Eda AKCA, 17: This Austrian of Turkish descent was born here – she belongs to the so-called second generation. The self-confident young woman lives in two parallel cultures, switching back and forth seamlessly between the two. She is currently looking for work.
My family comes from Anatolia and came here over twenty years ago. My Dad was earning very little as an electrician in Turkey and wanted to offer his young family more. So he went to Austria where a few of our relatives were already living. In the first few years he worked as a waiter and picked up German well. A few years later my Mum and two older sisters followed on, while my younger sisters and I were born here.
I grew up as a Turkish and Austrian girl. When I’m at home I live in the Turkish culture and speak Turkish too. I’m the good Turkish girl there. At nursery school, at school, in the outside world on the other hand I speak German and cope absolutely fine with the Austrian culture. There I’m honest Eda who can adapt to everything. Sometimes I’m here, sometimes I’m there and I have to cope with both of them. I can’t say I’ll sit on the fence – I have to switch from one to the other.
When it comes to my behaviour I try to think of my family. Would my family be all right with it? Would they disapprove of it in some way? Or do I feel like doing something and I then just do it? I wouldn’t like my family to feel excluded and likewise I wouldn’t like to be excluded from my family. Because the family is my most important source of support. They are behind me, even when I make mistakes.
At school there was assistance first and foremost for German. My Mum couldn’t help me with my homework. I had to do everything myself. I accepted the extra voluntary special needs lessons at school and did my homework there too. After secondary school I went to business school and there I needed extra special needs lessons in English. Not just me, but also friends who had come from Bosnia or somewhere. That was something really good for us.
I had to repeat the second year of business school and I simply didn’t have the will any more and I didn’t feel at ease in the new class. I told myself: OK, then leave school and go and work somewhere. And now I’m simply looking for work. I’ve already tried working in a nursery school and in the summer holidays I worked in the council market garden. I liked both jobs very much indeed. The only work I wouldn’t like to do is in the catering and hotel industry.
But one thing is clear to me: I still feel too young to get married, that’s not an alternative to work for me. I simply can’t imagine a domestic life for myself because then I would really be responsible for other people and I don’t believe I could cope with that at 17 years old. I also can’t imagine being married to a man who I don’t know at all well. Because for us Turks the separation of the sexes is part of our culture. And boys are just as subject to it as girls. Because when my family tells me: don’t talk to men. Then exactly the same thing applies to men: don’t talk to girls. Otherwise you are sort of enemies with this girl’s family.
Turks mostly keep to their own people. Just in our family about 50 people come to our place informally. And they do most things with each other. But I also believe that Turks here live a rather reclusive life because they just think that they don’t speak the language well enough and make mistakes and if they make mistakes they might be laughed at and made fun of.
What’s missing is cooperation between immigrants and the town, then our life here would look really good. We Turks could be more open and get in contact more with other countries. Because when I imagine our Turkish people and Austrians really wanting to work together for something they wanted to do better, that would also work.
Austria is my home: in 2009 my family and I were granted Austrian citizenship. On the other hand, I’ve had the feeling three times in my life in Turkey, that I have really been accepted by the people there. It really depends on what I have to do, whether I feel like a foreigner or not. If I’m with young people who tell me: You’re a foreigner! Then I reply, OK I’m a foreigner. Have you got a problem with that? But then when I look at the situation again then I’m not actually a foreigner at all.
2.12.2013