and many time unexplainable even by the peron themelve. Here i an example. I aked every one of my interviewee thi quetion, a very folkloric quetion, How do you expre yourelf a a Kurd? Many time that would be met with a blank tare, perhap becaue they did not undertand what expre meant in that context or perhap becaue they had never given much thought to the iue previouly. I do not know. But regardle of what prompted their repone, I would alway greet the interviewee uncertainty with an explanatory quetion, Do you go to Kurdih event? A with the quetion above concerning family connection in Kurditan, the anwer to 53

64 thi quetion require a imple ye/no anwer. The follow-up, on the other hand, i the great revealer, a evidenced in Dahneh converation with me, hown below. d d d d d d So you aid you go to fetival, like? Like baically thoe Kurdih partie and tuff like that where they all... Yeah what do they have in Nahville...a far a a lot of Kurd getting together? They have like, I don t really know how to explain them. It... Newroz i one of them, right? Yeah but for me, I jut go and hang out and try to have ome fun and ee what going on. I mean, do you ee it a getting together with Kurd or getting together with friend and family? I ee it more a friend and family. Ok. What about other people, like your friend, your other Kurdih friend, do they go to thoe thing too? Ye they do actually. And do you think that they do them for the ame reaon a you? Probably. Yeah. So it not a much about being Kurdih a jut being together with people that you enjoy pending time with. 54

65 d Ye, enjoy pending time with and people that actually undertand you, you know? Her anwer tell me that, though he i active in the Kurdih community, it i not necearily becaue it i exprely Kurdih. Ye, he i Kurdih but he i alo a woman, a Mulim, a tudent, an American, a daughter, a iter, etc., and every one of thoe hat hang on her identity hook. The quetion aked were critical in allowing that to become evident, perhap even for the very firt time. I turn now to what I referred to earlier a theme. It i an attempt, of ort, to make ene of the mountain of rich material that an experienced folklorit (i.e. not me) could mine from interviewing eleven people, a I did. They were choen for thi preent dicuion primarily becaue they were prominent acro many of the interview. Beyond that, there i jut not enough pace to deal with all thoe which howed themelve. There were quetion I offered which, on the urface, appear totally inane ( When did you realize your family wa different? ) Other were never aked directly (i.e. What dialect of Kurdih do you peak? ) but deduced from other anwer. Both illy quetion and ilent quetion were critical in more fully undertanding who thee young Kurd are. The format for thi dicuion will be a follow; the theme, the quetion from the interview form, the anwer from the trancript and a quai ynthei of both quetion and anwer, highlighting the relevance of leon learned to the iue of identity. Pleae remember, though, we are only dipping toe in the water at thi point; the cannonball off 55

66 the high board will take place in Chapter 6. One other thing a well; there i a ignificant amount of bleed-over between quetion and anwer, meaning there might not necearily be a one-to-one corollary between a ingle quetion and a ingle anwer. They are beautifully intertwined, reflecting the peron they concern. Theme: Quetion: Acculturation Model Give me a little background on your family in Kurditan and how they came here. Anwer: Kian (male, aged 21) k...do you think that becaue your Mom and Dad choe to go through the hard time and choe to go to a place where the language wa different, the culture wa different that that helped you in the proce even at Brentwood [a high chool in a wealthy part of Nahville]? Ye it did, I mean, of coure, you re gonna how a lot of appreciation toward your parent for doing a lot of thing for you, trying to bring, make you come up into, you know, give you a better future. But yet jut their undertanding and their appreciation for me to have a better future, made me more ociable and made me realize, you know, I have to get through thi, you know, thi in t omething that up to me but it omething I have to go through for me to have a better future, o why not do it? Klavih (female, aged 22) k I jut graduated in May. Where? What chool? 56

67 k k k TSU. Yeah o I got a job at Caldwell Enhanced Option in Nahville. So you know Dr. Gundi I gue, huh? Oh yeah, I love him. See like he a perfect example of omeone that came to the State, he came the ame time a my dad. Him and my dad were really cloe. And my dad aid he choe the option to go to chool and get educated where my dad didn t chooe that. He choe the option to become a mechanic. But he did omething good and a lot of people like from the TSU community know him and know that he i a Kurdih profeor. Even the Kurdih community, like we all know that we have a Kurdih profeor. That omething good that he did for our culture and recognize, like we all recognize him and what he did. Yeah, he helped me with thi thei too. Oh yeah, ee like he he out there and I feel like it all through education, you have to get educated and do omething with your life. Kavar (male, aged 18) k Ok. And what did your dad and/or your mom do when they got here? Well, neither of them knew any Englih whatoever, nothing. Jut kind of came in blind-eyed, not knowing anything. My dad firt tarted off a, a a cook for ome retaurant flipping burger and my mom he jut tayed at home mot of the time. And when, after we moved, you know, toward outh Nahville where there were more Kurd my mom got a job at a bakery, making bread and my dad tarted working off at ome warehoue. And then my mom decided to take ome clae in chool and o, you know, that kind of really helped her out. And my dad jut watching tv and tuff, he learned ome Englih. That wa good and that when I tarted off chool. But yeah, my mom lowly worked her way up, you know, with chool and tuff and, you know, now he ha her Bachelor degree. She going for a Mater. She work for the Department of State, Department of Finance and Adminitration 57

68 for the tate and my dad own hi own grocery tore. So you know it definitely, you know, impreive eeing how far they ve come. Synthei: Each of my interviewee came to thi country a a young child, mot likely with very few preconceived notion of what to expect. They needed mentor, model to emulate, ettled or ettling one who could walk them down a path to healthy, balanced enculturation. Mot often they were found in parent, teacher, older ibling, community leader or ome combination of the ame. Sometime thee model did their work unaware, imply doing their bet to work hard and provide well, a in the cae of Kian or Kavar parent. Sadly, there were other who moved blithely along, unaware or uncaring that they would be followed (i.e., gang member or parent/grandparent who tood at arm length from anything unfamiliar). Regardle, the children grew and learned, properly or not, the way to repreent themelve and their dual culture and did it in way that reflected the individual they are. Theme: Quetion: Anwer: Environment Tell me about your chool. Were they good/bad? Mixed/not? How have they affected your image a a Kurdih-American? Lava (female, aged 18) I don t know if thi applie to you anymore becaue you talked about how l Americanized you were from an early age but wa there ever a time in elementary chool or pat that where you felt like you were different than the... Kurd? Other kid? No not Kurd. 58

69 l l l l l l Kurd jut other kid? No caue I alway fit in. I don t know, jut like I aid I wa really Americanized early, like you can even ak my Mom. I don t know. Do you feel like your friend accepted you a jut a friend or a their Kurdih friend? A a friend. Ok. Yeah. And you felt the ame way about them. Right. Ok. But they did, like every time they came over our houe, our houe they alway ued to learn, well try to learn to peak the language. You know, they would try my culture but it wa really nothing, you know a big deal I mean. So did you encourage that or? I mean I did, yeah. My mom alway ued to cook for them o it wa pretty fun. l Yeah that work. [laughter] So overall in your chool experience pending mot of your time with non-kurd... Right. Would you ay that that wa good? 59

70 l If it wa good? I mean, it really didn t bother me. I really didn t care if it wa good or bad. It wa jut, I wa urpried how all the Kurd wa alway together and how I wan t. It wa jut...not awkward. I don t know how you would explain it exactly. Majeed (male, aged 22) m m m m That great. What chool did you go to growing up? I wa, in elementary I went to Whititt. Elementary I wa in Whititt. That wa probably right back here. We ued to live in the ghetto, nah (laughing). And then, and then it wa actually very good. We went from, from the ghetto we went to Brentwood. Really? And I wa going to, I don t know if you know Edmondon Elementary? I wa going to Edmondon Elementary. And then I went one year, it wa about a half a year to Brentwood Middle. And then from Brentwood Middle, we moved back. I gue they mied the community o we moved back. And then I wa going to Croft. And then from Croft to Overton High School. And then I m here now talking to you. Were thoe chool mixed culturally, language-wie? See, I loved Brentwood. I loved Brentwood. You learn becaue everybody, jut you know, everybody rich and they know o much more than the, let ay, the kid in Davidon County know. They know o much more. About what? About everything, you know? They re jut, they re very well educated, you know, very well educated. And then you come here and the people are a little more, like they re a little more behind, little more behind. But the people, the kid there I ve learned a lot, like learned how to be repectful. That from the kid and you know that the main thing, that from the parent, you know. 60

71 m But that, that wa from Brentwood, to be honet with you, you know. Caue they re very, they re repectful, it not like they re not repectful. I ve learned, I ve learned a lot growing up in Brentwood. So that wa a good experience for you then? Very good experience, yeah. I would love to till be in Brentwood. Shermin (female, aged 26) k h h So, I wa thinking... about your comment about Hillboro being divere, not very many Kurd at all wherea at Antioch... Antioch there wa a lot. Wa that a good thing for you, you think? Peronally it made me, you know, find out new thing, new like new ethnicitie and all, new people, new, it wan t jut I wa in my comfort zone anymore. I actually expanded. I got to meet new people that, a... aid, we d never meet ever before. I had, we had thi group called Oai Center and it wa all of, it wa all of the, the foreigner that wa at the chool. It like it wa kind of like our comfort zone like... Like a club? It wa like yeah, it wa called Oai Club and it wa our way of getting to know each other and feeling comfortable with each other, like not being like the other one. We had Mexican, we had Chinee, we had Ethiopian, we had like all of thee countrie and it wa jut o facinating to meet other, thee other people and learn about their culture. And they re kind of like jut like u, coming to America and jut learning the language, learning the whole culture hock and. So, it wa really, I ay it wa very facinating. For me, honetly, it wa pretty good not to have too many Kurdih people. I mean, I had my couin, I had my iter and all o I wa fine with that. And it wa jut, 61

72 Synthei: I would never trade that again caue I got to meet ome of the coolet people, ome of the nicet people ever o. There were obviou difference in the experience of each of thee young people in their new home. Some came with the protective cover of family, even extended family, a refuge on the mot challenging of day. Shermin mentioned her time in a nearly Kurd-le high chool; what he didn t ay wa that her clan in Nahville i hundred trong. Contrat that with the live of Kian or Lava, who navigated third-culture water with only immediate family for upport. Dilman poke of another environmental factor with which he peronally truggled, arrival date. Thi wa a really intereting twit on the expected norm, which would pit, o to peak, the early arrival againt the later (the old we know more than you mindet). She aid that thoe who came to Nahville in 1997 actually looked down on thoe who had come jut ix year previou, in fact did their bet to keep ome ditance away. Why? Thoe from 91 had become the Americanized (i.e. le Kurdih), the outider (peronal interview with the author), thoe who poed a threat to a pure community they brought with them. Latly wa the iue of geography. Thi ha no reference to Kurditan proper, it citie or village but, rather, to a pot on a U.S. map to which thee young Kurd could point and ay, Thi i where we were and thi i where we are. Among my interviewee alone there were four tate (Arizona, Florida, Idaho, Georgia) which erved a firt home in the U.S.; the ret obviouly came to Nahville directly. What that mean 62

73 for thoe four familie i twofold; they received expoure to culture both foreign and dometic other may not have and they made a conciou deciion to move to Nahville. Both are ignificant factor in how thee young people ee themelve and the world around them. A econd geographical element i, in which Nahville neighborhood did thee familie chooe to live? South Nahville, particularly along the Nolenville Road corridor, i a blue-collar, international zone with a high concentration of Kurdih home, buinee, place of worhip, etc. In fact, it would be afe to ay, mot Nahville Kurd live within a five mile radiu of thi area. Many other live outide of it, to be ure, in area of greater affluence or greater ditance (i.e., Charlotte Avenue, Brentwood, Smyrna, etc.) but uually for a very dicrete and unflattering reaon; they want to be away from the din of contant community chatter. Some of thoe with whom I poke decry uch an ecape; other relih it and truly believe it ha made them not only a better peron but, indeed, a better Kurd. Theme: Cultural Affection Quetion: What would you ay i your relationhip to Kurditan? How do you expre yourelf a a Kurd? Why? Anwer: Klavih (female, aged 22) k I think I have a trong relationhip to Kurditan...I have no problem with expreing myelf and my identity and being Kurdih. Kavar (male, aged 18) 63

74 k...i, ince I wa born there you know jut conider myelf Kurdih. I don t really ay that I m Kurdih-American...like me for example I have a big Kurdih flag that I hang on the back windhield of my car. Majeed (male, aged 22) m I love Kurditan...yeah I might actually like Kurditan a little more than America. Shermin (female, aged 26) h...i accept who I am, I love being Kurdih...I peronally love Kurdih muic and all that tuff, I m like. And for me I m all about muic, Kurdih muic, American muic, everything. But for me how I expre myelf everyday i through muic. Dilman (female, aged 26) d Sure, I mean I, I love Nahville, I wouldn t trade it for the world. I ve been back home, I went back home in 2008, back to Kurditan for a family viit. But I honetly wouldn t trade Nahville for any other place in the world. It become home to me... Ye o, you know, I m not a like the Kurdih-pirited peron. I love my culture and I love my country. I jut don t feel like I have a lot of opportunity. But when it come to thing like thi (i.e. an interview) to expre myelf in any way that I can, I m more than happy to do it. I would rather ak, be aked a million quetion than for omebody to jut it there and aume omething about my culture or about my country. Kian (male, aged 21) k I love Kurditan with every inch of my body...i have Kurditan tattooed on my chet right now. Dahneh (female, aged 18) 64

75 d I am a true Kurd but I think I m kind of ditant...a lot of people tend to look away from it. A for me, I try to tay cloe to it. Like I try to follow and know more about it...i ak my Dad a lot of quetion...i go to the fetival...i read a book. Dilan (female, aged 15) So...how do you feel about being a Kurd in America? d I like it but I don t caue, I like it caue Kurdih wedding and we all get together, it fun. But then I don t like it caue you, it hard eeing your friend go out and tuff and you jut it at home caue you can t go caue your mom won t let you. That not fun. Lava (female, aged 18) l Now what would you ay your relationhip i to Kurditan? My relationhip there? Honetly when I went back I hated it...i don t know, it jut, it wan t me. It wa, everything wa jut different. I have more freedom here...but there it jut crazy...it ucked...i don t really expre myelf a a Kurd. I expre myelf a a Mulim, not a Kurd...I really never did, it wa jut. I don t know, I really didn t care. I ll jut put it like that. Synthei: Thi mind-bending aortment of confliction i glaring, i it not? I love but I don t, I m cloe but I m not, I m thi but I m that. It ha got to be exhauting and I applaud each of thee young people for not imploding in the proce. Of coure, even the comment that were hared only tell half the tory. One might profe hi/her deep affection for the land and culture of their birth but never go to a Kurdih event becaue 65

76 they do not like to party. Someone ele might lay claim to being a proud Kurd yet maintain little contact with family in the homeland, make little effort to promote Kurdih culture among their American neighbor or, urpriingly, give tacit approval to what mot claim i a gro mirepreentation of their community (i.e., the Kurdih Pride gang). In the end, however, it did not matter how deeply paionate my interviewee were for kurdayeti (Kurdihne). It wa what Dilman aid it wa, inecapable....you houldn t look back on your culture becaue it gonna be who you are for the ret of your life whether you wanna repreent it or not. It in your blood, it in your eye, you re not gonna you know run away from it. You can run but it ll till be there, it ll till be there regardle. In the preface to hi fine book on folk narrative in a Northern Ireland community, Ray Cahman make a plain-faced yet triking tatement regarding fieldwork. Folklore need not be a matter of life or death or even politically charged for it to be worthy of tudy (Cahman 2008, x). Folklorit the world over undertand exactly what i meant; the expanivene of that which can be oberved, analyzed and publicized i endle. It can be but need not be obering material to merit our attention. What i telling in Cahman word, in my opinion, i that he knew that many of the oral tradition he choe to tudy continue to be politically inflected (Cahman 2008, ix), continue to touch matter of great import. My tudy i no different. 66

