Redefining Kurdishness in the U.S. Diaspora: The experiences of Kurdish Students and Their Parents in Nashville Schools

Demet Arpacık

doi:10.29333/ejecs/252

Authors

Demet Arpacık Graduate Center of The City University of New York

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29333/ejecs/252

Keywords:

Kurdish Americans, The United States, Kurdish students, religion, identity, education

Abstract

As a result of a cumulative history of genocide, discrimination, and assimilation, Kurds have found refuge in many countries around the world, including the U.S., with the hope of practicing their culture and speaking their language without the fear of imprisonment or death. Unlike their fellow Kurds in the homeland, Kurdish people in the U.S. largely have the freedom to talk in Kurdish, dance, and sing in Kurdish, and dress Kurdish clothing. Kurdish people enjoy certain political and cultural freedoms in the U.S., which is largely absent in their homeland (Hassanpour, Skutnab-Kangas, & Cyhet, 1996) but the on-going war on terror brings about new constraints and limits to these freedoms (Thangaraj, 2015b). This research aims to understand the dynamics of the Kurdish identity transformation and negotiations in the context of the U.S. diaspora and the role of educational institutions, as one of the primary spaces of encounter with the mainstream U.S. society, in this transformation. It seeks answers to how Kurdish students and their parents, as an inherently heterogeneous group, go through the complex process of negotiation of their identities in and through Nashville, Tennessee school system. It aims to understand the new struggles and possibilities that the Kurdish diaspora experience as they look for a place in the new society that has its own politics of identity. What does the information about Kurdish students and their parents’ experiences tell us about the sociopolitical context of the new country and its racial, ethnic and gender relations and more specifically about the educational system as one of its institutions in reproducing these relations and placing Kurds somewhere in the spectrum of these relations? How does the case of Kurdish students and parents speak to the larger Middle Eastern diaspora studies?

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Demet Arpacık, Graduate Center of The City University of New York

I am PhD. student in the Language, Context and Culture strand of Urban Education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. I received my ME.d. from the Educational Administration and Leadership from Boston College. I have taught courses on bilingualism, English language acquisition, research methods in early childhood and social foundations of education at Hunter and Lehman Colleges since 2005. I am interested in language policymaking with respect to education and the Kurdish language movement in Turkey.

References

Afzal, A. (2014). Lone star Muslims: Transnational lives and the South Asian experience in Texas. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Alsultany, E. (2012). Arabs and Muslims in the media: Race and representation after 9/11. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Anderson, B. R. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London, England: Verso.

Bakalian, A. P. (1993). Armenian-Americans: From being to feeling Armenian. New Brunswick, Canada: Transaction. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315082127 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315082127

Bakalian, A., & Bozorgmehr, M. (2009). Backlash 9/11: Middle Eastern and Muslim Americans Respond. Los Angeles, CA: Univ of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520943353

Boutelier, S. (2019). Limiting Learning Environments through Domestication. Journal of Culture and Values in Education, 2(1), 45-55. Retrieved from http://cultureandvalues.org/index.php/JCV/article/view/29 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46303/jcve.02.01.4

Bureau of the International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State (2008). Immigrants joining the mainstream 13 (2). The Author. Retrieved from http://photos.state.gov /libraries/amgov/30145/publications-english/EJ-immigrants-mainstream-0208.pdf

Bramadat, P., & Seljak, D. (2005). Religion and ethnicity in Canada. Toronto: Pearson Longman.

Braziel, J. E., & Mannur, A. (2003). Theorizing diaspora: A reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Brotherton, D., & Barrios, L. (2004). The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street politics and the transformation of a New York City gang. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/brot11418

Carothers, D. (2018). A culture of equality?. Journal of Culture and Values in Education, 1(2), 42-57. Retrieved from http://cultureandvalues.org/index.php/JCV/article/view/13 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46303/jcve.01.02.3

Evans, K., Russell, W., Furgione, B., & Sheridan, A. (2018). "Won’t You be my Neighbor?, Journal of Culture and Values in Education, 1(2), 1-22. Retrieved from http://cultureandvalues.org/index.php/JCV/article/view/7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.46303/jcve.01.02.1

Grewal, Z. (2013). Islam is a foreign country: American Muslims and the global crisis of authority. New York, NY: New York University Press.

Hale, J. (2016). The Freedom Schools: Student activists in the Mississippi civil rights movement. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/columbia/9780231175685.001.0001

Hall, S. (2003). Cultural identity and diaspora. J. E, Braziel, & A. Mannur, (Eds). Theorizing diaspora: A reader (233-247). Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.

Hammond, P. E. (1988). Religion and persistence of identity. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 12, 1-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1387398 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1387398

Hassanpur, A. (2012). The indivisibility of the nation and its linguistic divisions. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2012 (217), 49-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2012-0049 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2012-0049

Hassanpour, A., Skutnab- Kangas, T., & Cyhet, M. (2006). The non-education of Kurds: A Kurdish perspective. International Review of Education, 42 (4), 367-379. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/ DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00601097

BF00601097

Black, G. (1993). Genocide in Iraq: the Anfal campaign against the Kurds. Human Rights Watch. New York, NY: Author.

