Push-me pull-you loyalty: where are global citizens torn?

Love this page! My mix is German/Brasilian/Argentinian and here everything falls into place. Thank you for the inspiration!

I agree with the other commenters — this is a fantastic, thought-provoking post. Thanks for writing it, Figen.

Not sure if I can add anything new to the convo, but I will say — this resonates with me deeply because of the China vs. US storyline the press feeds us on a daily basis. And depending on the bias of the person I am speaking with, I’ll either defend China or the US.

I guess that’s one benefit of having a life in two cultures — you see each of them for what they are. Kind of like being married. They’re perfect and imperfect at the same time, but you love them all the same.
.-= Jocelyn´s last blog ..Ask the Yangxifu: The Chinese doorman closed off friendship =-.

great, thought-provoking post – thank you. Love the analogy to double agents!

Yes, yes, yes! One can write about a point of view, or an idea, but it’s only worth as much as it is limited. The more voices it brings, the more it grows and blooms.

All of you have taken one small, humble perspective and nurtured it into so many variables. And it’s so refreshing! I love the idea of seeing ourselves as ‘interpreters’ and ‘loyal to ourselves’ and perhaps this is how I should think of my ‘loyalties’ from now on… by refusing to fall in with others’ stereotyping I am not really being defensive but I am interpreting a new way for them to think about that place/people.

Thank you for such a thought provoking post. I prefer to think of myself as an “interpreter” rather than a “double agent” – an ability to understand and explain the other person’s point of view (even if I don’t always agree with it). In fact I think that’s the most valuable thing I’ve learned from living in several countries.

Kari I like the idea of us being loyal to ourselves, becoming more unique as we gather more cultural baggage. That can be a comfort when we feel a little subsumed by the culture we currently live in.

And this well written post by Figen keeps evoking… I wish I could participate in my first language Norwegian here, so bear with me please…

On the topic of loyalty I think being loyal to a culture is not necessarily always the aim per se. What we identify with in a culture and how we express this to others might make us good ambassadors on behalf of these cultures, native ones or the cultures which we have grown into or for various reasons know from the inside.

With the world developing rapidly where more and more people today are on the move between countries, where our multiple agent status is not necessarily for long static as Sezin writes, I think the understanding of “new” mixtures of cultures is becoming important as well. Being loyal to ourselves and the mixed cultural baggage we come WITH and develope INTO is important, a challenge in today`s world where we are being fed stereotypes en masse in the media world.

As I’m reading through this fantastic discussion, it occurs to me that we aren’t actually double agents, more like triple agents or multiple agents. As we act and react to the shifting landscapes around us, the places we feel at home even though they might not have anything to do with our actual lineage, we amass a great deal of agency depending on the situation. Nor is our multiple agent status static, even those multiplicities grow, shift, transform even when we have stayed in one place for a long time.

Figen, what a provocative piece of writing to have evoked so much from all of us! Well done.

Anastasia, that’s such an interesting aspect you’ve garnered – it had never dawned on me. It seems we can never escape from stereotyping and yet it seems we do it ourselves without even realizing it, as I must have done when I obviously put my peers into one kind of box.

Thanks for this Figen!

I would posit we are all double agents from a young age.

As Tara says, how can we chose between mother and father? That’s our first duality of origin and if our parents are from different places and peoples and customs and temperaments and other characteristics then it’s going to be all the more pronounced.

As Elmira mentions, eventually we have to grow into ourselves — hopefully taking the best of both worlds with us out into the world itself.

Lots more to think about (and talk about!) on this topic….

Another thought you’ve raised for me: sometimes we hold stereotypes about groups we ourselves belong to. Sometimes we think we match up to our peers in ways we actually don’t. Then we only realize it in a moment like the one where your educated, over-achieving, smart friend showed her ignorance of Turkish geography and culture and surprised you.

Figen, this post rings true for me. Before moving to Turkey, I found myself shocked to be interrogated at an art opening of mine by a German co-exhibitor who’s only experience of the Turks was in Germany and who, along with his mother, warned me at length about moving to Turkey. I had gotten used to the loving concern of my family, with whom I learned to communicate about a culture I had yet to fully experience not having lived here, yet, but to be chided by near strangers was a shock. It happened many times in other circumstances, and even now on return trips, I am met with blank stares when I say I live in Turkey, or in an attempt to be conversational, asked about how ‘exotic’ it must be.

I suppose that doesn’t answer your question about being a ‘double agent’ or loyalty, but what it did do, like your experience with your lycee friend, was prepare me for entering into new territory. And force me to learn how to articulate what I wanted to share (or not share). I’m happy when like Elmira, someone learns something new about both Turkey and America, and gets a broader perspective. In that way, I don’t mind being a ‘translator’. Admittedly, I feel stuck in the middle, I find the best way for me to explain either culture is to be specific to what I know, and not generalize.

Speaking of basic geography … today I found this geography/history lesson prepared by ATAA for 5th graders in Washington D.C.

Oh Figen – you had me it stitches with the comment about being a double agent! Geez.

What I’m often asked in Turkey is which I like better – Turkey or the United States. I reply that it would be like choosing between my mother and father. Impossible!

The funny thing is that people in the US only ask me when I’m moving back. As if there could be no earthly reason for me to stay here.

Offf – why can’t we just be who we are where we are? I like this fluidity idea that Sezin brought up.

In the first months after I’d moved here, I was struggling so much to adapt and finally took on the motto: “Bloom where you’re planted.”

But then I guess that doesn’t have anything to do with loyalty. I should know better than to leave blog comments this late in the evening.

Thanks – I enjoyed your post and everyone else’s comments too.

When I was growing up in Brooklyn I was known as the Turkish girl. During the summer when I’d travel to Anatolia to visit my grandmother I was called the American girl. I, too, felt like a double agent, which for a long time I hated. But after a while I decided why not take the best of Turkish culture and the best of American and create my own identity and loyalty. I find myself agreeing with some of the criticism railed against either culture. Interestingly, however, my arguments in defense of both have become stronger. And that has changed minds in both Turkey and the States.

I know exactly what you mean. As soon as I change my location I feel an odd proprietary sense over where I lived before and it gets confusing for people who know me. “But Sezin, I thought you hated…!” Living here in the Czech Republic has a great many challenges, which I tend to whine about often, but when I visit the USA or Sri Lanka, all of those issues are surpassed by the things I enjoy here or the great social services we have that my so-called home countries do not. Also, and even though I’m not Czech, I get really angry with people who try to lump the Czech Republic and Slovakia in with Eastern Europe. Sorry, people, this is *Central* Europe! That really gets my goat.

While loyalties may seem like something that should be set in stone, through this “push and pull” we’re setting an example that they can also be extremely fluid, like our identities as global citizens.

A very nice post, Figen.