77 I wrote a ong many year ago voicing the depth of my inability to truly undertand the torie I wa hearing from Kurdih friend, of forced marche in horrid condition and fear and tear and deprivation and death. Then there me, privileged member of middle-cla ociety The um of my uffering, the total of tear Like a blip on the timeline compared to their year So how can I ever avail to cale thi velvet-clad wall And peak to the pain of thi people at all (author 1995)? It i a hard quetion but one which, due to the contant refrain of thee exodu narrative, can be and ha been anwered to a great extent. Problem are addreed when problem are known, when voice are heard. My fieldwork, I believe, made room for the ilent, thoe who to ome degree did hare a pat and preent with thoe who carried them to afety, who comforted them in miery. Yet, perhap to a much larger degree, they hared little if any common ground experientially or philoophically. Parent and children may have walked along parallel track but they were till eparate track. Thi fieldwork wa aimed at exploring that uncommon ground. Without quetion, there are point of reference (i.e., theme) beyond the three dicued (Acculturation Model, Environment and Cultural Affection) which urfaced in thoe 2013 interview. Some of them will be dealt with at length in the chapter to follow, in which a more focued folkloric len will be directed toward the ubject at hand. Other, perhap, were mere ub-heading of the three grouping above. For example, environmental iue concerned more than the effect of chool and home or even the 67

78 greater (adult) community on the young peron. There wa alo the iue of peer influence and, pecifically, how active thoe peer were in oliciting youth involvement for ethnic promotion in Nahville and beyond. Virtually none of the young people with whom I poke were involved at all in thee kind of activitie and preciely, it eemed, becaue none of their friend were. In hort, then, the depth of inquiry available in thi brief look at the live of jut eleven people are taggering. It i alo beautiful. Shirin and Farhad did fall on the mountainide, from all appearance failing to realize the dream of a life together. Even prior to that violent end, they uffered greatly, eparated by tation and by time. But there wa alway hope and there wa afterward the flower, one a companion in life and the other a guet in death. You ee, one verion of thi love tory mention that a the blood dripped from thoe cruhing head wound, the guli ur began to prout. Thee red flower, till common in the mountain of Iranian Kurditan where thi tory took place, repreent the beauty of thi unlikely relationhip. Though never joined in life, they were joined nonethele. Thi, too, i illutriou of my time among thee young Kurd. They have uffered greatly, either by extenion or by experience, in both pat and preent and yet retain an amazing element of grace and replendence far beyond their year. I feel privileged to have caught even the mallet amount of it here, for them and their children, one whoe live will unquetionably tand apart from thoe who tood apart. We will ee whether that mark progre or not. 68

79 4 Both Side of the Same Coin In the firt chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien claic, The Hobbit, the protagonit find himelf in quite the quandary. The unexpected and nearly unruly crowd that invaded hi home, from cupboard to cuhion, wa diturbance enough; but what really troubled him wa omething much deeper. It wa a if their arrival had awoken in him an ancient affection for thing he had long pondered but never eriouly purued or even wholly deired, indeed not a prize to be won by omeone of hi ilk. And o it wa, in thi vexing tate of competing loyaltie, he at on the periphery, litening to hi guet give voice to their dream. [And] a they ang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful thing made by hand and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and a jealou love, the deire of the heart of dwarve. Then omething Tookih woke up inide him, and he wihed to go and ee the great mountain, and hear the pine-tree and the waterfall, and explore the cave, and wear a word intead of a walking-tick. He looked out of the window. The tar were out in a dark ky above the tree. He thought of the jewel of the dwarve hining in dark cavern. Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up, probably omebody lighting a wood-fire, and he thought of plundering dragon ettling on hi quiet Hill and kindling it all to flame. He huddered; and very quickly he wa plain Mr. Baggin of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again (Tolkien 1937: 16). He wa torn between where/what he wa and where/what he could be, if only he could part with that which he knew mot intimately; family, friend and home. There would be 69

80 a painful leaving and, perhap, an even more painful arrival before the goal could be realized. For Bilbo Baggin, that meant adventure, a far more colorful exitence than hi lazy moke ring or lovely garden could hope to afford. Kurd ecaping Iraq in the lat quarter of the twentieth century, on the other hand, longed for omething ele, omething intrinically primal; they wanted to urvive. While it i true that virtually all of them pent month, if not year, at tranit point (i.e., refugee camp) along the way, allowing more time to conjure up what they had been told of the American Dream (i.e., life perk at little to no expene), the future of thee refugee tretched only a far a the next day or o during that initial exodu. The preent wa virtually all that wa proffered. In time, life in America would be imilarly jarring. Thi chapter concern both end of that proce, the leaving and the arriving, the emigration and immigration. It will be dicued here, however, only to the degree it i deemed relevant by my interviewee. That i, their comment will drive thi analyi, a i proper (in my opinion) of any ethnography. The broader political incubu which puhed the mae out wa dealt with at length in Chapter 2 and will not be repeated here. I will, intead, examine the ignificance of parental emigration narrative (or lack thereof) and U.S. chool in the formation of Kurdih youth identity in Nahville. Additionally, I will compare the way() young Kurd in Nahville do/do not match tock portrait of third-culture youth in our day and what, if anything, that ay about their proclivity for monoculturalim. An additional note involving terminology i helpful at thi point a well. A noted above, the focu of my tudy in thi chapter will be emigration and immigration, 70

81 equential element of the refugee proce. I found Anya Peteron Royce etymology leon particularly intereting with regard to thi ubject, a he poke of the eimic hift in nineteenth-century immigration. A further point made by [Marcu Lee] Hane i that the term immigrant came into uage only in The proce of immigration had gone on in the eventeenth and eighteenth centurie, but the individual involved were called emigrant. They migrated out of omething. By 1817, they were migrating into omething--nation (Royce 1982: 108). Her point i unequivocal;...the context and proce of immigration i a prime contributor to ethnicity (Royce 1982: 108), that i the formation of ethnic identity. If it i poible at all to undertand the fidelity of a people to itelf, one hould begin where they began, traveling the path a it were with them. Additionally, the fifty million European who left for new land between 1815 and 1914 were not, in Royce opinion, running from privation a much a running to promie, hurled ever forward by tunning technological advance. Evidently, twentieth-century Kurd were not the firt to grapple with thi exhauting duality (i.e., from-to ). Regardle of the play given to peer influence in the contruction of youth identity, it i an undeniable reality that a much larger part i played by the parent() (and in the cae of young Kurd, older ibling and extended family). The author of Learning a New Land: Immigrant Studie in American Society would agree. In their extenive tudy of immigrant familie, they found convincing evidence that children who had 71

82 migrated with their familie intact had ignificantly fewer depreive ymptom than thoe who were living in other type of family arrangement...put another way, children who were eparated from their parent were more likely to report depreive ymptom than children who were not eparated from their parent during migration (Suarez- Orozco, Suarez-Orozco and Todorova 2008: 62). While it i true thi tatement mention nothing of identity per e, depreion i, in part, a mental tate linked to poor elf image/ identity. Immigrant parent, according to thi tudy, are an effective counteragent. My own interviewee recognized thi and hared the following with me. Kian (male, aged 21) Do you think that, and thi may be too, a trange way to ak it but do you k think that becaue your mom and dad choe to go through the hard time and choe to go a place where the language wa different, the culture wa different that that helped you in the proce even at Brentwood? Ye it did, I mean, of coure, you re gonna how a lot of appreciation toward your parent for doing a lot of thing for you, trying to bring, make you come up into, you know, give you a better future. But yet jut their undertanding and their appreciation for me to have a better future, made me more ociable and made me realize, you know, I have to get through thi, you know, thi in t omething that up to me but it omething I have to go through for me to have a better future, o why not do it? Majeed (male, aged 22) m Yeah, they re alway about that, you know, get into the culture, learn a much a you can, go to chool, you know be omething. We came here for a reaon, you know. We didn t, you know, becaue a lot of people coming here they took chance. That why a lot of my other family tayed back home. A lot of 72

83 m people didn t know what it gonna be like, you know they, a lot of people didn t know what car were or TV or anything. So they re jut taking a big chance but all they knew wa, we re getting away from thi hellhole. Boy, it wa a hellhole at that moment. Yeah o your parent took a rik. They took the rik, yeah. That why you ee, like, all the parent, you know, they kill their children to be omething. Dilan (female, aged 15) d Exactly, you don t know. But if your daughter a good girl you houldn t have to worry if they re being bad or not...right? If your daughter a good girl you houldn t have to worry. If he wa out with a bad peron, he till a good girl. If he good, he not gonna do omething bad. Much more will be heard from Dilan in the next chapter but, a a prelude, thee comment reflect her ongoing, utter frutration with a mother that want to lock me up (peronal interview with author). Thi tandoff ha ramification for her Kurdih identity, to be ure, but a her comment reveal, alo for that which i perhap deeper; am I a good peron or a bad peron? Dilan belief about that wa carved, in large part, by her mother. In , I conducted urvey in three Nahville public chool (Glencliff High, Overton High and Croft Middle) with high population of Kurd, in order to gather information on identity/aimilation iue and to gauge interet in a Kurdih teen center. The third quetion in the urvey, however, dealt with parent. It read, If we were to ak 73

84 your parent() about life a a Kurd in America, how would they rate their own experience in the following area? The anwer graphic i below. very bad bad neither good very good Job/making money Family life Following your religion Peace and afety Comfort with American culture Friendhip with American people Friendhip with people from other countrie (not Kurdih) The repone obviouly varied from tudent to tudent but, clearly, they felt their parent did not fare a well in aimilating a they themelve. Many of thoe parent choe not to employ the trategy of accommodation without aimilation (Suarez- Orozco 1989: 92), which would allow them maintenance of their own cultural code for behavior yet give them the ability to learn the language and to acquire the behavior and ymbol a required for ucce in the hot ociety (Suarez-Orozco 1989: 92). Perhap thi wa an expected choice for thoe who, in many way, remained traumatized by hardcrabble living. One of the analytical benefit gained from uch revelation, however, i that both ide of parental enculturation come into view. The parent truggle with language and job kill acquiition, family tability and extant and often inflammatory homeland 74

85 concern are, more often than not, obviou in the way they manifet themelve with repect to that father/mother elf-awarene. They tend to either further retreat into the known or take more confident tep toward the unknown. How ele could one account for the large number of adult Kurd who cannot convere in Englih after twenty year in Nahville or, converely, thoe like the mother of Kavar, who i now working on her Mater degree? But what of the effect on the young peron? I there a direct caueeffect correlation between how the parent adapt and how their children adapt? My dicuion of acculturation model in the previou chapter would ugget o. An intereting picture of life for Sudanee in Minneota would a well, though from a lightly different angle. Jon Holtzman noted that there are relatively few teenager in Minneota compared to the overall Nuer (Sudanee) population (Holtzman 2000: 99), due in large part to the age of thoe coming to the U.S. from refugee camp in Kenya. Mot were, a of hi writing, young men. The majority of thoe teenager that did come were alike in two repect; they were male and they were parentle. While they often attended chool and worked job concurrently (an admirable feat to be ure), there wa a growing dilemma; in the abence of adult to control thi behavior, Holtzman oberve, it i not uncommon for drinking problem to develop among Nuer youth in Minneota (Holtzman 2000: 100). The deficiency i thi intance wa not ditracted parental uperviion (a in the cae with a number of young Nahville Kurd) but, rather, none at all. It could be aid, and properly o, that imilar problem could have arien even under the watchful eye of Nuer parent but Holtzman tudy eem to ugget otherwie, a would the tetimonie of my 75

86 own interviewee. On a ide note, I will ay that none of thoe young Kurd, though arriving at different juncture and guided by parent at varying degree of aimilation, carried much in the way of (enculturation) baggage. That i, they eemed not to be at odd with either culture to any great degree, a characteritic which will come into greater perpective in the final chapter. I uppoe thi learned ability might be one reaon they would be willing to talk identity with me in the firt place. What of the other ide however, the emigration, the exit? Are the torie children learn of how and why they left the homeland more than imply intructive and compelling or are they empowering a well? Do they aid in the tranition from one culture to another or at leat, a I contend, from one culture to a hadowy place beyond the firt yet not fully to the econd? Surpriingly, I had no thought of thi iue at all a I began fieldwork. In fact, there i not a ingle quetion concerning it on the form I ued with my interviewee. But after hearing the unbroken recitation of Kian family hitory, thi nacent idea began to form, driven by my own confuion over tory. If thi young man wa only a child when hi family left Iran, how could he now know o many detail about their experience? How could he, a it were, ee and mell and feel each graphic element from that time? Clearly, there wa only one anwer; he wa told. Wa that true for other a well? Kian (male, aged 21) k But back then my parent jut aid don t worry about it, jut ay Iran. But a I grew older I finally really knew, I traced back my root. I really found out more about where I came from, more about my race, ethnicity, about our 76

87 k k country hitory, of what it wa, what it became and it really howed the light on a lot of thing. How did you find that tuff out? I mean did you do reearch, did you talk to your dad? No but I can t ak my teacher at chool, they don t, mot of them don t know about it. I wa urpried a few did, but they couldn t give me the detail I needed. My parent, they gave me information but I mean, of coure, elf reearch i alway the bet reearch o I jut reearched it myelf. I went on the internet, I checked out book, I really found out exactly what happened and how everything came to be. I that omething that you did even a a child or a you were getting older? It wa a I wa getting older. A a child it didn t really, I wa jut at firt, I wa, I alway thought I wa jut from Iran, I wa jut an Iranian kid. But a I grew older, I would ay about middle chool I really found out you know, it wa like, it wa a weird proce. In middle chool I really found out who the Kurdih people were and who I wa and, you know, how our cutom are o different from other people. Dahneh (female, aged 18) d Yeah, o have your mom or dad ever explained to you, ort of in detail about why you had to leave and actually how, the proce of it all? No, they never actually at down with me and talked about it. I know it had to do with like war and, you know, tuff like that. Majeed (male, aged 22) Now, are thoe torie about having to leave the village, living in the refugee camp, going back and forth, that kind of thing, i that the kind of thing that 77

88 m your dad and your older brother and iter talked with you about a you were growing up? Yeah. Kavar (male, aged 18) k k k k k k You aid your dad wa given the opportunity to leave... Yeah. Jut ort of out of the blue. But have you been told more about that ituation? Did it have anything at all to do with, you know, Kurdih civil war and Saddam coming back up into the Kurdih area or anything that you know of? Yeah kind of, my dad, well my parent were kind of worried that, you know, the tuff that happened in their, in their, you know, pat would happen again while they had me. So, I gue, jut took it a an opportunity for me to, you know, have a better life, I gue. So you were a couple of year old when you left? Yeah. Actually, I wa, I wa barely two. Do you remember anything at all about... Nothing. Leaving or Guam or anything. No, nothing, nothing at all. I mean, it kind of ad though. I wih I could remember ome thing but... Yeah. I wa o young. 78

89 k So baically the only thing you remember i America. Yeah. Lava (female, aged 18) l l Yeah, what the tory? I mean, have they told you anything about why they left that area? Not really. From what I know wa my dad worked with America and we were brought here, through Guam to here. That really... Ok. Do you remember anything at all about Kurditan? Nothing, don t remember nothing. Lat, I did go back ummer a a trip and didn t really like it. l l Hmm. So a far a you know you went traight from Kurditan to... Guam. Guam? I mean there wa, did you go to Turkey firt, to Iran firt? I believe we did, I jut really never got into detail about aking my parent about all of that. It i clear that ome parent were more intentional in the tranfer of cultural heritage than were other. The ame could be aid for the young people themelve. A few took the initiative to acquire knowledge independently, a Kian, Dahneh and Kajin, whether for a chool project or imply to deepen connection to their ethnic heritage. Yet even then, family elder and, more pecifically, parent remained the primary ource of 79

90 information for hitorical event (including their own ecape), a well a the linchpin for cultural maintenance in the family. Pychologit Mary Pipher would take it one tep further. She would ay that parent mut be leader in the march to biculturalim. Whatever their current tree and pat trauma, refugee parent mut till be parent (Pipher 2002: 229). The work of Amy Shuman in Other People Storie: Entitlement Claim and the Critique of Empathy i important at thi point, for it i illutrative of the way the parental narrative have made their mark on thee young Kurd. Her i a tudy of what happen once torie are divorced from their original context, how and why and to whom they travel. Two point, in particular, reonate with thoe torie learned by my interviewee of abandoned village, tent citie and the like. The firt i ownerhip or entitlement, a Shuman call it, that which concern the quetion of who hould tell a particular tory. That would eem to be a moot point with repect to my interviewee. If Shuman i correct in her aertion that entitlement concern ownerhip of experience (Shuman 2005: 51) and thee young Kurd were participant, albeit young one, in the experience decribed in parental narrative, then urely they have full authority to repeat what they have been told, even detail beyond their immediate recall. The econd i allegory, a form of narrative that travel beyond it owner and i, in fact, intended to travel (Shuman 2005: 71), a narrative that i larger than the peronal experience recounted (Shuman 2005: 74). It i ued a a collective or repreentative tool, a in the example given of a woman chooing to ave a life or not. Thi Jewih woman hypothetical peronal experience wa intentionally forwarded to 80

