Identity

Before I left for Turkey, I would have said I was a female student who comes from a middle class family. Now that I am here, I mostly identity as an American female whose native language is English. It is so interesting just how my perspectives of myself and others have changed. Being in the US, being an American is normal but here, it is so rare. People are so excited to hear that I am from America.

Just today, after Trista and I went to a park to read some homework, we went into a clothing store. As were we were looking around, a woman asked where we were from. Then as we were in the dressing room, I heard the lady saying several times to other people in the store, “America”. As I walk down the street, little kids love saying “Hi” or “Hello” and when I say it back, they are just so happy. Never in my life have I thought about being able to speak English as an awesome thing and in some ways, a privilege. It has always been the norm but here, it is not at all the norm. All my European friends are jealous at how I can speak English so well and so are my Turkish friends. If I compliment one of them on how good their English is, they get really excited since I am a native speaker.

I realize that I am very sociological in the blog but this is how my mind works!