Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narratives of Nashville's Kurdish Youth Stephen Ross Goddard Western Kentucky University, [email protected]
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Western Kentucky University TopSCHOLAR® Masters Theses & Specialist Projects Graduate School 5-2014 Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narratives of Nashville's Kurdish Youth Stephen Ross Goddard Western Kentucky University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Goddard, Stephen Ross, "Neither (Fully) Here Nor There: Negotiation Narratives of Nashville's Kurdish Youth" (2014). Masters Theses & Specialist Projects. Paper 1357. http://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/1357 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by TopSCHOLAR®. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses & Specialist Projects by an authorized administrator of TopSCHOLAR®. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NEITHER (FULLY) HERE NOR THERE: NEGOTIATION NARRATIVES OF NASHVILLE’S KURDISH YOUTH A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of the Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Western Kentucky University Bowling Green, Kentucky In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts By Stephen Ross Goddard May 2014 ! ! ! This thesis is dedicated to the many thousands of young expatriate Kurds who need a place to call home and to my colleagues around the world who have sacrificed to help them find it. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ! It is blatantly obvious that a work of this magnitude requires help, of every stripe and size. It also demands gratitude. So I thank, first of all, my interviewees (Kian, Dashneh, Majeed, Dilman, Klavish, Youza, Dilan, Kajin, Shermin, Kavar, Lava and S.K.) for carving space for me out of their busy schedules. They were under no obligation to help but they did and did it well. This study would have been a hollow production without the color and melody their stories provided. I would also like to thank their families for allowing me access to their children. While it is true that most were “of age” and so required no permission to speak, in most cases their home culture dictated otherwise. My interviewees were granted nodding approval, however, and gave us all a glimpse into another world as a result. I would also like to thank two other members of the Nashville Kurdish community by name. The first is Dr. Kirmanj Gundi, an education professor at Tennessee State University in Nashville. Dr. Gundi provided historical, linguistic, and political assistance which proved to be invaluable. He was also incredibly encouraging in the process and supportive of the project overall. Mr. Jamil Sameen, a long-time acquaintance of mine, passed along wonderful information on the “Guam Kurds,” those who came to Nashville in 1997. His quick smile brought one to my own face in the midst of a heavy load. My friend and neighbor, Steve Greenwood, served as my emergency contact for computer-related issues. His knowledge and wonderful spirit in sharing it made the "iv struggle with formatting issues much easier to bear. Dave Dillard, the director of the non-profit with which I work, was very gracious and supportive in this new kind of movement into the Kurdish community. It is standard practice in our organization for me to address issues related to cultural adjustment, but not often in the direction of this study and certainly not with the specific demographic to which it gives voice. It was refreshing and Dave was there to cheer me on at every point. The members of my thesis committee deserve much thanks. Dr. Ann Ferrell, the committee chair, was wonderful to provide me the proper amount of leash to create without inadvertently choking myself. Her helpful suggestions, quick responses to endless emails and overall positivity made me believe I could finish well. Dr. Tim Evans was no different. His ability to provide succinct, salient critiques of my jibber-jabber was amazing and kept me moving along in the right direction. Dr. Johnston Njoku was a savior, entering near the project’s end to serve as my necessary third member, despite a busy schedule and hampering health concerns. I thank them all for modeling the best of academia and the best of humanity. Lastly, I must reserve my greatest appreciation for my family, especially my amazing wife, Kim. Each of them has endured many months of half-time involvement for me in the day-to-day activities which make a home a joyful refuge. They have heard the oft-repeated refrain, “I’m almost done,” more than they deserve or desire, I’m sure. But Kim has risen above them all, my constant companion in an arduous, spectacular journey, always smiling, always serving, always loving. Without her, I would not have taken the first step and I am wholly indebted for that alone. "v CONTENTS ! ! ! !1 Baggy Jeans and Briyani…………………………………………………………1 !2 Waves of Sorrow, Waves of Hope………………………………………………21 !3 Hearing from the Peanut Gallery………………………………………………..43 !4 Both Sides of the Same Coin……….