91 be embraced by other, a macro tory with a micro meage, in thi cae that Orthodox Judaim and feminim are not necearily incompatible (Shuman 2005: 72). With repect to my interviewee, it eem a if the torie were told, either impulively or at the behet of the child, a information and allegory. I cite thi one example from Kian for the latter. You re gonna how a lot of appreciation toward your parent for doing a lot of thing for you, trying to bring, make you come up into, you know, give you a better future. But yet jut their undertanding and their appreciation for me to have a better future, made me more ociable and made me realize, you know, I have to get through thi. Their acrifice and the torie they told of them helped to form the young man Kian would eventually become. Their uffering wa not their own; it wa hi a well and he aw it a repreentative of that which accompanied daily human exitence. A they had puhed through the deep valley, o could he, paing along the torie a he went. Thee parental narrative were trong, helping to bolter children againt force able to rob the family of coheivene and care. But it need not be a one-man how, a it were. The chool were there to help. Mary Pipher introduce the idea thi way. In outhwetern Minneota, there i a quarry for pipetone, the rock ued by all the Plain Indian to make peace pipe and many other acred object...pipetone quarry wa a acred ite where all the tribe came together in peace. While they were there, a truce exited; all the tribe mined ide by ide, then parted to fight on 81

92 other ground. Pipetone i a good metaphor for chool. School are the acred ground of refugee, and education i their hared religion. At chool, the Croat and Serb tudy together, a do the Iranian and Iraqi and the outhern and northern Sudanee. Outide chool, group may feud, but inide chool, they will be repectful o that they can all quarry the American educational ytem (Pipher 2002: 113). Thi tatement (i.e., inide chool they will be repectful ) could be a bit hyperbolic if applied too broadly. Nahville refugee group have clahed in the public chool ytem on many occaion. That wa the impetu for the formation of Kurdih Pride in the firt place; protect our people and our culture from all aggreor. Undoubtedly, Pipher would acknowledge a much, having pent extenive time with divere group of newcomer to her community of Lincoln, Nebraka. Her point, I think it fair to ay, i that chool offer a promie of ecurity and of olidarity that i rare to find at home. The informant of Marcelo Suarez-Orozco would agree. For an entire year ( ), thi anthropologit conducted fieldwork among Central American immigrant in a major urban center in the wetern United State, concentrating on iue regarding chooling, work, and family life (Suarez-Orozco 1989: 1). What he learned wa not unique to Latino nor completely urpriing when taken in context but of note nonethele. The chool and the teen within them were urrounded by the drug, violence and otherwie degrading condition which accompany life in the inner-city and, yet, many of them aw chooling a the key to a better tomorrow (Suarez-Orozco 1989: 94) and were, in fact, thirty for an education (Suarez-Orozco 1989: 95). They exhibited uch verve depite the aforementioned hot-culture condition and the job that 82

93 many were forced to take in upport of the family, familie who undertood that in the United State, chooling, knowledge, and individual effort were een a the primary avenue to mobility (Suarez-Orozco 1989: 99). It wa different, in ome repect, for my interviewee. They were children when they firt came to the U.S. and, therefore, could not chooe to attend/not attend chool. Eager parent and tate law were complicit in auming that control. Some of my interviewee were very vocal about how paionate their parent were concerning education for their children. But they alo aid uch paion wa repreentative, that it wa not only a family tandard but, in fact, a community-wide tandard. Moreover, thi wa true even though many in that community had attended little, if any, chool themelve while in Kurditan. Kurdih parent undertood what the Latino parent above knew; if their children were to ucceed, they mut tudy. But among whom? For better or wore (a matter which will be dicued hortly), it would be among thoe whoe live converge and diverge in remarkable way, a the comment of my interviewee reveal. Kian (male, aged 21) k When I came firt to the State and we tarted out at elementary chool. My age, I wa preferred to be in firt grade but they go ahead and put me in kindergarten. And after my reading and reading, writing wa matched to the other kid in my level they finally put me in the grade I needed to be. But up until then if Englih i not your native tongue they put you in ESL clae. And that what they typically do. I that what you were in? 83

94 k k k Ye, I wa in thoe ESL clae. With other nationalitie? Yeah, way other nationalitie and other Kurdih people a well. Do you remember ome of the other nationalitie? Baically anything but white American. There wa a couple of Mexican, I remember Arabic. I had a Somalian friend in my ESL clae. Again, thi i a very long time ago. I wa very young in elementary. It wa way back then when we were firt learning the word dog, cat, yeah. Dilman (female, aged 26) d d d The chool that you went to, can you tell me a little bit about them? They were very, my elementary chool wa Franklin Elementary School. That, that wa here. No in Boie. In Boie. Mmhmm, in Boie. It wa very diver..., it wa not a divere a Nahville but they had Aian, they had a lot of American Indian that lived on reerve, that they brought thoe children to thoe chool. It wa by no mean a very, I gue, upcale chool. It wa pretty middle cla, you know, children that were from middle cla home, you know, pretty much ame a anybody ele. They were, it wan t poverty level clae either but it wa pretty much middle cla. There were children from Ruia, children from China, children from, two of my bet friend one wa Ruian and one wa Chinee. 84

95 d And wa it the ame when you got to Nahville, a far a the diverity? The diverity wa much more in Nahville. There wa not a lot of African American in Boie at that time. Actually my firt African American peron I aw I wa like eight year old and I jut I thought, wow thi peron i very different. I didn t think any, I jut thought maybe they re different like me. But we didn t really tate or ee the glimpe of the diverity a much a when we came to Nahville. Lava (female, aged 18) Tell me a little bit about the chool that you went to. l Here? l Yeah. It wa really, I don t know I liked chool. Elementary. I went to Lakeview. Lakeview i that, what part of Nahville i that in? l l Davidon County, it Antioch. Antioch, ok. I liked it. I became (noie from her brother), the language wan t even that hard for me to learn. It took about... l It wan t hard? It wa not at all. I took ELL for a week coming here caue I wa in pre-k alo. I gue you could ay I became Americanized early and it really hard living here, you know. They re till really, how do you explain it? They re till ued to how they were raied and they don t 85

96 realize how different it i now, you know. Why do you think it wa eaier for you? Are you aying eaier than other... l Ye. l ELL kid or other Kurd or? I think it wa, it wa, it wa jut eay for myelf, you know to get familiar with, you know, tudent and, I don t know, it wa... l Were there other Kurd in your, at Lakeview? There wa not. I wa actually the only one. Yeah. And mot of my friend that I know all went to chool together, you know all the Kurdih people went to chool, like Paragon Mill. It wa majority of Kurdih people. But mine wa really, we didn t have no Kurdih people. Yeah. So what kind of nationalitie did you have in your cla, do you remember? l l It wa motly, you know, black, white, Hipanic. That really it. Ok, no I mean in the ELL cla? Oh, in ELL? Yeah. l Hipanic. l Ok. I wa the only Kurdih and we alo had Egyptian, a couple of Egyptian. 86

97 There were two cloely intertwined quetion I gave to each of my interviewee, the anwer to which are reflected in the partial trancription above. The firt wa, When did you undertand your family wa different? and the econd, Tell me about your chool. Were they good/bad? Mixed/not? I undertood from year of work among refugee and from uing Mary Pipher book a a text for a Cultural Diverity cla I taught at Wetern Kentucky Univerity that one of the great benefit of education in America i not on a whiteboard or a handout; it i in the face and, by extenion, the life experience of tudent who do not ound, look, or live the ame a one another (at home). Kurd, you may remember, are not completely monocultural. There are Arab, Perian, and Turk aplenty around and beide them. But in the burgeoning Kurditan of the twenty-firt century, there are alo American, Autralian, European and number of African and other Aian. Even then, almot to a peron my interviewee acknowledged that Kurditan i not America in it diverity and for that reaon, among other, they are glad to be here. Where did they firt experience uch an amazing array of difference? It came at chool. Some of the comment of my interviewee, Shermin, are worth haring at thi point. Sociologit Irene Bloemraad teache a cla at U.C. Berkeley which lead tudent to examine why people migrate, how immigrant incorporate into their new home, and debate future form of memberhip and citizenhip in a globalizing world (Bloemraad), much of which i dealt with here with repect to the Kurd of Nahville. Her reearch reveal an intereting correlation between a pecific ector of the chool environment and the ucce of the immigrant tudent. She found that thoe 87

98 tudent with acce to club at chool-- an anti-dicrimination club, La Raza club or even a French club-- find upport and reource ( Face of Immigration Studie at Cal ), upport and reource to erve and to urvive, the very experience of Shermin in her own Nahville high chool. Shermin (female, aged 26) k h h So, I wa thinking...about your comment about Hillboro being divere, not very many Kurd at all wherea at Antioch... Antioch there wa a lot. Wa that a good thing for you, you think? Peronally it made me, you know, find out new thing, new like new ethnicitie and all, new people, new, it wan t jut I wa in my comfort zone anymore. I actually expanded. I got to meet new people that, a he aid, we d never meet ever before. I had, we had thi group called Oai Center and it wa all of, it wa all of the, the foreigner that wa at the chool. It like it wa kind of like our comfort zone like... Like a club? It wa like yeah, it wa called Oai Club and it wa our way of getting to know each other and feeling comfortable with each other, like not being like the other one. We had Mexican, we had Chinee, we had Ethiopian, we had like all of thee countrie and it wa jut o facinating to meet other, thee other people and learn about their culture. And they re kind of like jut like u, coming to America and jut learning the language, learning the whole culture hock and. So, it wa really, I ay it wa very facinating. For me, honetly, it wa pretty good not to have too many Kurdih people. I mean, I had my couin, I had my iter and all o I wa fine with that. And it wa jut, I would never trade that again caue I got to meet ome of the coolet people, ome of the nicet people ever o. 88

99 h How often did that club meet, do you remember? Every week I remember. It wa for four year, from my frehman year to my enior year. Wa it voluntary? h Well it wa jut a club, yeah you could volunteer and tuff if you wanted to but I, firt I wa kind of like heitant to get into it and tuff. Then I realized I would have made a big mitake if I didn t join in becaue it wa probably, it taught me a lot. It jut taught you how to, I don t know, be open with yourelf and, you know, if you were ever having problem at home you can come talk to the group. It wa jut very chill but yet very open. It opened my eye a lot jut to learn about other people and tuff. So I wouldn t, I wouldn t trade that club either. It wa a aweome club. In a ene, it eem quite paradoxical. How could one become more grounded in their own culture when gaining a new appreciation for that of other, which i the exact experience of mot of my interviewee? I am not ure there i a fully atifying anwer but, a thee young Kurd have learned through their time in the American educational ytem, it i probably not neceary to know. Cultural cro-pollination produce beauty for everyone and thi generation eem to undertand that better than mot. Nahville i a mix of many culture, a thee young Kurd have come to accept and appreciate. But if we were to arrange them all, repreentative youth from each ethnic group in a police line-up ort of way, and judge them baed on their likene to the portrait of a typical third-culture kid (TCK), how would the Kurd fare? The tarting point mut be definitional. What i a third culture kid? 89

100 A Third Culture Kid (TCK) i a peron who ha pent a ignificant part of hi or her developmental year outide the parent culture. The TCK build relationhip to all of the culture, while not having full ownerhip in any. Although element from each culture are aimilated into the TCK experience, the ene of belonging i in relationhip to other of imilar background (Pollock and Van Reken 1999: 19). The firt entence of that definition i fairly traightforward and objectively meaurable. My interviewee have pent the vat majority of their live, even including viit to Kurditan, within the context of the American culture. In that regard, then, they fit the definition perfectly. The econd entence i more problematic, in the ene that judging full ownerhip i incredibly tricky. All of the young Kurd with whom I poke, except perhap for Lava, peak the language fluently, conitently participate in family and community-wide event and maintain a connection with the homeland, if only tangentially. But perhap that the rub, the place where the TCK label can begin to be applied with ome meaure of confidence; connection with either home or hot culture are tenuou. Pollock and Van Reken are pronounced in their view that thi i indeed a defining marker. Thi i at the heart of the iue of rootlene and retlene...thi lack of full ownerhip i what give that ene of belonging everywhere and nowhere at the ame time (Pollock and Van Reken 1999: 30). I would agree fully with the author. In fact, it i the bai of thi thei; young Kurd in Nahville do live a duality in which neither part i equally valued or hared at 90

101 all time. I think back to ome of the comment of Kavar, thi new high-chool graduate primed to conquer the world. Thing did not alway look o bright. Kavar (male, aged 18) k k k k Good. Well thi i, thi might not apply to you but, epecially becaue you came when you were two, but wa there a time in elementary chool maybe even pre-k or yeah if you remember that, that you aw yourelf a different from the other tudent? I mean were you in with other kid who didn t peak Englih a well or? At that young of an age, I didn t really ee myelf different but growing up, you know going into middle chool and tuff I wa kind of a loner. You know, people would ak me, oh where you from, you know I d ay Iraq and they d kind of, you know, get cared you know with the idea of terrorit. And o I d have to, you know, it there and explain to them, you know, oh it not like that at all and where I m from it completely different than, you know what, what portrayed on tv and tuff. Ok. Well going, how wa it in Hume-Fogg? Wa it alo... Hume-Fogg? You were the only one or very few? It wa jut me and, there are actually two, two Kurd, they graduated from there before me and while I wa there, one of my friend named Zana, it wa me and him there and o you know everybody knew u, me and him, a two Kurd there. So that wa good I gue. Yeah. In a way it felt good being the only one, you know, being different from everybody ele. 91

102 k k k Yeah. So. So would you ay then that being in a chool where you re one of the only one from your ethnic background helped you or hurt you or, I mean, how would you explain how that affected you? I d, I d ay that it definitely helped me become who I am caue it taught me to accept, you know, who I am a a peron, where I m from and, you know, to not try to fit in with everybody ele and to, you know, definitely be proud of being a Kurd even though there up and down of it. Right did you, did you truggle early on with jut aying I wih I wa like everybody ele, I get tired of explaining thi to people? Yeah, oftentime I d jut be like why can t I, why couldn t I d jut been, you know, you know an American jut born here, a white peron you know? But you can t really control who you are. It jut kind of, you know, fall together. Thi will be dealt with in much greater depth in chapter 6 but it i obviou from the converation above (a well a thoe with other interviewee) there wa a painful and powerful truggle between two culture vying for preeminence in the live of thee young people. At chool it wa American, at home Kurdih. At moque it wa Kurdih, on the baketball court it wa American. Or wa it? I wa reminded of thi quetion during a meal at a local favorite of mine, The Houe of Kabob. While eating my gyro andwich and drinking a tall gla of weet tea (in itelf a poignant picture), I overheard a young man in the booth behind me talking on the phone. What wa facinating wa hi effortle movement between Kurdih and 92

103 Englih during hi converation, otenibly with another Kurd. I could not help myelf and aked if he, and other like him, alway ued both language in a ingle converation. He laughed and acknowledged that they do, which prompted thi quetion in my own mind; if uch a middle ground exit linguitically for thee young Kurd, would it not be illogical to aume it would be otherwie culturally? One lat piece of Pollock and Van Reken definition of TCK, the mot facinating and mot telling in my opinion, i thi:...the ene of belonging i in relationhip to other of imilar background (Pollock and Van Reken 1999: 19). In their experience, other of imilar background doe not refer to home or hot culture. Through many year of hoting large gathering of TCK, they had heard a common refrain, that regardle of where each child had come from or where they had gone there wa an unequivocal and innate undertanding of, appreciation for and gravitation toward thoe who were like them. They were, urpriingly, a culture unto themelve. That mean they hared the benefit of TCK life, of which there are many. Among them, i the propenity to be more adaptable, accepting and appreciative in more ituation than other. Converely, they endure imilar, ometime paralyzing, truggle a a reult of their uprooting(). They can be overly harh toward thoe unlike them (non- TCK) or later in life, become entrenched even when movement may be beneficial, olely to keep potential pain at arm length. Other third-culture kid undertand thi dilemma, a my on-in-law told me recently. Hi American miionary parent moved to Vienna, Autria, when he wa three and he returned to the U.S. when he wa eighteen. During hi fifteen year in Vienna he became, for all intent and purpoe, Autrian. 93

