In our very first class, we discussed why migration tends to elicit such big emotions. Why is the topic of migration, for example, such an emotive political issue in the United States? De Haas says that migration is contentious and emotive because it conjures up themes of belonging and identity, both of which are very personal.1
This can help to explain why, when there are large influxes of migrants into a country, there tends to be a reaction among the people there. The themes De Haas discussed are relevant to natives in receiving countries because (to them) the very identity of their country is being called into question. The racial, ethnic, and religious make-up of the country could become different from what they knew growing up. But these themes may be even more relevant for the migrants who are moving across countries and continents. For migrants, migration can complicate matters of identity and familial relations. The choice between assimilation and maintaining aspects of your “native” identity is often not a choice – if a migrant does not try and fit in with the culture of their new country, there can be serious consequences. They might be denied a job if they don’t speak the language, or they might have trouble making friends if they do not dress to fit in. Social capital may be denied to them if they are “too foreign,” and this can make all difference between success in their new country and returning home. At the same time, maintaining aspects of home can help to build communities, in their new home and with those who never left.
While theories can help to explain trends in migration, like how certain groups may have more social capital than others, they cannot very well explain individual motivations and attitudes. I would like to explore how migrants themselves portray issues of identity and assimilation. We may look towards theory to explain this, but migrant voices can provide nuance that we cannot find elsewhere.
The Edge of Heaven
To center my discussion, I watched The Edge of Heaven (Aug der anderen Seite in German), a 2007 film directed by Fatih Akin (the son of Turkish migrants).2 This film follows six people who are tangentially related to one another. We meet a former Turkish Gastarbeiter living in Germany, named Ali. His son, Nejat, is a professor of German literature at the local university. Ali meets Yeter, a Turkish sex worker, and brings her to live with him.
The reason for Yeter’s departure from her life as a sex worker is our first exposure to some cultural clash. Two Turkish men discover her occupation, and they then follow her home and threaten her: she is on the wrong path, she needs to repent. They feel the need to remind her that she is Muslim. There is no room for compromise here. She either acts more in line with her Muslim and Turkish identity, or else.
As we follow Yeter during her time with Ali, we discover that she has a daughter in Turkey that she is unable to reach. Her daughter does not know Yeter’s true occupation. Rather, she believes she works in a shoe store. Yeter even used to send her shoes to strengthen the lie. At one point, Yeter says to Nejat that he is everything she wanted for her own daughter. “I wanted her to study and become like you,” she said. She could have been referring to his occupation, or maybe to his seemingly complete assimilation with German society.
When Yeter is not obedient to Ali, refusing to have sex with him on command, Ali ends up killing her in a fit of rage. He is sent to jail, and his son flies to Turkey to find Yeter’s daughter, wanting to pay for her education. He is unable to find her despite his efforts, so he ends up staying in Istanbul and purchasing a German bookstore.
These characters are firmly rooted in both German and Turkish societies. This is most obviously represented in Nejat – he is modern, assimilated, he teaches German! He is at home in Germany, yet when he travels to Turkey he is just as at home there. A character remarks on his situation – “A Turkish professor of German in Germany ends up in a German bookstore in Turkey.” His dual identities are not presented as opposing. It doesn’t seem like he had to give up any aspects of his Turkish identity to be German.
The film seems to suggest, at first, that only bad things can happen when you mix a Turk with a German. Yeter’s daughter, Ayten, is a member of a suppressed political group in Turkey, and she travels to Germany to avoid persecution. There she meets Lotte, a German university student, and her mother, Susanne. While staying with Susanne, Lotte and Ayten fall in love. Various activities lead to Ayten being deported and sent to jail in Istanbul. Lotte follows her, against the advice of her mother, and attempts to free Ayten from prison. She does not succeed but is instead shot and killed in Istanbul. Susanne is, of course, devastated – she never even liked Ayten. But she flies to Turkey (and lives with Nejat there, randomly) in order to forgive Ayten and free her from prison. It’s what Lotte would have wanted.