……………………………..…………….69 !5 “Girls Have No Freedom”………………………………………………………96 !6 No Two Just Alike……………………………………………………………..122 !7 Deeper, Wider………………………………………………………….………147 !Appendix A: Map of Kurdistan………………………………………………………..159 !Appendix B: Map of Nashville, Tennessee……………………………………………160 !Appendix C: Thesis Interview Worksheet……………………………………………..161 !Appendix D: Nashville School Survey Form (2007-2008)……………………………163 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………..….167 vi NEITHER (FULLY) HERE NOR THERE: NEGOTIATION NARRATIVES OF NASHVILLE’S KURDISH! YOUTH ! !Stephen Ross Goddard May 2014 171 Pages !Directed by: Ann Ferrell, Tim Evans, and Johnston Njoku !Department of Folk Studies and Anthropology Western Kentucky University ! Nashville, Tennessee, is home to nearly fifteen thousand ethnic Kurds. They have come in four distinct groups over the course of two decades to escape the hardship and horror of brutal central government policies, some directed toward their extinction. Many of that number are young people who were infants or toddlers when they were whisked away to the safety of temporary way stations prior to their arrival in the United States. What that means is that these youth have spent the majority of their formative years within the context of the American culture. This thesis is a study of how they view their place within and/or apart from that culture and the one into which they were born, the Kurdish one. My contention is that they all live a double life. Over the course of a seven-month period in 2013, I conducted recorded interviews with eleven Kurds in Nashville, ages 16-26. Most were young women but all represented a healthy cross-section of experience as third-culture kids. What I discovered is presented in three chapters dealing with the issues of emigration/immigration, gender, and identity. That is prefaced by a brief history of the Kurdish nation and of their movement out of Kurdistan, as well as a discussion of my fieldwork procedures and !vii products. My interviewees present their perspectives on each of these issues through select transcript portions provided in each chapter. My thesis was direct: young Kurds in Nashville live a duality in which neither part, American or Kurdish, is equally valued or shared at all times. They live in two worlds but are not and, perhaps, cannot be fully invested in either. That is what their words spoke to me. But just as clearly, there was an unrivaled individuality in the way that every one of the eleven related to each community of which they were a part. Some were closer to one than the other while others attempted a seemingly uncomfortable straddle. Either way, they managed the hand they were dealt as they deemed proper and most did so remarkably well. ! ! !viii !1 Baggy Jeans and Briyani ! ! It came with the cold winds. Not that it could not have come at other times, I suppose, but this was a winter arrival. The crowd had burgeoned inside the smallish room rented for the occasion, and by the time I arrived it was time for movement. Two or three soon turned into ten, twelve, twenty, hand in hand, side by side, moving as one to the recorded sounds of saz and zirna. There were onlookers aplenty, restrained by age or indifference, some too deep in conversation to bother. This cultural oddity (a label many in this southern town would freely apply) played well in my opinion, even here in Music City, U.S.A. (aka Nashville, Tennessee). It was a scene with which I was very familiar and, in fact, very fond. On this night, in this place and time, to the degree that any outsider could feel it, I felt at home. Without warning, the doors to the “other” world swung open, bringing a blast of winter reality. Those winds blew in a handful of young men, in their teens/early twenties, who did not look the part. Their clothes were not traditional garb, at least not their parents’ tradition, but instead baggy jeans, t-shirts and “bling,” a nod to the hip-hop culture which had taken over much of the world and, by all appearances, their own. I “followed” them with an odd mixture of curiosity, humor and sadness, watching as they exchanged pleasantries but stood aloof, joined the dance but rarely in step, lost it seemed among those who should have been most familiar. It was then and there it came; an awful appreciation for the struggles of Nashville’s young Kurds who are caught between what was and what is, the accepted and the expected. I knew from my earliest days !1 among this refugee group that the kids often played the part of cultural broker for their elders, mediating as best they could with caseworkers, health officials and educators. But this was a revelation of a newer, deeper sort that would spur me to pursue relationship with this demographic as passionately as I had with their fathers and uncles before them.