104 I aked him about the idea of third-culture tatu, whether it wa valid and, more pertinent to the preent dicuion, if there really wa omething to thi deep kinhip between uch diparate ethnic youth falling under the TCK umbrella. Hi anwer? Ye and ye. At both hi international chool (populated by a few Autrian and many more children of expatriate buinemen, oldier, and diplomat) and at large gathering of miionary kid from acro Europe, my on-in-law lived what Pollock and Van Reken found to be true, that their (TCK) commonalitie of feeling and experience far outweigh the difference (Pollock and Van Reken 1999: 34). Though I never aked my interviewee directly with whom they mot identify, there wa a clue lurking in the background of Shermin comment. We had Mexican, we had Chinee, we had Ethiopian, we had like all of thee countrie and it wa jut o facinating to meet other, thee other people and learn about their culture. And they re kind of like jut like u, coming to America and jut learning the language, learning the whole culture hock and. So, it wa really, I ay it wa very facinating. Mexican, Chinee and Ethiopian were kind of like jut like u. That i quite a tatement coming from a young woman of her background. We all now know her people raced out of a region of horrible overlord, one who not only railed againt their cultural difference but attempted to forever erae them. Perhap the year of relative calm in the U.S. had tempered what could eaily have become permanent and conuming hatred of anything non-kurdih. I love being Kurdih (peronal interview with author), Shermin 94

105 freely hared and, yet, he wa alo actively facinated with other people and other culture, a very common trait of my interviewee. Mary Pipher write extenively in The Middle of Everywhere of her cloe relationhip with a family of Kurd in Lincoln. Thi ingle mother and five older daughter became to her a econd family and, inadvertently, great teacher of great truth about courage and hope and love. In what he call the potcript to her dicuion of their relationhip, Pipher ay thi of the econd to younget, Meena: he continue to find life taty (Pipher 2002: 55), a nod to Meena oft-ued word. My ene i the ame could be aid of the young Kurd I came to know. Through their outgoing and incoming, from culture to culture, they have all taken what they deem bet from each and created an imperfect but unique third, one that i ye...taty. 95

106 5 Girl Have No Freedom Folkloritic i, at it core, a human endeavor. Robert George and Michael Owen Jone aid a much in the title of their 1980 work, People Studying People: The Human Element in Fieldwork. To be fair, their approach wa not holitic, meaning it wa not intended to be definitional or to reduce the rainbow (i.e., the dicipline) to a ingle hue (i.e., a comprehenive decription). Even the context of that which they did preent (i.e. fieldwork) included other cultural worker beide folklorit. So I am, in a ene, uperimpoing my meaning on their title but for good reaon; it i foundational. The thei of George and Jone i profoundly imple and imply profound; fieldworker and ubject are firt and foremot human being (George and Jone 1980: 3). One can never forget, they ay, there i a peron on either ide of the recording device. They illutrate thi beautifully from the beginning of their book. The tory i of Frank Hamilton Cuhing, an anthropologit well known for hi ethnological work among the Zuni Indian of New Mexico. He wa oberving a ritual dance in the pueblo, taking note and ketching what he aw from hi well-poitioned perch; priet and blood and tone knive and flowing beard. What happened next wa terrifying for Cuhing but wonderfully intructive for George and Jone. In a ingle intant, the fieldworker wa placed at the center of the Zuni drama, targeted for murder a a loathome Navajo. It wa only through quick and fortuitou action on hi part that he wa pared and allowed to continue hi work. The author of People Studying People ue hi fuller tory to illutrate the complexitie of human tudying each other in uch a 96

107 etting, or any for that matter. They employ the word accidental, unplanned, chance, and happentance without reerve (George and Jone 1980: 7, 9-10). Their point i that entry into and movement within the fieldwork experience i fraught with that which i unexpected, a urprie. Moreover, the unpleaant urprie and hattered expectation, the warm welcome and hotile reception, the hope aroued and promie broken, the memento treaured and nightmare relived, the inight gained and the aumption called into quetion can neither be quantified nor articulated uccinctly (George and Jone 1980: 152). Though the pecter of death i rare in the fieldwork experience, including my own, I certainly ran into a fair hare of circumtantial odditie, thing unaccounted for in a notebook or on a laptop prior to recorded interview. Iue with troubleome venue and ever-hifting chedule have already been mentioned. In thi chapter, however, I will dicu a omewhat pleaant urprie, at leat for me a an ethnographer; the iue of gender diparity. Thi iue certainly wa not pleaant for thoe who introduced me to it. For ome of them it could be decribed a mildly irritating, a reality that, while unpleaant, wa accepted a part and parcel of Kurdih life. For other, it wa galling and the vitriol came wift and trong. I will look at what my interviewee ay about thi diparity in the Nahville Kurdih community, including their own familie, and how they ay it. Are they direct in voicing concern or more paive, even to the point of ilence? What doe their voice ay about their true feeling or even the everity of the ituation? I will then dicu caue and effect, pecifically with repect to my female interviewee. 97

108 Doe the ditinctive oppoition ome diplay toward the injutice tem from peronal experience or doe their failure to follow the tricture of community tandard bring on the uffering? Two further point mut be made before I begin in earnet. The firt i the ue of the word pleaant in referring to the kind of urprie that came to me. It i not meant in the traditional ene, a in omething that bring one pleaure (i.e. a warm pring day after a long, cold winter). It doe not pleae me to ee thee young Kurdih women uffer, imply becaue they are young Kurdih women who hail from, what ome would label, a hyper-patriarchy. Rather, it fall under the category of very good-to-know information, much like my cancer diagnoi in In both ituation, the dicovery wa jarring but the lack of knowledge could portend omething even wore. Providing a platform for thee women to fill that void wa extraordinary. Secondly though, the urprie wa only partially unexpected due to my prior experience in the Kurdih community and prior fieldwork with Sadiye, a woman from outheatern Turkey. I had firt and econd-hand knowledge of girl running away from home becaue they had omehow dihonored the family (i.e., dating, a pregnancy, etc.), but I had never gotten cloe enough to ee beyond the effect and conider the caue, a thee women aw it. My interviewee, Klavih, will be one of the mot vocal to addre that cenario in thi chapter. Additionally, in the fall of 2012 I interviewed Sadiye, a middle-aged Kurd, for a Women Folklife cla at Wetern Kentucky Univerity. She wa a woman who wretled with thee very iue, though he wa older and from a different part of Kurditan than my more recent interviewee. She too made the truggle 98

109 multi-enory and reconfirmed the notion that not all wa well for young Kurdih women living in the homeland or in Nahville. So how did thi urprie preent itelf? A ha already been detailed, my fieldwork began lowly, with only four interview in the firt five month. The iue of gender inequality did not come up in any of them, either organically or through my prompting (of which there wa none). Thi would, I aume, be omewhat perplexing to Joan Radner and Suan Laner, who tate unequivocally that men and women uually exit in a relationhip not imply of difference but of dominance (my italic, Radner 1993: 2). Therefore, if I am interviewing women I hould expect and, perhap, even eek out the divergent experience of thoe in ubjugation. Yet to be perfectly honet, it never croed my mind...until Klavih. On that bright, breezy day we met to talk, I had my quetion in hand and began where I alway had; gathering preliminary hitorical data (i.e., country of origin, ize of family, route of emigration, etc.). In looking back through the trancript, I aw at leat three eparate intance in which Klavih, thi 22-year old woman, made reference to the iue of gender, either offhand or otherwie, and I marched blithely along without even a nod in her direction. From the trancript below, it i clear I am in earnet earch of folklore though not much ele. k Are there ome way that young Kurd in Nahville expre themelve that i good? What do you mean? 99

110 k Well caue you talked about freedom and, you know, growing up in Bellevue... Girl have no freedom. Even a a Kurd you, you have more freedom than omebody who grew up, grew up in Antioch or. Some people expre it by going to the partie. Thi guy that I talked to that went to Brentwood he got Kurditan tattooed acro hi chet. I wa trying to elicit her perpective a a Kurd; again and again he returned to her place a a woman in a man world, a world that happened to be Kurdih. Girl have no freedom, he tated in a clear, matter-of-fact monotone and, yet, it would be quite a few minute later before the ringing of that tatement would get my attention. Radner and Laner peak of thi dilemma in an indirect ort of way, emphaizing the fact that women, a the ubjected, have learned that in order to urvive they mut be attuned to the world of men (Radner 1993: 2). A my peronal example illutrate, the convere i not alway true. It did get my attention, however. I wa intrigued by uch a trong tatement from a Kurdih woman and knew that it wa worthy of further attention. So I probed. k Can you talk a minute about what you brought up at the beginning, about women iue? Woman iue, what, what do (you) want me to...? That girl have no freedom. 100

111 k k k k Oh, girl don t. Everything different for like guy and girl. We talk about thi, thi i a huge debate in my houe all the time. Boy are different from girl no matter what and that won t change. Like that omething that I don t believe will change unle like, I have children with omeone that not Kurdih and he might agree to ome thing. But I know if I marry omebody Kurdih like he not accepting, ok women and men are the ame. There gonna alway be a difference. And right now you re talking about, for example, if you had a brother he could go out wherever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to and... My brother get to go where he want, do what he want and date who he want. No problem. And your mother doen t ay anything to him? No one ay anything. Yeah, he went to prom. He brought hi girlfriend to the houe. Nothing aid. It jut don t do it in front of your iter. He ha an Intagram with their picture on it. Now if that wa me even being een talking to a guy, like oh my goh, that a huge deal. Or like me taying out late or my mom not knowing where I m at every econd, that a huge deal. And i that, you think, jut for reputation purpoe or do you think he concerned about your afety? And I ak that quetion becaue I m a father of three girl and I truggled with that too and I m not Kurdih. I feel like every parent doe truggle with that and they re worried about their child afety but, I mean, going to a baketball game, come on now that not a huge deal. I m, nothing gonna happen I mean epecially bad at chool. Thoe are thing that I wan t allowed to do to where my brother it fine. Or going to a enior/junior egg fight, going to a prom, that not a huge deal. What if you went to a prom with a Kurd? 101

112 k It till wa a huge deal to my mom. Like I, what dre would I wear? At that time he really, like, controlled me and like what I wore and what I did. Well now that I m a little older and I can actually upport myelf and he know that I can upport myelf without her and I have the right to leave my houe if I wanted to, he kind of back up and he like, ok well jut tay here for our reputation. Don t do anything bad, like don t bring our family name down. I promie I ll give you a little more freedom kind of. But it till, like my brother till get to do what he want to. At thi point and beyond in the interview, Klavih wa direct; the freedom diparity between male and female Kurd in Nahville wa real. Previouly, her meage wa le ditinct but till audible amidt my puh to find anwer to other quetion. I would ak, for example, what effect her time in a chool and community with few Kurd had on her identity and he would repond with I have no problem with guy texting me, calling me or going out with them or I peronally don t believe I have to be with omebody Kurdih or, even more enigmatic, I feel like to be accepted in the Kurdih community you have to have jut that Kurdih mentality (peronal interview with author). Thi dance, of ort, in which we were involved reminded me of Henry Glaie brief dicuion of identity. In what he call a poitive repone (Glaie 1994: 238) to Elliot Oring placing of identity at the core of the folklore enterprie, Glaie peak of hi time among Turkih artian. He found that, though the word (identity) and it attendant implication were not common parlance in that world, the artian work reflected it nonethele. 102

113 Their interet in oulfulne and dicipline could be made into an expreion of peronal identity, their interet in ervice and utility could be communal identity, their interet in acred meaning could be religiou identity, and mot eaily, their hitorical reference could be tatement of national identity (Glaie 1994: 239) What that ay to me, both with repect to thoe Glaie oberved and thoe I oberved, i that identity i complex (a ubject which will be dicued in depth in Chapter Six). Thi i no revelation to be ure, at leat to thoe more thoughtful among u than myelf, but Klavih did help me ee it more clearly than I had heretofore. I wa earching for Kurdih identity, which he did indeed poe, but failed to account for the tratified nature of it. In a dicuion of ethnic genre ytem, Amy Shuman highlight thi very thought; the idea of homogenou (ethnic) group i a invented a are the generic categorie themelve (Shuman 1993: 73). There wa no prototypical Kurd to be had, only variation and depth and wonderful complexity. The knowledge gained from Klavih et the tage for the ret of my interview, enuring that gender would be on the docket. Here i what other aid about it. Lava (female, aged 18) Well I wanted to ak you about thi which came at an interview with another girl everal week ago and it ha to do with being a girl in a Mulim culture, which you know a lot of Kurd aren t very religiou, a lot of em are but regardle they come from that culture in Kurditan. Do you feel like your life, even in your own family and then alo in the greater community, i different becaue you re a girl than if you were a guy? 103

114 l l l Ye, I do. With the Kurdih, I think Kurdih people have more, well they have their eye more on the girl than the boy. I feel like they really don t care about the boy a much a they do for the girl. When you go to partie, you know, all the other Kurdih parent are really looking at the girl, and how they are acting toward everybody ele. At chool, Kurdih boy have girlfriend, you know parent even know about that. They really don t care, but you know if a Kurdih girl ha, you know, a boyfriend it become a big problem. Even in the family itelf, boy alway have more freedom. That what I feel like. I that omething that you have a problem with, epecially... No not really becaue I m alway to myelf. I really don t you know. No. So you re ok with le freedom and more eye on you and tuff like that? Yeah, I mean I really don t do nothing bad, o it really doen t bother me. But my parent being trict, you know that kind of bother me. Like they ll let my brother go out more than I do. My brother do more than I do. That really all. That the only thing that really... Shermin (female, aged 26) In the converation I had lat night with...he talked a good bit about the h difference between the way that the girl and guy in thee familie are treated. Do you ee that too? Yeah well for me, I mean I think for all of u, for our parent epecially for my mom and dad o, they re very overprotective of their daughter jut becaue you know it a whole new. Even though they ve been here o long and all it till a whole new world for them too, like for the guy they can take care of themelve if it come to ever being an iue and tuff that bet. For girl they feel like they re delicate and tender o they have to kind of protect them more. So there a lot of thing I can ay, the guy have more freedom to do a far a u ladie, not aying that we don t have freedom caue we do but it jut a far a they kind of give u a little more eye, like give u a little more

115 k h k h k They do protect more. Yeah. They do protect more. They re very overprotective with their daughter. They re very, with the daughter. I m, I ve aked my mom the ame quetion million of time a to, not jut our family, I m not talking about my family in general I m jut aying overall. Like let ay if a Kurdih guy marrie omebody outide of the race, it perfectly fine with him, everybody accept it. But if a Kurdih female marrie outide the race nope, that not acceptable. And I alway told her if you gonna treat one one way, treat the ame, the other ex the exact ame way. There hould be no different. She alway told me that he agree but there nothing he could do caue it jut tradition, it culture, it jut been how, how it i. Kavar (male, aged 18) One other thing...and thi came up when I wa talking with one of the girl who k k k very trong on women iue. Do you ee a difference in the way the familie here deal with their on and the way they deal with their daughter, epecially in the freedom that they give them to connect with American culture? Yeah definitely. I ee guy tend to have more freedom a the girl. To, to do what? Whatever it i, anything caue... Like you have a iter, right? Yeah, right. I alway ee guy out more than girl, like Kurdih girl. I alway ee all the guy out more than them caue I gue they need, you know, to be watched you know. I don t know how to explain it exactly but you know. 105

116 k k k k k k Do you think that a cultural thing or... Yeah more of a cultural thing. A religiou thing? More of a cultural thing. I m trying to figure out how to ay, how to ay what I ve got in my head. (long paue) Doe it have omething to do with the honor of the family, the the name of the family and how will that will change or be affected by omething the girl might do? (long paue) Ah, thi i a hard one. Like, like for example. You know it wa probably 2007, 2008 when thoe guy in the KPG got arreted, you know, for trying to kill that park ranger down in Bellevue. I can imagine that thoe familie were pretty hamed by what their boy did. Yeah. But would that be the ame kind of hame a ome of thee girl who run off with a black guy, run off with an Arab, get pregnant, thing like that? Yeah exactly. Are they equal or i the girl thing wore? Whatever a guy can do a girl can do jut a bad. It jut bring, it would, it would bring down the name of the family, like you aid you know. Throughout, caue like you know whatever, goip you know it d go around pretty quickly and the family would be ahamed of themelve and you know they wouldn t, I mean they can t control what their kid do but the kid jut gotta, you know, how ome repect for them and realize what they re really doing. 106