I interpreted this film as a story of German and Turkish reconciliation. We have read about how Turks have not always been welcomed into German society. The resolution between Ayten and Susanne shows that it is possible to coexist, even when your identities seem at first to be at odds with one another. Beyond that, this film seems to suggest that you do not have to be one or the other. Nejat is both Turkish and German, as was Yeter.
The Stone Guest
While this film does not present the character’s dual identities as a problem, other migrant accounts address problems with assimilation and opposing identities. The Stone Guest, a fictional account by Hamid Isamilov, is about an Uzbek migrant in Russia.5 Suhrob is a sculptor from Uzbekistan who has lived in Moscow for over forty years. This narrative follows Suhrob as he deals with a younger relative from Uzbekistan who has never been to Russia and is in need of guidance. Throughout the process of finding his nephew a place to sleep, clean clothes, money for a flight home, and bailing him out of jail, Suhrob begins to question his own identity. Is he Russian or Uzbek? He notes that his “Uzbekness had been shrinking and shrinking in his almost half a century of Moscow life.”6 Even his distance from the identity doesn’t seem to be enough for him – he is embarrassed to call himself anything other than Russian.
Dealing with his rambunctious nephew leaves Suhrob with the desire to distance himself even further from his Uzbek identity. But he is torn in two directions. When his Russian friends complain to him about “all these [migrants] flooding through the city’s open gates,” he is one of them. He is expected to sympathize with xenophobic sentiments, and his friends might even prefer complaining to him rather than to their native Russians – he is a migrant that they are including in this discussion. This kind of talk makes him “a bit hot under the collar.”7
Despite his assimilation with Russian culture, he is still treated just as other Uzbek migrants who may not be so embedded in the local culture. In a run-in with the police while trying to get money to his nephew shows him that. He is foreign to this police officer, regardless of how long he has lived in Moscow.
Identity?
Another migrant account, that of Zuhal from Turkey, discusses issues of identity.8 Living in Belgium, she has trouble parsing out her identity. Is she Belgian or Turkish? “Neither Belgium nor Turkey is really home for me. I feel that in Belgium people consider me to be a ‘foreigner’ and in Turkey they tend to see me as a tourist,” she says.9 Her story is not long, but it brings up questions about what decides identity. Is it how others perceive you? Zuhal brought up her mother, who never identified as a migrant until others started seeing her that way. We see aspects of this in “The Stone Guest.” Suhrob feels Russian, yet others see him as Uzbek. I would be interested in seeing how Suhrob’s identity would change further along after this story. Will he be like Zuhal’s mother and eventually give in to other’s perceptions of him?
These three migrant accounts all deal with identity, yet each comes to a different conclusion. Or no conclusion at all. It’s impossible to generalize “identity” and “assimilation,” as they are different to each individual. The Edge of Heaven perhaps suggests that there is no need to choose – you can identify as German and as Turkish. “The Stone Guest,” however, presents an internal conflict between identities that is not resolved. This difference suggests that theory alone cannot answer these questions about migration and identity.
1 Hein De Haas et al., The Age of Migration: International Population Movements in the Modern World (New York: The Guildford Press, 2020).
2 Akin, Fatih. (Producer, Director). (2007). The Edge of Heaven. Germany: Anka Film.
3 The Edge of Heaven, Metacritic.com. 2008. https://www.metacritic.com/movie/the-edge-of-heaven
4 Robin Write, “Rewind- 2007 in Film: Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven.” Filmotomy.com, 2019. https://filmotomy.com/rewind-2007-in-film-fatih-akins-the-edge-of-heaven/
5 Hamid Ismailov, “The Stone Guest.” Words Without Borders, September 2014. https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/article/the-stone-guest
6 “The Stone Guest.”
7 “The Stone Guest.”
8 Zuhal, “Others see me as a migrant, so I started to look at myself in a similar way.” I Am a Migrant, 2017. https://iamamigrant.org/stories/belgium/zuhal
9 Zuhal.