Ilyas, M. (2018). Expatriate Experience and the Fictional World of Diaspora. Journal of Social Studies Education Research, 9 (1), 106-123. Retrieved from http://dergipark.org.tr/jsser/issue/37945/438319

Joshi, K. Y. (2006). The racialization of Hinduism, Islam, and Sikhism in the United States. Equity & Excellence in Education, 39(3), 211-226. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10665680600790327 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600790327

Karimi, H., (2010). The Kurdish immigrant experience and a growing American community. Kurdish Herald, 2 (1). Retrieved from http://www.kurdishherald.com/issue/v002/001/article04.php

Steinberg, S. R., & Kincheloe, J. L. (1997). Changing multiculturalism: New times new curriculum. London, England: Open University Press.

Mamdani, M. (2002). Good Muslim, bad Muslim: A political perspective on culture and terrorism. American Anthropologist, 104(3), 766-775. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.766 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2002.104.3.766

Mauch, J., & Tarman, B. (2016). A historical approach to social studies laboratory method. Research in Social Sciences and Technology, 1(2), 55-66. DOI: https://doi.org/10.46303/ressat.01.02.2

McKereghan, D. L. (1998). Cultural Diversity and Ethnocentrism: Moral Problems for American Public Education (Doctoral dissertation, Gonzaga University).

Metro Government of Nashville. (2016). Mayor's office of new Americans. Retrieved from http://www.nashville.gov/Mayors-Office/Neighborhoods/New-Americans.aspx

Nashville Public TV. (2009). Next door neighbors: Little Kurdistan. Nashville, TN: The Author.

Nashville Public TV (2012, October 15). NPT Reports: Kurdish community tries to bridge cultural gap wit. Retrieved from http://www.nptinternal.org/nptreports/2012/10/15/npt -reports-kurdish-community-tries-to-bridge-cultural-gap-with-schools/.

Ong, A. (2003). Buddha is hiding: Refugees, citizenship, the new America (Vol. 5). Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520229983.001.0001

Peek, L. A. (2011). Behind the backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvrdf3dw

Puar, J. K. (2007). Terrorist assemblages: Homonationalism in queer times. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1131fg5

Rana, J. (2011). Terrifying Muslims: Race and labor in the South Asian diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822393665

Sawyer, A. M. (2017, June 22). Who are the Kurds, and why are they in Nashville? Tennessian. Retrieved from https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2017/06/2/who-kurds-and-why-they-nashville/97706968/

Shankar, S. (2008). Desi land: Teen culture, class, and success in Silicon Valley. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822389231

Sheyholislami, J., & Sharifi, A. (2016). “It is the hardest to keep”: Kurdish as a heritage language in the United States. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2016(237), 75-98. doi: 0165-2516/5967405834 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijsl-2015-0036

Smith, G. G., & Grodz, S. (Eds.) (2014). Religion, Ethnicity and Transnational Migration Between West Africa and Europe. Boston, MA: Brill. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004271562

Statistic Canada (2011). 2011 National Household Survey: Data tables. Retrieved from https://www

statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/details/page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo1=PR&

Code1=01&Geo2=PR&Code2=01&Data=Count&SearchText=01&SearchType=Begins&SearchPR=01&B1=All&Custom=&TABID=3

Tarman, B. & Gürel, D. (2018). Awareness of Social Studies Teacher Candidates on Refugees in Turkey, Journal of Social Studies Research, DOI: 10.1016/j.jssr.2016.11.001 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jssr.2016.11.001

Thangaraj, S. (2013). Competing masculinities: South Asian American identity formation in Asian American basketball leagues. South Asian Popular Culture, 11(3), 243-255. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2013.820482 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14746689.2013.820482

Thangaraj, S. (2015a). Desi hoop dreams: Pickup basketball and the making of Asian American masculinity. New York, NY: NYU Press.

-----------(2015b). “American Public Spaces and Gender: Muslim America, Sport, and Activism.” In Suad Joseph and Sarah Gualtieri, editors, Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures. Leiden: Brill.

U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). 2006-2010 American Community Survey selected population tables: Kurdish total population. Retrieved May 6, 2016, from factfinder.census.gov

Vang, C. Y. (2016). Hmong youth, American football, and the cultural politics of ethnic sports tournaments. In Asian American Sporting Cultures, Stanley, Thangaraj, Constancio Arnaldo, Jr., and Christina Chin (Eds.). New York, NY: New York University Press.

---------- (2010). Hmong America: Reconstructing community in diaspora (Vol. 100). University of Illinois Press.

Verma, G. K., Kalekin-Fishman, D., & Pitkänen, P. (2002). Education and immigration: Settlement policies and current challenges. London, England: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203018613

Wang, Y. (2013). Between Islam and the American Dream: An immigrant Muslim Community in Post-9/11 America. New York, NY: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315884271

Woofter, S. (2019). [Book Review]: Building Equity: Policies and Practices to Empower All Learners. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 3(1), 136-139. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/5815 DOI: https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/5815

Yigit, I. H., & Tatch, A. (2017). Syrian refugees and Americans: Perceptions, attitudes and insights. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 1(1), 13-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/5789