117 I like the word picture Shermin give of the preent ituation for young Kurdih women in Nahville ( a little more eye ), preciely becaue it i revealing of her unique perpective. Elaine Lawle aid of her own record of abued women in Women Ecaping Violence: Empowerment through Narrative that the key...i, of coure, to remain attuned to the word and phrae, language, and nuance of women torie, a they relate them in their own voice (Lawle 2001: 59). So what i Shermin aying by the ue of her metaphor? The overight of her family and, by extenion, the greater Kurdih community i not exceive. Lava aid the ame thing; it really doen t bother me. But it did bother Klavih and, even more o, her high chool-age iter, Dilan. A Klavih and I were wrapping up our converation at the coffee hop, he recommended that I talk with her often oppoitional mother ( me and my Mom butt head all the time, peronal interview with author). My initial fieldwork plan included time with a many parent of my interviewee a poible but, a of Klavih invitation, it had not happened. I jumped at thi opportunity and giddily followed her back to the family home. After a brief introduction, Klavih, her mother and iter and I at down around a large table in a dimly-lit room, the ound of boy and video game in the near ditance. I quickly dimied any irritation over thee potential ditraction becaue thi wa what I had hoped for all along; a gathering of multigenerational voice. My urvey 107

118 among Kurdih tudent in Nahville had offered the two ide by ide, in mono a it were. Thi time it would be in tereo. The converation began unrecorded becaue I felt it wie to tart lowly, to allay any fear Klavih mother, Youza, might have over motive or dicloure. But once the green light wa given and the recorder on, he wa quick to voice her concern. The...big problem with the Kurdih community here...(i)... we don t accept our daughter tay after twelve and my daughter... (in t)... allow(ed) to bring a boyfriend home...or get pregnant. We don t accept that... That hard for parent becaue we...(grew)...up that way. Indeed, thi eemed to be her mantra throughout our time together; daughter mut be controlled. In the interet of full dicloure, Youza did make it plain there were no double tandard in her houehold, that expectation for her daughter and on were identical. Moreover, he wa a ingle mother raiing five children (three daughter) in a culture that, in many way, terrified her, o much o that he had been deperate to return to Kurditan ince That being aid, thoe two daughter acro the table from me that evening were not amued (though there wa coniderable laughter during the interview) or epecially undertanding of their mother plight. They wanted freedom becaue, a Klavih aid herelf, What the point of coming here [America] for freedom if you don t come here for freedom, if you don t give freedom to your children... (peronal interview with author)? 108

119 Thi dichotomou narrative i normal in a parent/child relationhip. Several time during the interview, I attempted to extend compaion to thi befuddled mother by acknowledging my own truggle a a parent and, epecially, of girl. It i agonizingly difficult at time, I told her, balancing the need to releae and the deire to protect. Youza tory reflected thi claic truggle but alo a confidence in the approach he and her huband took to leading the family; We don t lock them up and we don t give them full freedom... (peronal interview with author). It mut be aid here that Youza deceaed huband wa, by hi daughter own admiion, very Americanized and tended, therefore, to take a omewhat ofter tance toward gender iue in the Kurdih community, epecially with thoe of hi own houehold. The mother, a i often the cae, became the tandard bearer for the traditional (per my peronal obervation and converation unrelated to thi tudy). Carolyn Ware make a related point in her book Cajun Women and Mardi Gra: Reading the Rule Backward. She i dicuing the atounding way that women in rural Louiiana have tranformed and been tranformed by Mardi Gra. The country Mardi Gra, he ay,...i a vivid diplay of women creativity and adaptability (Ware 2007: 21). Wherea in year pat, they erved excluively in upport role for men run (i.e. cooking, ewing and receiving maker), many were now equal partner in the fullne of the Mardi Gra experience. Ware herelf recognize thi newfound freedom a a microcom of ea change taking place in gender role/attitude more broadly; ome of her interviewee are not o ure. But, a he note, even the ambivalent one ee themelve and their option differently than their parent (Ware 2007: 184). 109

120 The ame i true for Youza daughter. They want more becaue there i more, at leat in America. Their mother, on the other hand, i tight-fited with her Kurdih upbringing, projecting onto daughter living in a very different culture. But I wa curiou. Wa he alway like thi? Wa there ever a time when Youza too yearned for omething more? I had to know. y r k y k...i gue what I m aking i did you ever think about when you were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen that you would like more freedom? Anyway, over there i different. We don t go anybody like they wanna go to the game, they wanna go to the movie, we don t have kind of thi tuff. There no movie. There are no movie, there are no game. No movie over there, no game over there. If we are inide the houe working with my mom and clean up omething and then we it down together, have a dinner, lunch. And then afternoon, thi time we all go it down in the yard, that it. We don t go to friend houe, friend doen t come over, only family like my aunt, my uncle or family coming over we go to their houe, that it. So you didn t think about anything ele becaue there wa nothing ele to think about? No, nothing. Her comment hint at atifaction or, at leat, acceptance of her imple life in Syria. Sadiye mentioned the ame thing concerning the women of her outheatern Turkih town, women whoe tation had alway been determined by the men in their live. Their 110

121 plight had actually worened following a viit by a feminit group eeking to affirm the right thee women had never realitically expected. In their cae, the adage wa true, a Sadiye elucidated. When you don t know anything you are happy (peronal interview with author). Again the parallel to thoe Carolyn Ware oberved i telling. When I aked Agne Miller, who grew up in the 1920 and 1930, if he and the other girl felt excluded from the daytime run, he aid, Well, in a way we did, becaue it d be like all the boy had the fun. But it wan t a cutom that we did run (Ware 2007, 45). Active participation in the run wa not cutomary or traditional for them, not the way their world turned. Thi appeal to the pat i what Youza and many other mother in the Nahville Kurdih community repeated o often and taught o diligently, even if they undertood they were at odd with the prevailing culture (i.e., American) and even if they themelve were drawn to that culture. Kajin mother i a claic example. Kajin explain. She alway told me that he agree [that there hould be no difference between the way the exe are treated] but there nothing he could do caue it tradition, it culture, it jut been how, how it i. Her mother enibilitie were informed by a deire to ee change but much more o by an acknowledgement that it would, mot likely, never come. The older female Mardi Gra, like Agne Miller, may have wihed to run Mardi Gra (Ware 2007: 185) but mot never did. They inwardly yearned for omething more but, for mot of them, it wa 111

122 never to be. Yet here i the wonder, exactly the place where Youza and the older Mardi Gra pull on the ame rope. Regardle of the way thing ought to be, they till regarded their primary work with repect to younger generation a cultural tranmiion (Ware 2007: 172), carving out a place for the old within the new. Interetingly, thi wa true even for thoe female Mardi Gra who aumed hitorically male role. Women who run Mardi Gra view their own performance a a form of cultural continuity, not change (Ware 2007: 172). Carolyn Ware tell u, in fact, that the ladie run erved a bridge, keeping the cutom alive during a period of general diinteret (Ware 2007: 14) among the men, a period panning nearly four decade (mid ). Young and old alike then, whether leading or upporting, conidered their choice concerning Mardi Gra to be culturally proper, not a break from tradition but...a continuation, or perhap an evolution, of deeply felt cutom (Ware 2007: 185). One might quetion the connection between thee two group of women, Cajun and Kurdih, at thi point. The former work to nurture a performance tradition which ha helped to expand the role of women in that culture, irregardle of their active involvement in that expanion (i.e., participating in run, female or coed). Converely, the older Kurdih women are promoting the traditional view of women in their culture which, in real time, ha led their daughter to tremendouly dangerou precipice. Dilan, the fifteen-year old high chool tudent, i illutrative of jut that. Here he poe a mock converation with her mother. 112

123 Yeah, I tell my mom, do you want u to be honet with you, tell you who we re going with or we can eaily kip chool? I m, I m not even kidding like, would you want me to be honet, Mom I m gonna go with thee people, I m gonna go hang out with thi girl or kip chool with thoe girl? Like, I d rather be honet, I don t like lying, I want you to know who I m with and tuff but if you can t accept it then what ele am I gonna do? I have to lie to you. That jut how it i. That how I feel. So with uch diparate outcome, how can there be any commonality between the aforementioned group? It i in thi; even the young among the Kurdih women of Nahville, training for omething beyond, nurture tie to what i behind, their hitory and culture and land. Ye, they peak with different voice (Klavih venom, Kajin temperance, Dilman ilence), yet all three maintain trong tie to long-held ethnic marker (i.e., event, clothing, food, language, etc.). In other word, like the progreive female Mardi Gra runner, thee women puh the envelope through their peech or nonpeech, helping the lot of Kurdih women to evolve, if ever o lowly. A word about ilence. There were two women, Dilman and Dahneh, who aid nothing at all about gender (coincidentally, the two I interviewed prior to my revelation from Klavih). While it could be proffered that they were imply being dutiful in anwering the quetion aked (none of which concerned gender), there remained a meaure of curioity on my part a to why gender wa not even touched upon by thee women. I undertand, a I have wretled with the iue of Kurdihne, that femininity i not the um total of their exitence, not the ingular category under which all other fall. 113

124 Still, patriarchy force the iue, ometime tridently. So what did their ilence mean, if anything? And were they, in fact, truly ilent? Helen Cordero might be of help. Cordero wa a Cochiti pottery maker in New Mexico, not unlike many other women in her pueblo. What et her apart, however, were her toryteller doll, a tranfiguration of a centurie-old ceramic tradition (Babcock 1993: 226) which haped the clay of the Southwet into repreentative human and animal form, (Babcock 1993: 226) mot notably perhap, women holding children or baket. All were related, cholar ay, to fertility. Cordero modification were two; he made the primary figure male rather than female and he placed more than a realitic number of children on him (Babcock 1993: 229). The inpiration wa her tory-telling grandfather, a beloved and well-repected leader of the pueblo. She cat him in clay, mouth open, urrounded by hi adoring grandchildren, a viible reminder of hi life and her memory. But Cordero work wa not merely notalgic, it wa revolutionary. Barbara Babcock aid thi of it ignificance. In thi cae, the truggle between the powerle (women) and the powerful (men) ha been diplaced quite literally onto the urface of thing (Babcock 1993: 239). Wa Helen Cordero ilent? She did not vocalize her oppoition to the tatu quo, to the excluion of women from telling the deep torie, the mater fiction (Babcock 1993: 234) of pueblo life. But he did find a way to peak without a ound, for in a world in which dicoure i controlled by men, (Helen ) idea or model of the world... (found) expreion in form other than direct peech (Babcock 1993: 236). So too did my female interviewee, Dahneh and Dilman. I had aked Dahneh about her coming of age with repect to cultural otherne. When did he learn of her ditinctivene, the way 114

125 he wa et apart from other her age? Did it come in elementary chool, middle chool or beyond? Here i her anwer. d d d d I mean, I really don t ee myelf any different. You don t, ok. Yeah, I ee myelf like any other teen, any other kid, jut ome more boundarie, I gue you could ay. Yeah then how do you feel about the extra boundarie? I feel, I don t mind it, actually. Ok. I mean, I undertand it for protection and I undertand it culture, which you alway want to tay to your culture. Make you who you are. Her tone and non-verbal cue convinced me that Dahneh wa incere in her ettledne. She recognized the unique contraint of her culture, to be ure, but he alo knew them to be indiviible from all other part of it. For her, not to date wa the ame a not to eat pork, the ame a not to reject the counel of older brother. Her Wetern hair, clothe and peech might have belied her adherence to traditional Eatern way but it wa uniquely her; no diatribe were neceary. Dilman, older and married, joined Helen Cordero in a different, though imilarly, indirect way. Her mean of bettering the fortune of her people and, by extenion, the women of her people wa through education. Nearly all of my interviewee mentioned 115

126 the aggreivene with which mot parent in the Kurdih community puhed their children to learn and, it appear, to good effect. Six of the even young female Kurd I interviewed had either graduated from college, were preently attending or had plan to attend. Dilman herelf wa in training a a dental hygienit. In anwer to my quetion concerning the perception of Nahville Kurd by non-kurd in the city, epecially in light of fairly recent gang activity, he brought education to the forefront. I think Kurd have come a very long way. We have a lot of Kurdih people that have been in the media and in the new for the good that they ve done not the bad that they ve done. You know, Kurd that are completing college and getting thee degree and making good money and doing good for themelve and, you know, they ee that a you know that not all they re about i thi gang tuff and, you know, defending each other and what not. There are educated people out there. There people that are into art and into, you know, liberal art and politic and, you know, computer and health and thing like that. You know, when you go to the doctor and you ee a Kurdih nure or ee a Kurdih hygienit, it bring the Kurdih community a lot more pride than it would to ee omebody on the new, five o clock new, oh he going to jail for killing a cop. So I think it gotten a lot better but with that, becaue of education, becaue people have progreed a lot more than they did ten year ago. Forward movement, individually and corporately, wa poible through higher learning, according to Dilman. It could change the fortune of her community of women and he would paionately encourage it. 116

127 In the end, there wa only an appearance of ilence on the part of both of thee women, Dahneh and Dilman. They poke in form other than direct peech (Radner 1993: 236) to counter the prevailing notion of an inferior gender. Helen Cordero ilent demontration eventually led to oppoition by the all-male tribal council. I have not heard of a imilar tand among leader of the Kurdih community, though it i unlikely that among the many hundred of familie in the city there are not ome who individually reit change. My mot vocal interviewee, Klavih, believe gender inequality to be a wholeale and eternal belief among her people. Boy are different than girl no matter what and that won t change. Like that omething that I don t believe will change...there gonna alway be a difference (peronal interview with the author). Latly, I want to addre the iue of cauality. Perhap it i a bit preumptuou of me to expect outider undertanding of inider motivation, to know the why to the what, but I think it i worth a brief exploration. Klavih introduced the idea in her comment about young female Kurd leaving the family home. Remember, her mother Youza had opened the recording with a big picture view of how the Nahville Kurdih community deal with it daughter ( we don t accept our daughter tay after twelve and my daughter... (in t) allow(ed) to bring a boyfriend home...or get pregnant, peronal interview with the author). The unfortunate, though not wholly unexpected, reult for ome familie wa rupture, a Youza comment reveal. 117

128 It hard, like I have a lot (of) friend()...becaue they don t give... freedom to(their)kid they run away, ixteen, fifteen...i know one, twenty-three. They jut go and they never come back becaue they need...freedom. I knew thee kind of thing had gone on for year but to hear it from a mother wa heartbreaking. My initial repone wa concern. Wa there no one in the Kurdih community to help? A mother upport group? The local moque? One of the active political partie? No one, he aid. And then came thi interchange between u, including her daughter Klavih. y y k y k y k y No that, that the hard part. I don t know for me like I m the mother that i hard for me if I loe my daughter or my on like... And how would you define loing? Like if they went get married to American people or if he run away or he bring me a baby home or thi i a... [laughter] I that running away? You don t accept it, manne? [Kurdih for right?] How about Kurdih people they don t accept... Yeah, I m aying the Kurdih community won t accept that peron. The girl doen t run away, you guy don t want the girl. Yeah, if he left, if he leave... She in t running away. Her family for omebody

129 k y k y k Sometime he tell her family like thi i who I m gonna be with if you guy like him, right? And the family ay get out of our houe. Yeah. So the girl doen t run away, correction. No, no ome of em they go and they don t know... Some of them run away, like nobody know what happen to them. But ome of them tell their family, like thi i what I m gonna do and the family, the girl run away caue the family not gonna accept it anyway. According to Klavih, more often than not the offending female doe not leave the home on her own initiative, even out of a conuming hame (the central force at work in thee ituation) expected by the community; he i forced out. Thi i caue and effect in vivid color. What I am intereted in, however, i omething beyond thi initial eparation or, perhap, outide of it. Again, Klavih i my principal point of reference. Her peronal ituation wa unique among my interviewee. While other were alo female or educated or could lay claim to Kurditan a a birthplace, Klavih wa the only one who had been married and wa no longer; he wa a divorcee. Her mother expreed continued confuion and adne over the breakup ( we never be happy, peronal interview with the author), wherea Klavih herelf wa more than glad to be rid of her abuive and deceptively traditional huband. Thi wa hame on a grand cale; the daughter of a well-repected community leader, a large public wedding and an abrupt end to a ix month-long marriage. And a I thought about thi tragedy, a quetion came to 119

