This feature, chosen by Guest Editor t.r. san, is a selection from the anthology Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora edited by Holly Mason Badra (The University of Arkansas Press 2025).
Family Rashomon
A personal narrative on the difference between two members of a family who experienced migration to
the US differently, based on intergenerational and linguistic gaps. The first-generation American experience and the immigrant parent experience is explored by Meryem Rabia Uzumcu.
Meryem: Hibiscus flowers with bright fuchsia stamens, my brother’s eyes glued
to Crash Bandicoot on his PlayStation 1, and Assad’s treacherous deployment of
rainbow BB pellets on the Al-Maroosh compound paint my first childhood
memories. And in the backdrop is probably my sister singing along to Christina
Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle.” Long days of playing in the hot Saudi sunshine
were never interrupted by snow or rain. The compound walls gated the out-
side world from our meadowy utopia equipped with a pool. What more could
I ask for? But life in Saudi Arabia was different for my mother.
Mother: Saudi Arabia was hard for me. I feel that I [was] kind of in prison.
Meryem: Granted, being a child is very different from being a grown woman in
Saudi. But sometimes, it feels like this apple (me) fell in a completely differ-
ent country from its tree.
Mother: I [was] born in Diyarbakır, Turkey . . .
Meryem: For first-gens like my siblings and I, there’s not only a generational gap,
but a cultural difference from our parents. After Saudi, when we moved to
Washington, these girls on the bus gave me these Britney Spears cards, and
her belly was showing, and then I showed them to you, and you made me rip
them up and said, “You’re not like those girls.”
Mother: Yeah I don’t remember, but probably I did it.
Meryem: My mom always tried to insert her values into our upbringing, and
sometimes we really saw the world differently than one another.
Mother: You have your own culture, you have your own saturations, you have your
own beliefs. You just wanna keep it. [Arabic music plays in the background]
Meryem: To do this interview with my mom, we went to Rutgers gardens at our
alma mater’s campus. She graduated in 2006 when she was forty-six, and I
almost ten years later in 2017. Every spring, we smell our way through this
flowery passageway formed by the lilac trees’ first bloom in mid-April.
Mother: This is, little corner of the heaven, kind of. It’s so beautiful.
Meryem: The hum of Highway Route 18 is in the background. And even if it
smells like heaven, we’re still in New Jersey.
Mother: Ah, it smells strong too. I’m speechless.
Meryem: She’s speechless, which is the opposite effect I want the interview to have.
So we move away from the magical waft of pink and purple lilacs and toward
the gazebo. [Her mother sits and sighs] It took me a long time to understand
her reasoning that told me to rip up the Britney Spears cards.
Mother: Maybe you understand now, but maybe not that time.
Meryem: For a long time I thought she was doing it because she didn’t get America.
Most immigrants relate to America through the cliché of the American dream.
I wondered what my mom thought of her own immigrant experience. Why
did you move to the United States?
Mother: My husband got a scholarship to come to the US to do his PhD. And we
moved. So I stopped working, I stopped my education to come to the United
States. When I came here with a baby, I didn’t have any language skills.
Meryem: My mom took an almost ten-year break from school to learn a new
language and raise three children. Meanwhile, she was following her hus-
band’s career around the world, which is how we ended up in Saudi Arabia in
the first place. When we moved to New Jersey, my mom enrolled at Rutgers.
Mother: My journey started in college with the three kids. If there is a will,
there’s a way. I believe in that, and I never underestimated the small things
that I achieved. I go forward and that’s it. I just think what I am going to
do in my life.
Reynolds: Your mother is very goal oriented. That’s the impression I got, she has
a sense of direction and she’s going in that direction, and she is very serious.
Meryem: That’s Rebecca Reynolds, she’s a dean at Rutgers University.
Reynolds: And she wanted to figure out how she could register for classes.
Meryem: With her help, my mother was able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree
in public health, and it didn’t stop there.
Mother: I want to become a physical therapist, I don’t know why. Maybe because
I have personal injury in the back, but the operational therapy suited me
more. I was searching what school fits me more, and I found that Columbia
is a good option. I said, you know, “I’m going to apply to this school and see
what happens.”
Meryem: Considering all of her challenges along the way, my mother completed
her second degree in occupational therapy at an Ivy League school. I still wonder if she related to the ultimate cultural cliché. Do you feel like you have
achieved the American dream?
Mother: People come to the United States for opportunity, but I had everything
in my country. My story is a very opposite one. I left my dreams. I received
support later on, you know, people like me around me, and from Turkey people
sending me letters all the time. When I went to check my mailbox I found
five letters, so I was happy that day.
Meryem: The truth is, it’s hard to pin anyone down to simple clichés. Turkey
was this faraway place that was still intimate and important for us to recognize in terms of language, culture, and most of all, values.
Mother: I never think that I can totally erase my culture. This country is a
totally different cultures, combinations, everyone in their home, they’re living their own culture.
Meryem: To my mom, American culture was not about assimilation but establishing her own values here, and having the freedom to do that.
Mother: Being different is not too bad that I made the space, sometimes it’s a
positive thing actually for society. I think it takes time until you get your confidence and you know what you’re doing, and then you say, “Oh okay, it can
be like this way too.”
Meryem: And at home, she enforced that being different—our culture—was
the norm.
Mother: When everyone else is against you, I feel stronger. [laughter from both]
Meryem: Growing up, I thought my mom’s values were a little overbearing. Until
I went to college and entered the real world, and unless you actually stand up
for yourself, life is hard. My mom was standing up for her way of thinking and
doing things while raising us. American or Turkish, her values reflected a life
striving for self-actualization.
Meryem: Do you think we understand each other now?
Mother: I think so. How about you?
Meryem: I think I understand you.
Mother: You understand me?
Meryem: I think, I don’t know.
Mother: You think I understand you?
Meryem: Do you think you understand me?
Mother: No, do you feel that way? [laughs]
Meryem: I’m just asking you.
Mother: Yeah, I feel that way, yeah I understand you. [both laugh] Now I’m asking you questions.
Meryem: In that moment, we were like two kids bashfully asking each other if
the other would be her friend.
Meryem R. Uzumcu’s (she/her) practice of oratory storytelling undergirds her approach to feminist knowledge production between New Jersey and Diyarbakir. These sites remain particularly integral to her sensibility regarding Kurdish neural networks and archives. Currently her research and work receive support from the doctoral program for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University, the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers, and the Mellon Foundation.
Holly Mason Badra (she/her) is the curator-editor of Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora. She received her MFA in poetry from George Mason University, where she is currently the associate director of the Women and Gender Studies program. Her poetry, essays, reviews, and interviews have appeared in Meridian Magazine, The Arkansas International, The Adroit Journal, The Northern Virginia Review, Foothill Poetry Journal, The Rumpus, CALYX, So to Speak, Circumference Magazine, Asymptote Journal, and elsewhere. She has been a panelist for OutWrite, RAWIFest, and Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here as a Kurdish American poet. Mason Badra reads for Poetry Daily. 
t.r. san is a poet and translator currently based on Gadigal land, with recent work found in minor literature[s], The Cincinnati Review, HAD, Smokelong Quarterly, The Offing, &c. read & reach @thoushallkill on Twitter, or trsan.neocities.org.