130 mind; did Klavih refual to fulfill cultural expectation arie from the tricture of her upbringing or wa he wired to puh the boundarie and o the boundarie were further contricted? In layman term, did the rule make her rebel or did her contentiou character intead create thoe rule? My aertion i that it i a bit of both and that third-culture tatu, not Kurdihne or Americanne, i to blame. In a chapter on the benefit and challenge of TCK (thirdculture kid) life, David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken dicu a common binary for thi population, expanded worldview veru confued loyaltie. Becaue of all they have experienced and with whom, TCK have a much greater field of viion, culturallypeaking, than do thoe having never left home. That i an immene benefit in a world of rapid and overarching globalization. The downide of that however, according to the author, i a ometime terrible confuion over loyaltie and, pecifically, to whom they belong. More difficult than the quetion of political or patriotic loyaltie, however, are the value dionance that occur in the cro-cultural experience (Pollock and Van Reken 2001: 82-83). In thi cae, the operative quetion would be, are the affection of my female interviewee directed more toward Kurdih value of group olidarity and honor or American value of individual freedom and expreion? Without quetion, every one of them can be found at differing point along a complex, dynamic continuum, preed in on both ide by rarely complementary world view. And o we are brought full circle, to the idea expreed by George and Jone in the beginning of thi chapter. Field ubject for the folklorit are, above all, human being which cannot or, at leat, hould not be ubjected to terile generalization 120

131 concerning what they do and who they are. My female interviewee would, to a peron, mot likely acknowledge a glaring differential in quality and degree of freedom offered to them in comparion with brother, male couin and male friend, though they all hare a common cultural background. Yet, the repone to thoe inequitie are a varied a the torie of their live. The final chapter, a more comprehenive tudy of identity among thee young Kurd, will do much to expoe thoe idioyncraie and, perhap even offer hope that what they have lot ha been outpaced by what they have gained. 121

132 6 No Two Jut Alike Pychologit Mary Pipher begin at a very curiou place. It i a poem about old men and field mice, trange food and familiar name, o many thing that are, at firt glance, puzzle piece from different boxe. I ued it a a more-than-erviceable template for my cla of undergraduate tudent at Wetern Kentucky Univerity, who needed a voice which I could hear. What i ultimately trange about it ue i that it ay nothing about the many and varied newcomer he deal with in the ret of her facinating work, The Middle of Everywhere: The World Refugee Come to Our Town. It i, in fact, all about her (i.e. loved people, place, food, fond memorie) and begin in appropriate fahion... I am from Avi and Frank, Agne and Fred, Gleie May and Mark... I am from oatmeal eater, gizzard eater, haggi and raccoon eater... I m from no-dancing Methodit, but card were okay except on Sunday, and from tent-meeting Holy Roller... I m from Schwinn girl bike, 1950 Mercury two-door, and Wet Side Story... My own weet dance unfolding againt a cat of women in apron and barefoot men in overall (Pipher 2002, 3-4). She and thoe from uch diparate place a Vietnam, Kurditan, and Mexico are preented in uch contraditinction preciely to howcae globalim long reach, even into the cornfield of Nebraka (the etting for her dicoverie). But thi unlikely pairing 122

133 alo bring to the fore a obering by-product of our ever-connected world, identity confuion. Pipher comment on thi. A track i not the hape of a foot; it i the hape of a foot in the ground. Identity can only occur in a context, that i, in a ocial environment. Refugee, diplaced and dioriented by their rapidly changing world, have haky identitie... Who are we when we don t have a hometown, when we don t know our neighbor...? Who are we when we don t know the hitory of our land or the name of common plant and bird in our area? Or when our torie come from televiion et intead of grandparent or village toryteller (Pipher 2002, 22)? In hindight, it would have been a telling exercie to have my Kurdih interviewee write an I Am poem, to put down on paper the life marker which tood above all other. What might they have hared? I am...a victim. I am...a college graduate,...a proud Kurd,...a lot oul. They are now far removed from the gro uncertaintie of thoe firt day in the U.S. (not really refugee anymore) and, yet, I would argue that every one, by their own admiion, till walk on ever-hifting ground. In fact, that i the thei of thi reearch: young Kurd in Nahville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdih, i equally valued or hared at all time. With that a a backdrop, thi final chapter will conider identity pecifically and within the context of three quetion poed by many in the ocial cience concerning it: by whom i it aigned, in what way() i it ued and how i it made known? A a dicipline, folklore i replete with hitorical and contemporary example of a ometime rapt attention to identity. I thought it facinating to follow the dicuion of 123

134 prominent folklorit Elliot Oring, Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett, and Henry Glaie in thi regard. In the page of the Journal of American Folklore, they taked their claim a to whether identity wa, a Oring conjectured, that dark matter tanding at the center of our enterprie and what integrate our divere interet into ome ort of comprehenible configuration (Oring 1994b: 225). Oring cite a proof the work of Johann Gottfried von Herder, the brother Grimm, William Thom, E.B. Tylor, Juliu Krohn, and other in the pantheon of folklore antecedent. Moreover, he contend, that even the late twentieth-century movement away from the artifactual, a reflected in the work of Dan Ben-Amo, Richard Bauman, Roger Abraham, Henry Glaie, and Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett reflect uch enibilitie. Glaie, in hi repone, repectfully amend Oring thei, uggeting that identity might well be the new tradition of folkloric vocabulary and inquiry (Glaie 1994: 240), tradition being, in the etimation of many, a ocial contruct. What doe that portend for identity? Kirhenblatt-Gimblett i not a conciliatory. She dimie Oring argument on both hitorical and political ground. Identity, a a rubric under which all hitoricallylabeled folkloric endeavor (i.e. etho, value, elf-conception, etc.) fall, fail to account for the difference and dicontinuitie thoe very label (which Oring offer a proof) provide. They are, in fact, evidence to the contrary (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 235). More profoundly, Kirhenblatt-Gimblett i deeply concerned with the effect uch preoccupation (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 234) will have on the work of folklorit and their ubject, believing the potential end point i a fully realized racialim that tranmute into racim (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 236), a nod to Romantic 124

135 Nationalit and preent-day freedom fighter alike. Such inordinacy, a ome prefer to call it, will be dicued at length in the page to follow. Though none of the three agree fully on identity being the locu of folkloric activity, Oring, Glaie, and Kirhenblatt-Gimblett do acknowledge identity place in the field. Quetion of conuming theory and community engagement notwithtanding, there i a conenu that identity i, at the very leat, one label which could accurately be attached to that which folklorit have done and continue to do. I find comfort then to tep into that tream myelf, though I could jut a eaily have tayed on the bank (to paraphrae Oring), focuing on Kurdih product (i.e., material culture, performance, etc.), rather than Kurdih eence. Even the narrative I did gather could have been analyzed trictly on the bai of adherence to indutry tandard (i.e., teller, audience, context, etc.) but my deire wa to undertand, if only primordially, what thoe torie revealed of that ingular individual and, by extenion, the community of which they were a part. Thoe revelation, in my mind, clearly bepoke identity. Thi beg the obviou quetion of where thi undertanding of elf originated for thee young Kurd? One hould be aware there are concept regarding identity which trancend the individual, that ene of pace-time connection with tate, thought, and action from the pat (Oring 1994b: 212). Elliot Oring himelf mention two; peronal and collective (Oring 1994b: 212). My tudy wa primarily concerned with particular (i.e. identity of individual Kurdih youth) but a Mary Pipher note, identity never occur in a vacuum; it occur in a ocial environment (Pipher 2002: 22). Moreover, a Roger Abraham remind u, identity ha been ued more to refer to group than 125

136 individual (Abraham 2003: 205). It i impoible, therefore, to fully divorce my interviewee from their (ethnic) group, even for purpoe of dicuion. Each i one, to be ure, but each i alo one of many. Now we return to the quetion of origin. From where or, more preciely, from whom do identitie come? Who aign them? For example, how did German come to accept thee aumedly intrinic (Coggehall 1986: 191) qualitie of cleanline and thrift in contrat to the lovenline and penurioune of other (Coggehall 1986: 191)? What/who marked the Kurd a hopitable and courageou and the other a omething not o? Logically, there are only three poible anwer; from within or without or a combination of the two. Our dicuion will focu on the firt two. In term of aignment, then, thee line of cultural demarcation between peron/group were clearly created by that peron/group or conferred by another. In other word, that identity wa elf-aigned or other-aigned. Scholar gather on both ide of the divide. Hitorically, according to Elliot Oring, identity label (in hi cae, avage ) were part and parcel of the relationhip between civilized and uncivilized, foited upon the latter by the former (Oring 1994b: 216). The avage, it eemed, had no meaure of elf-concioune and, therefore, required enlightenment by the like of Herder and the Grimm. Other agree, noting that individual and group identitie are contingent on the contruction of the power relation that characterize liberal repreentative democracy (Abraham 2003: 208). Identitie can be likened to hitorie in thi repect; both are determined by the power that be. Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett i deeply concerned by uch diparitie and poe thi rhetorical 126

137 quetion in repone; in whoe interet i it to fix identity? (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 237). There are other, however, who adhere to elf-aignment, elf-acription. Anthropologit Fredrik Barth i one. In a facinating tudy of local v. ethnic/group identity, Ellen Badone take note of boundarie (a ubject to which I will return) and their part in identity formation in rural Brittany. Intermarriage and economic played primary role in the relocation of reident from one ide of Mont d Arree to the other, a boundary eparating rival, often contentiou, population. Some who made uch a journey did o in toto, effectively diavowing all former allegiance. Thi, according to Badone, undercore the validity of Barth aertion that identity i a matter of elfacription (Badone 1987: 181). The point i that identitie, a money, can eemingly be dipoed, exchanged and acquired at will, according to the predilection of the individual/ group. I think of the many thouand in outhern California who are quite poibly ethnic Kurd (from Iran) and yet are inviible to the greater Kurdih-American community and their friend. Why? They have thrown their lot in with Iran, refuing to identify a Kurd. My interviewee Kian, himelf a Kurd from Iran, knew thi a a real-world dilemma. I know ome Kurdih people that don t wanna tick around with ome of the Kurdih people, that don t wanna be known a Kurd, that don t wanna have nothing to do with u, don t wanna be a loner, a peron without a country, go call yourelf an Arab or a Perian jut becaue you wanna tay away. 127

138 The Kurd of which Kian peak alo made a choice a to who they would be or, more accurately, portray themelve to be. Thi i conitent with a definition of identity tendered by Roger Abraham, highlighting identity malleability and touching on it functionality. Identity...eem to mean the um of the elf-claification taken by an individual who recognize alternative (italic mine, Abraham 2003: 209). There are choice to be made and the proper one often hinge on which group offer the leat rik and the greatet potential profit, culturally or otherwie. Regardle of former fealtie, ome cholar claim, many will chooe to be called by a different name, covering themelve in the cloak of another. My firt foray into the realm of identity aignment came with thi quetion of my interviewee. When did you realize you were different than other kid in chool? My preuppoition wa that the realization of otherne did come and that it wa, at the very leat, mot pronounced in time with other tudent. I think at thi point Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett would be pleaed with me. Her cogent counterargument to Oring mentioned above i entitled On Difference exprely becaue he believe that folklorit (and perhap other, I uppoe) hould conider taking difference a the point of departure (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 235) rather than identity. Though both are linked and mutually contitutive (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1994: 235) he prefer the term le uceptible to nefariou ue. I ued it imply to avoid undue confuion; replacing when did you realize you were different? with what wa your identity growing up? eemed to be a le-than-productive approach with teen/twentyomething. The repone I did receive on difference, however, mirrored the unique 128

139 experience of my interviewee. Some could pinpoint their epiphany preciely, other not. A number recoiled at the mere inference of ditinction, while other imply took it at face value. John Coggehall noticed thi very thing among German American in Illinoi. Sometime, group identity i obviou to all oberver...at other time, (it) may be initially unrecognized by inider...from their own perpective, they peak in a normal fahion and celebrate holiday like everyone ele. Outider, though, interpret the ame peech pattern a a dialect and the ame holiday tradition a ethnic (Coggehall 1986: 177). Here i what my interviewee aid about difference. Dahneh (female, aged 18) d d d d I would ay middle chool. Middle chool. Ye. You would realize that the thing they do you can t do. You know what I mean? Like, for example, the culture hit you more, your parent explain it more. Dating not allowed which you undertand, you know? I think one thing would be (earche for word), well actually that it. Yeah, that pretty much it. So but, I mean, how did you... Take it in? Come to that realization, I mean, that you were not like other kid? I mean, I really don t ee myelf any different. Dilman (female, aged 26) 129

140 d I mean I, I did notice that in, you know, kindergarten and firt grade, epecially adapting to the culture and the language...you think, you know, am I in a different world, i thi the ame place a I wa thi morning, you know why, why I am I learning thee two thing, why are thee people not undertanding each other? So, you know, even at a young age you do realize that you re different jut becaue of the language. You know, you know you re, you know you don t look like them or you don t act like them or maybe you don t peak like them, o you know you re a little bit different. Majeed (male, aged 22) m I knew from the get go...i knew that from the beginning. Lava (female, aged 18) l I alway fit in. Klavih (female, aged 22) So when you were growing up, like four or five, you know into elementary chool did you ee yourelf a different from the other kid in the chool? k No never. Kavar (male, aged 18) k At that young of an age, I didn t really ee myelf different but growing up, you know going into middle chool and tuff I wa kind of a loner. You know, people would ak me, oh where you from, you know I d ay Iraq and they d kind of, you know, get cared you know with the idea of terrorit. And o I d have to, you know, it there and explain to them, you know, oh it not like that at all and where I m from it completely different than, you know what, what portrayed on tv and tuff. 130

141 I return to the ubject of boundarie. It i appropriate here becaue of it implicit nuance. A boundary i, by definition, that which mark an end, a fixed limit, a phyical barrier, of ort. Conequently, it often eparate. For folklorit, anthropologit and other intereted in cultural otherne, however, boundarie are much le place of containment and much more point of contact. A uch, they are rich offering for migration, kinhip and identity tudie. Ellen Badone make thi point with reference to rural Breton. Local identity i...accentuated in boundary ituation (Badone 1987: 167), be they topographical, ocial or both. The ame could be aid of German in Illinoi (Coggehall), Ukrainian in Canada (Klymaz), Derimi in Germany (Akcinar), Gypie in the U.S. (Silverman), or Kurd in Nahville. Though not all of my interviewee acknowledged difference a a factor in their young live, they all admitted to conitent, beneficial contact with non-kurd of many tripe. Such variety wa a ditinguihing factor for Kurdih immigrant, a it wa for the Hungarian Linda Dégh tudied in northern Indiana. Both were unaccutomed to mutual interaction with not one or everal but a greater number of alien culture (Dégh 1966: 554) in the homeland. But in their new home, both moved among thoe alien culture to their profit. Dégh paint it thi way. Their intricate relationhip (immigrant to non-immigrant) could be compared to that of tar in the ky, whoe movement are determined not only by their own impetu, but alo by the pull and puh of countle other tar, whoe color are determined not only by their own compoition, but alo by the radiation of other (Dégh 1966: 555). 131

142 The color of which Dégh peak are, in my etimation, code for identity. Clearly then, her experience would indicate that both camp (of cholar) are correct. Identity i, indeed, a creation of the individual/group herelf/itelf. But in like fahion, it i alo a reult of the puh and pull of thoe with whom they have come in contact. In looking beyond the premie that identity can be elf-acribed, I come to the econd of our quetion; how i it ued? what purpoe() doe it erve? On a continuum of good to bad (in itelf an exercie in virtual relativity), there i firt the imple howcae. Thi i that to which Robert Klymaz refer in hi tudy of Ukrainian folklore. Hi view i that in the proce of enculturation (the three tage of reitance..., breakdown..., and recontitution, Klymaz 1973: 134), Ukrainian immigrant in wetern Canada had undergone incredible change, in thi triking repect; their expreion of identity (i.e. muic, joke, ritual) had become captive to a ingular goal. That goal wa elf-revelation. Thee new folkloric manifetation depart from the traditional Old Country complex not only by virtue of their highly acculturated form, tyle, context, and content, but perhap even more fundamentally, by replacing the old multifunctional diverity that characterized the old complex with a ingle baic function devoted almot excluively to the expreion and tranmiion of ethnic ditinctivene (italic mine, Klymaz 1973: 138). My ene i that the young Kurd with whom I poke had a imilar motivation. Kian tattoo, Lava KURDISTAN keychain, Kajin food and Dilman dre (mentioned in the 132

143 page to follow), erve a point of reference to the land and culture of their forebear or, to borrow the word of Klymaz, marker of ethnic ditinctivene. There wa no attempt to hame or coerce or control; that wa the lot of thoe mirepreenting the culture, the one unable to properly expre Kurdayeti (i.e. the Kurdih Pride gang), according to my interviewee. There wa, however, further movement along that continuum for many. They ued identity not only to howcae but alo to educate. Dilman word come immediately to mind. I love my culture and I love my country. I jut don t feel like I have a lot of opportunity. But when it come to thing like thi to expre myelf in any way that I can, I m more than happy to do it. I would rather ak, be aked a million quetion than for omebody to jut it there and aume omething about my culture or about my country. She did not ee herelf a a community activit, puhing a it were the ware of her people on unupecting or reitant other. But he could be prepared for thoe rare moment of openne, when non-kurd did eek to buy what he had to ell. Our interview wa proof he wa prepared, to tell of the richne of her culture and the trength of her people amidt tremendou, tremendou amount of pain (peronal interview with author). Many of my other interviewee hared imilar torie of enlightenment with co-worker or fellow tudent. 133

144 Kavar word were different. He wanted to educate, a well, though not merely to tranfer information; he ued identity a a corrective meaure. Oh it not like that at all, he d ay. Where I m from it completely different than, you know what, what portrayed on tv and tuff (peronal interview with author). For thoe children from Iraq (Kurd or otherwie), life in the United State pot-gulf War wa an exhauting erie of explanation and defenive poturing. Interetingly, the ame wa true for Swedih American following the ceation of World War I. Steven Schnell tell of a pam of rabid patriotim (Schnell 2003: 13) which drove oppoition to any and all immigrant communitie acro the country. The repone wa a retreat on the part of Swedih American during the 1920, an eroion of Swedih language and culture (Schnell 2003: 13), including in the town of Schnell focu, Lindborg, Kana. Third-generation Swede tepped in to tem the tide and right the wrong, feeling the Swedih contribution to American hitory had been unjutly overlooked (Schnell 2003: 18). They too ued identity to correct. A third purpoe for identity i illutrated well in the tudy of American Gypie by Carol Silverman. It i profit and it offer a facinating paradox. In the pat, ome oberver of Gypy culture have naively labeled gazhe (non-gypy) culture a the enemy (Silverman 1988, 267) but they had miinterpreted the evidence. The urrounding culture i not a threat to Gypy culture but a rich, ever-changing torehoue from which Gypie draw and adapt, and with which they interpret and create (Silverman 1988: 267). Surpriingly, they were not ubumed by the majority culture but were, in fact, trengthened by it to excel. At firt, I dimied thi idea vi-a- 134

145 vi the young Kurd I had come to know becaue of the economic factor involved. When had they peronally profited from the teady creep of an alien culture? The wider Kurdih community wa, in thi repect, Gypy-like, tailoring their myriad retaurant and car lot to American tate and funneling, at leat, a portion of the profit to family member and buine venture in Kurditan. But, inamuch a I knew, my interviewee had no part in thi common practice. Then I began to think more abtractly. Diregarding dollar bill and Lincoln pennie, in what way() were thee young Kurd benefitting from their place in American ociety? I propoe two. The firt i peronal and can be ummed up in the word of my interviewee Kavar. At time I wonder how my life would be if I never came here, you know if I were, if I jut grew up in Kurditan...caue the thing that I ve been able to do here I don t know if I d been able, would ve been able to do back home. In thinking of our dicuion a a whole, the thing to which Kavar make reference are largely educational. He had excelled in one of Nahville premier high chool and had been accepted to univerity, a path that, in hi etimation, might have been cloed to him in Kurditan. In concrete term, that i wholly incorrect. There are two large univeritie (including an American univerity) in hi birthplace (Suleymania) at which he could have tudied. He know that, o there mut have been more than book and beaker on hi mind the day we at down together. I contend there wa a conideration of and an appreciation for the aggregate American experience. A did all of my interviewee, 135

146 Kavar talked of hi truggle and uccee in navigating pluralitic water. Interaction with the nation had made him the man he wa; it wa highly doubtful if Kurditan could offer a much. Secondly, thee young Kurd profited communally. Anthropologit Diane King, well-vered in all thing Kurdih, explain it thi way. By the late 1990 the phenomenon of the returned migrant receiving guet had become part of everyday life in Iraqi Kurditan. The pattern of viiting in which local people were already engaged provided an ideal tructure for returnee and nonmigrant to engage in dicuion out of which emerged the diaporic imaginary--a conceptualization by people in the homeland of their own experience and poibilitie vi-a-vi thoe of migrant, a new ene that the community of Iraqi Kurd wa not confined to a ingle place, new moral formulation, fahion and a hot of other new idea wrought through contact with diaporan Kurd (King 2008: 212). My interviewee had participated in the contruction of thi diaporic imaginary every time they returned to Kurditan. King tell of a dramatic hift over a imple taple of Kurdih life, ugar. With knowledge gained from returning migrant, local no longer aumed Wetern guet preferred ugar with their tea; they learned to ak. During my time teaching fifth-grade tudent in the capital of Iraqi Kurditan, Hawler/Arbil, another apect of thi diaporic imaginary wa addreed, claroom etiquette. On a fairly conitent bai, depite my jut-a-conitent correction, tudent would raie their hand in the middle of cla to ak permiion. Why? They wanted to take their trah to the can near the door. It wa maddening, though I did view it a plodding progre; previouly 136

147 they would not even ak. The point i that viitor from the Wet, be they expatriate or returning national, contribute to the formation of Kurdih identity in the homeland by imply being preent, pollinating the old culture with the new. In the proce, participating Kurd cemented tie to the ingular community worldwide. That i profit indeed in the pocket of my young Kurdih friend. Now at lat to, what ome would label, the detructive end of our identity-ue continuum. It i to thi, it eem, Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett and Roger Abraham direct their ire or, at leat, their trong ditrut. Kirhenblatt-Gimblett again ak in whoe interet i it to fix identity? Her anwer would be thoe who wih to divide and conquer. Thi wa exactly what the greater Derimi community reited in Berlin in the early 1990, a they etablihed a homeland aociation. Derimi hare ethnic, religiou and/or geographic tie with three other group in the city (Kurd, Zaza and Turk), all of whom have much to gain by a public pledge of Derimi loyalty. The Kurd or, more pecifically according to Mutafa Akcinar, Kurdih Nationalit (Akcinar 2010: 74), were the mot aggreive in applying preure to thi once-ambivalent group, claiming the Derimi a their own o a to increae political clout with their hot culture, Germany. Thi kind of identity hotage-taking perit among the Kurd, epecially with peripheral group uch a the Zaza in Turkey and the Lur in Iran. And, yet, there i an even greater evil of which Roger Abraham peak. To the extent that identity ha been given over to the dicoure on race or ethnicity, it ha produced much dicomfort. Given the cataclymic development of world event and the ue of racial or ethnic identity a reaon for maive diplacement and military 137

148 engagement, ethnicity and the proce of purification and cleaning have once again raied the pecter of genocide. (Abraham 2003: 202) My interviewee, Majeed, had an intereting commentary on thi ue of identity. He wa reponding to my quetion on how to affect change in the Kurdih community, to help it member coalece around commonalitie and work for the good of all. There were no promiing propect for ucce, he aid, except for the conenu puh for a united Kurditan, to be carved from territorie now claimed by enemie. He laid out the rationale. Caue we re not, you know we re not Perian, we re not Arabic, we re Kurdih. So that the main goal and we don t, we don t like being called Perian, Turk or Arabic, you know. So and jut like the Arabic doen t like being called a Kurd or Turk but. Becaue we ve been through o much harh with them, you know? Hi point i well-taken and the headwater of every argument in defene of nationhood; Kurd maintain an identity that i ditinct from thoe who might hare element of a linguitic, cultural or hitorical nature with them. But here i Majeed commentary pertaining to identity a control, identity a weapon. We might be backtabber too but ultimately I think they re [Iran, Iraq, Turkey] the firt backtabber (peronal interview with the author). The Kurd were experienced in and vocal about the treacherie of the firt backtabber. Indeed, their hitory had traveled well beyond Abraham pecter of 138

149 genocide (italic mine, Abraham 2003: 202). Majeed acknowledged, however, that the Kurd themelve were complicit in the perpetration of imilar crime, uing their underdog tatu to exact payment of all ort (a fine example of dolorim a Abraham ee it, Abraham 2003: 215). That wa quite an admiion, a mature one in my opinion, from a young Kurd who had little to gain by giving it, from one who proclaimed on more than one occaion, I love Kurditan (peronal interview with the author). But he wa right and I wa glad to hear it. A third quetion loom unanwered. How i Kurdih identity evident in the live of the young Kurd I interviewed? Or to put it in folkloric term, how i it expreed? I aked thi quetion directly of each one; here are their anwer in brief. Kian (male, aged 21) I have Kurditan tattooed on my chet...i attend Kurdih youth fetival. Dahneh (female, aged 18) I go to the fetival. Majeed (male, aged 22) Thi i the thing, like...the kid now and the people now it like they forgot about Kurditan...a far a like going to Nevruz...it been probably three or four year I haven t been...i don t care too much for it. Dilman (female, aged 26) I expre myelf with my language...go to...the park, the picnic, the wedding...our clothe are very beautiful. Any chance I get to where em I will. 139

150 Klavih (female, aged 22) I have no problem with expreing myelf and my identity and being Kurdih...go to Nevruze...go to partie...and wedding...(and wear) Kurdih clothe. Dilan (female, aged 15) I like...kurdih wedding...it fun. Shermin (female, aged 26) I expre myelf everyday...through muic. Kajin (female, aged 25) Food. I take food to work and I like expoe it to the people. Kavar (male, aged 18) When I m around my American friend I don t really, you know, try to expre myelf a a Kurd...But when I m around my Kurdih friend...we re all...proud of being that...during Newroz...I have a big Kurdih flag that I hand on the back windhield of my car. Lava (female, aged 18) I don t really expre myelf a a Kurd. I expre myelf a a Mulim. Oh I have, like Kurditan key chain. There i undeniable variety in the repone to my quetion of expreion. One i proactive, another paive, and till another completely abent. One appeal to the eye, another to the ear, and till another to the tongue. It i all illutrative of that which Henry Glaie oberved over the coure of many year, through many land. In hi article on 140

151 tradition in Eight Word for the Study of Expreive Culture, Glaie hare ix brief torie of very different people; a ballad inger from North Carolina, an Irih intrumentalit, a Swedih potter, a calligraphit from Turkey, an Indian culptor and even hi own grandmother, the quinteential toryteller. The context i a dicuion of performance and how cholar have, in recent year, ditilled their analyi to conideration of 1) the line of tranmiion and 2) the performer/audience relationhip. Glaie concern wa not for the cholar or the fieldworker at thi point, however; it wa for the one oberved, recorded, and tudied, the performer herelf/himelf. The performer i poitioned at a complex nexu of reponibility. Taking command in the event out of which the future will rie, performer mut, at once, keep faith with the pat, with their deceaed teacher, and with the preent, the mumbling member of the audience who eek engagement now and might act later upon what they learn. Then, a the variability component of the phenomenal definition (tranmiion) and the artitic component of the communicational definition (audience) ugget, performer mut keep faith with themelve (Glaie 2003: ). Complex i the correct word for the tate of the thoughtful artit, whatever the art. Either he or he i entirely elf-aborbed or he or he mut manage the concern of all partie involved, a Glaie ha o eloquently laid out. One might at thi point, however, quetion the comparion, epecially becaue the preent dicuion concern tradition rather than identity. I would counter by enumerating a few of the commonalitie. They are both idea which reonate with and trouble many. They are both idea which have led 141

152 to unintended objectification. They are both idea which could, ome contend, be nothing more than imple facade, the creation of outider (or inider) erected for their own purpoe and catering to their own tate. There i another hared feature, however, which i predominant in my mind a I conider Glaie torie. It i, for lack of a better term, individuality. Thi i not a reference to the peculiar make-up of the group Glaie choe to expoe. I can imagine they were of varying age, family dynamic, etc. Clearly, they hailed from many ethnic background and, therefore, poke different language and walked in tep with different cultural cue. Glaie point, I believe, i that each of thoe unique individual managed that complex nexu of reponibility (Glaie 2003: 184) differently. There were thoe who learned their craft from mater and knew they were to bequeath a robut art to the future (Glaie 2003: 187). Other were mot content to perform for no one but themelve. Some looked around, uing their kill in ervice to their neighbor, while other maintained a backward glance at thoe who had informed and inpired their initial entry into the craft. There wa no conenu and no uniformity, though all commanded Glaie attention for the very ame reaon. The analogy, at thi point, hould be unmitakable. A Glaie group goe, o goe mine. I mentioned in Chapter 3 that, in ome ene, I wa not urpried by my dicoverie among young Kurd. What I found i what I hould have expected to find; thee kid walk about in human fleh, with all it fantatical and foible-ridden element in tow. What that mean i that each of my interviewee, younget to oldet, married or not, large family, mall family, and o on, handled their own complex nexu of 142

153 reponibility a they were willing and able to do. Dilman wa not Lava and Majeed wa not Klavih; they were, to point out the obviou, themelve. I m reminded of Barbara Kirhenblatt-Gimblett decription of the ideological detination at which Jewih klezmer muician had arrived. To them, Jewih wa a theme. It wa reolutely not an identity or heritage (Kirhenblatt-Gimblett 1998: 66). There were other who followed tradition and excoriated thoe who did not. Nonethele, thoe Kirhenblatt- Gimblett tudied continued in their anarchical, innovative way. They too were individual. I cloe with conideration of my thei; young Kurd in Nahville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdih, i equally valued or hared at all time. My expectation were, perhap, a little jaded. I remember a time when a local Kurdih friend came to my office, accompanied by hi Kurdih friend from Germany. Becaue I poke both language to ome degree, I thought it would be fun to juggle them both imultaneouly, in the ame converation. The reult wa a jumbled me. That i exactly what I expected to find through my fieldwork; conflicted, almot tortured oul who had little bearing and whoe live made little ene, toed around by competing allegiance and inceant demand. In effect, I wa looking for thing I had een on more than once occaion in their parent generation. But before I comment further, I thought it bet to allow thee young Kurd an opportunity to peak one final time. Thi i what i important to them, how they view themelve in the context of their world, their identity. 143

154 Kian (male, aged 21) It more important where you re from than where you re at...your ethnicity ha a trong, very important apect in your life and you hould really try to engage in really trying to find out where you re from and more about who you are. Dahneh (female, aged 18) I am a true Kurd but I think I m kind of ditant. Majeed (male, aged 22) You have to be open-minded to everything. Everybody hould hang around with different people, you know. Ultimately I would jut ay I m Kurdih. Dilman (female, aged 26) Although I m American, I till am Kurdih and my root are till with me. I don t want it to diintegrate jut becaue I live here and I m adapted to thi culture. It houldn t have to be like that. Dilan (female, aged 15) Everything a ecret. I d rather be honet, I don t like lying, I want you to know who I m with and tuff but if you can t accept it then what ele am I gonna do? I have to lie to you. That jut how it i. That how I feel. Kajin (female, aged 25) We are part of the community whether you guy like it or not and we re willing to help in any way that we can. Change...one peron a day, one peron a year i good too. Kavar (male, aged 18) 144

155 I jut conider myelf Kurdih. It definitely omething different you know, omething you don t hear about often and it omething to be proud of, you know. I alway have a tory to hare. Lava (female, aged 18) I alway fit in. Like I aid I wa really Americanized early. I really don t care if I m Arabic, Kurdih, blah, blah, blah. Klavih (female, aged 22) I had no problem fitting in with anyone. I feel like I live a double life. A double life; that wa my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, affirmation of my initial hunch (i.e., thei). Even for thoe not a vocal about the daily balancing act, there wa an undeniable, quantifiable duality of attention directed toward home and everywhere ele. Due to triking difference in language and culture, it wa inevitable. But to my utter urprie, my interviewee navigated the rough ea very, very well, though never in exactly the ame manner. Joan Radner aid thi of narrative. Teller can go all over the world learning other people torie and they can tell them well; but the tory they need to tell (to themelve at leat, if not the public) i the only one they have: their own. That i the bae from which we really learn to undertand the language/live of other creature; the way we ave our live from the tranger who would conume u for their own purpoe (Radner 1993: 303). 145

156 Kurdih culture i rich with laudable element; hopitality, courage and a deep repect for elder among them. I have no deire to erae thee from the national concioune, even for the ake of caution. But I would, in tep with Radner entiment, hope that by telling their torie thee amazing young people will be enabled to reit, with grace, the attempt of charlatan and ruffian alike, thoe eeking to turn back the hand of time through their cunning. And in reflection, I am left with gratitude, knowing that thee torie, in all their Shakepearean glory, have now come to be part of omething much more peronal. Their torie have become part of my own. 146

157 7 Deeper, Wider Thi tudy ha been a leon in many thing, among them contancy and elaticity in the fieldwork proce. A mentioned more than once in thee chapter, thi breadth of inquiry wa new to me, a wa the parade of character informing it. Contant movement on my part wa abolutely critical to the ucce of thi project; indeed the legion of other moving part (i.e., chedule, venue, cultural more, etc.) demanded it. That aide, there wa omething ele which lifted it head gleefully above the ret, much like a child on her father houlder at a late November treet fair. It wa perpective and I introduce it with two torie from the pat. The firt took place in Augut of Who know, it might have been a hundred and twenty degree, a normal ummer day for Phoenix. A new chool year at Ocotillo Elementary wa on the horizon and it wa time to get away one lat time, hopefully to a place a little cooler. So we loaded the car and headed north, my mom and dad in the front eat, my iter in the back and me, mot likely, on the floor. Do not be fooled by appearance. Thi wa not punihment, it wa heaven. The contant drone of racing aphalt and the wonderful mixture of warm metal and cold air made a road trip o much more than bearable. And, in a way, it helped calm me prior to our arrival at that great unknown, the Grand Canyon. I remember very little of that firt ighting except for companion feeling of abolute mallne and complete terror. There wa no fence back then to protect me from being wallowed whole o I clung tightly to my mom and urvived. 147

158 Fat forward thirty year, September My wife and I were in the foret of northern California for our twentieth wedding anniverary, divorced from telephone and televiion for a few day of elf-impoed ilence. It wa only by chance that during a walk to get an iron at the campground office I heard rumbling of a plane crah in New York. A we all know, that ingular event would hake the global village, including our little pot in it. We were to fly out the next day from San Francico to reunite with our five children, from whom we had been eparated nine day by that time. Barricade and beleaguering new met u at the airport. No flight out for the foreeeable future meant we would have to travel the nearly twenty-five hundred mile back to Atlanta by car. We drove hard, not knowing what thoe chaotic incident in key place portended for our family or, frankly, for anyone ele. But on our way through Arizona, we decided to make one lat anniverary memory. It wa a little off the beaten path for u but it would, mot likely, never be thi cloe again. We would top at the Grand Canyon. The requiite fee paid, we made our way to the edge of that majetic monument to raw beauty. We poke oftly of our year together, the memorable celebration of it along the California coatline and the likely uncertaintie which lay ahead. Then we were gone, a mere thirty minute having ticked off the clock. The place did have trong magic but, at that moment, more critical matter puhed through to break it pell. I uppoe thoe two journey peak in many voice of many thing. But, it i perpective which i clarion to me. A a child, that canyon wa gargantuan, much too large to proce even in the implet of term. A an adult, on the other hand, it wa urpriingly diminutive, reduced by time and terror to a local idehow rather than the 148

159 international attraction it wa. The topography had changed very little in the intervening time period, to be ure, but my life had done nothing but change, in dramatic and marvelou way. What once truck fear now wa in it rightful place amidt the commonplace and catatrophic of grown-up life. My perpective had evolved, had matured. I believe the ame could be aid for my foray into the realm of Kurdih identity, beginning to end. Take, for example, the dicuion in Chapter 4 of the role of chool in the aimilation proce of refugee children, including thoe I interviewed. My peronal hitory a a white peron in the South wa predicated upon the intitutionalized idea that eparation wa, if not ideal, at leat the working norm. Our chool were then expectedly devoid of color. Until the Marine Corp forced me to room with an African-American man from Houton and a Puerto-Rican man from New York, I wa nearly completely mono-cultural. Kurdih children arriving in Nahville in the third and fourth wave (1990) were imilarly handicapped and yet, by heer compreion (of ethnicitie), were introduced immediately and inceantly to the multicultural face of their new world, a face my interviewee Shermin unabahedly decribed a facinating. Her cointerviewee voiced imilar entiment. Then there wa the iue of third-culture affinity. Thi wa the idea that TCK (Third-Culture Kid) tend to gravitate toward thoe like themelve, thoe who have been imilarly tranplanted from culture to culture. A with mot of the repondent to the chool urvey, mot of my interviewee made mention of non-kurdih friend (a repone I expected long before the firt contact). Pollock and Van Reken had 149

160 provided ufficient analytical and anecdotal data to prime that pump, o to peak, to create in me an awarene that uch a phenomena wa valid. Yet even now, after many month of paring word and probing tone, there remain a large, lingering quetion; where and when are thee diparate yet attracted teen ever together? I can recall eeing only a handful of non-kurdih teen/twenty-omething at Kurdih cultural event (i.e., wedding, New Year, religiou obervance, etc.) over the lat nineteen year, unle that event wa ponored by a non-kurdih group whoe goal wa cultural diverity and whoe program wa multi-ethnic. So where i the interection? It mut be in the claroom and extracurricular activitie of local chool. Dilan occer team, Shermin clubmate and everyone clamate it eem provided mot, if not all, of the cultural interface opportunitie, at leat a far a my fieldwork revealed. Further and more targeted quetioning might have revealed additional one. There i alo the ditinct poibility that Nahville i unique in thi repect. Other izable communitie of Kurd acro the country, in citie uch a Atlanta, Dalla and Wahington, D.C. whoe population prawl mitigate attempt to duplicate Nahville extreme ethnic concentration (befitting the title, Little Kurditan ), would eem to poe more potential for accidental and/or intentional cultural exchange which benefit all. My hope i that future generation of Kurd in thi city would follow uit. Gender wa alo a key component in the readjutment of my perpective, a fact not lot on the attentive reader. I wa quite candid about the lack of preparedne for addreing uch a rich iue prior to commencing fieldwork but jut a candid about my aggreive puruit of it once the light came on. There were undeniable inequitie faced 150

161 by my female interviewee and, in fact, the preponderance of Kurdih female in Nahville. Everyone acknowledged a much. In a quirky way, uch common knowledge reminded me of a preent-day commercial campaign for a large inurance company, alway involving two fairly elf-aborbed people. One note the aving available with Company X and the other repond glibly, Everybody know that. Well, ay the firt, Did you know Old McDonald wa a very bad peller/pinocchio wa a bad motivational peaker/an auctioneer make a really bad checkout clerk? The humor only erved to reinforce the entrenched knowledge of abolute economic benefit. My point i that gender inequitie in Nahville Kurdih community are imilarly aumed. They are what they are becaue they are what they have been. Yet here i where a perpective hift ha taken place for me. While the iue of gender inequality i known by all, it i no longer left in the hadow. It i brought into the cro-generational converation of the Kurdih community. Remember thee tatement by Shermin and Klavih? Shermin (female, aged 26) I ve aked my mom the ame quetion million of time a to, not jut our family, I m not talking about my family in general I m jut aying overall. Like let ay if a Kurdih guy marrie omebody outide of the race, it perfectly fine with him, everybody accept it. But if a Kurdih female marrie outide the race nope, that not acceptable. And I alway told her if you gonna treat one one way, treat the ame, the other ex the exact ame way. There hould be no different. She alway told me that he agree but there nothing he could do caue it jut tradition, it culture, it jut been how, how it i. 151

162 Klavih (female, aged 22) Everything different for like guy and girl. We talk about thi, thi i a huge debate in my houe all the time. Boy are different from girl no matter what and that won t change. Like that omething that I don t believe will change unle like, I have children with omeone that not Kurdih and he might agree to ome thing. But I know if I marry omebody Kurdih like he not accepting, ok women and men are the ame. There gonna alway be a difference. I had aumed a code of ilence enforced by two unlikely partner; patriarchy and mother. Both would, according to thi line of thinking, work to maintain the tatu quo and quelch any plan for it demie. But my interviewee revelation revealed otherwie. I can only aume that imilar dicuion are taking place acro the length and breadth of Little Kurditan, though anecdotal evidence would ugget that reultant change of ubtance are rare. A Klavih noted, many of the wort female offender are, in the end, puhed out of the family. Will uch extreme meaure erve to give greater voice to the oppoition or further ilence them? Will mercy ever be extended to thee young women by thoe they have hamed, familie courageou enough to violate ancient principle training againt it? Klavih father eemed to be a rare exception in thi repect, welcoming hi daughter back from a dark divorce. Could another father, le Americanized, do the ame? One other apect of gender gave me paue. It relate to the dicuion of female Mardi Gra by Carolyn Ware (Ware 2007). I noted in Chapter 5 that both thoe 152

163 mentioned by Ware and thoe in Nahville of Kurdih decent, young and old, nurture tie to what i behind, their hitory and culture and land. In fact, whether intentionally or not, they pa on thoe tradition to preent and future generation by their peronal embrace. My quetion i thi; will thee young women, themelve victim of gender dicrimination, pa on more than the brightet accoutrement of culture? Will they alo perpetuate the patriarchal contruct which led them to their diadvantaged tate? If not, what i the remedy apart from rejecting the entirety of their beloved culture? Klavih mentioned that, from her vantage point, he aw no poibility for finding that happy medium with a Kurdih huband beide her, Americanized or not. Could the ame be true for a larger wath of young Kurdih women in Nahville? I a new day dawning for cultural exchange between Kurd and non-kurd which include even marriage partner? Chapter 6 dealt with identity, the overarching theme of thi entire work. Exactly who were thee young Kurd? Such a quetion prompted the dicuion of elf- veru other- acription, the idea that identity i aigned rather than innate and can be acribed either by an inider (i.e., the individual/group themelve) or an outider (i.e., one different than the individual/group) and to different end. With repect to my interviewee, it would eem to be a combination of the two. Both birth and hot culture reinforced the notion that thee young Kurd were different than the native American (i.e., one born in the U.S.), at leat initially. Yet our interview alo revealed a ometime pronounced arrival at an identity juncture, of ort, a place with a clear ightline to each culture to which they belonged and, accordingly, a range of option from which to 153

164 chooe. Will I be fully Kurdih? fully American? neither? both? Interetingly, there were ome who refued to admit uch a revelation. From the earliet day in the U.S., according to their claim, they were at home. It i true I have no evidence to the contrary, but I would quetion uch an aertion on mere mathematical ground. I it poible that among the many thouand of interaction with non-kurd in childhood and adolecence there wa not a ingle moment of wonder? Could there really never have been a ene of otherne? I it poible that it i, intead, an iue of timing, that my mot- Americanized interviewee imply arrived at that juncture of choice much ooner than thoe, for example, mentioned by Kian (who rejected Kurdih identity in favor of Arab or Perian)? Comparative tudy might be ueful in anwering uch a quetion and other. For example, would aimilation narrative of young Vietnamee or Guatemalan in Nahville reflect that of the Kurd? Conidering uage, would ome ue identity to preent, other educate, and till other to control a I have outlined concerning my interviewee? Would there be thoe more at home with American culture and other more ardent to embrace and even propagate the firt culture, perhap at the expene of healthy movement into the econd? It would alo be helpful to gain the perpective of younger interviewee. Every Wedneday afternoon our local non-profit agency offer after-chool literacy tutoring for elementary-age Kurd. I often wonder a I watch them interact with our volunteer where their loyaltie mot lie with repect to culture and ethnicity. It i afe to aume it i in a different place than that of their parent. Could 154

165 there be a imilar confidence, however, in aying that it lie in a place different than even their older ibling? It would be facinating to find out. The expreion of identity outlined by my interviewee reflected much of what every other element of identity did. That wa uniquene, idioyncray, individuality and included not only the expreion itelf (i.e. body art, dre, food) but where and when and why and with whom it wa diplayed. Kavar explicitly tated that hi preentation of Kurdihne, at leat that which wa mot conpicuou, came only when urrounded by other Kurd wherea the ever-congenial Kajin took advantage of every opportunity to evangelize the non-kurd. I remember a imilar divergence among war veteran in Allen County, Kentucky, during fieldwork there in My interviewee had been quetioned many time about their experience in World War II and Korea and yet were not avere to itting down with me to do the ame. Their brother in arm, I learned, were not a amenable. Perhap the memorie were too painful or too ditant to recall with any accuracy or patho but, regardle, thee men were unwilling to be marked again a a veteran of war. I accept that with regard to the eleven people I came to know. Each brought to the table a tory unlike any other and ome were imply more willing to tell it, in part or in whole, than were other. Ray Cahman contention i that hi interviewee from Northern Ireland were able, through torytelling, to define who they have been, who they are, and who they can be (Cahman 2008: 255). The young Kurd with whom I poke were imilarly dipoed. 155

166 There i, however, a ad tone to be truck in conidering the lat of Cahman trilogy (i.e., who they can be ). I would like to maintain ome emblance of hope for thi community in which I am o deeply inveted but my interviewee will not allow it, at leat not fully. Conider thee two quetion poed to each of them. 1. Are there thing that the older generation ha done to create problem for the community? 2. Do you ee thing changing? How? If not, why not? How can the youth contribute? My thought wa to elicit their knowledge and perpective on community action, pat, preent and future. Were their parent, grandparent, aunt and uncle reponible for creating the often hotile environment through which they moved day to day? How ha the preent generation reponded, if at all? What i the plan moving forward? Naturally anwer varied and, yet, there eemed to be a black thread which ran through many of them; nothing will change. Here i a ampling. Majeed (male, aged 22) m I know the community i falling apart. Dahneh (female, aged 18) So, why do you think that there aren t poitive change being made? d I think caue there might not be, like, a lot of people that talk about that. 156

167 Klavih (female, aged 22) k k I mean i the younger generation different? I feel like it the ame. Oh o they don t do a better job of relating with...? I feel like over time they might, they re being more friendly and out there but I feel like they re, thoe people that are out there and outgoing are viewed differently. They re viewed a being too Americanized. Lava (female, aged 18) l l So really the young people are what ort of driving the change? I feel like, that what I feel like. I that omething that you think that they re doing ort of accidentally or they re, they re thinking we ve got to change thi? No it kind of like accidentally. They re really not, I don t think nobody like really think about that. No one think about that, no one talk about that, no one want to run the rik of being too Americanized and, thu, le Kurdih. At leat, that i the way my young friend view the preent ituation. Such entiment doe eem to be endemic to thi community and not even my interviewee, though acutely aware of the problem, have a proper and potent olution. I cannot, however, conclude with gloom. So I return to the one with whom I began, Kavar. He wa one that had, by virtue of the chool he attended, gained greater 157

168 expoure to non-kurdih population. Hi mother had alo developed imilar friendhip through work and leiure activitie. Kavar enculturation bae, therefore, wa much more olid than that of other Kurd hi age, thoe ubumed by kurdayeti (Kurdihne). He parleyed thoe perk into a true worldview, nurturing repect and connection with all, including Kurd unlike himelf. Again, my quetioning had alluded to the deep diviion o prevalent and o perniciou in hi Nahville community. True, he aid, but not in my generation. Since we ve all grown up together in today world, I don t ee that a much at all, little to no(ne). Until thi point, I wa pleaed with what I heard though not entirely urpried. Younger generation alway have new idea and often work to implement them. Kavar circle of Kurdih friend had moved beyond the petty particular of clan and tribe, accent and birthplace to the place of greatet import; their hared ethnic background. But, wonderfully, the hand of thee young people were not locked in an outward-only trajectory, toward each other. They alo reached backward to previou generation. I had aked Kavar how he and hi peer could help to remove the wall-building tool from their parent hand, a topic of occaional converation even in hi balanced home. Hi anwer wa matter-of-fact, laced with arcam and lined with contempt. It wa alo offered a an honet and hopeful challenge to a group which had uffered long but often modeled poorly. I would tell them, he aid, Why can t y all be like u, my generation? Why not? Why not indeed. 158

169 Appendix A: Map of Kurditan 159

170 Appendix B: Map of Nahville, Tenneee 160