Fluid adaptation of contested citizenship: second-generation migrant Turks in Germany and the United States

Abstract

This paper explores belonging in the context of legal citizenship for second-generation Turkish immigrants in Berlin and in New York. Fluid adaptation refers to the discursive boundaries of immigrant identity articulations, the contextual and shifting adjustments immigrants make to their sense of belonging. Immigrant belonging, gauged by ‘encounters’ with bureaucracies and participatory expressions, is shaped in large part by the receiving state's legal framework and citizenship status. Belonging is complicated by racialization and exclusion, and affected by intersectionalities of immigrant experience. Limited citizenship models necessitate deployment of fluid and alternative membership models. Alternative forms of belonging underscore the power of the nation-state in delimiting belonging.

Keywords:

• citizenship
• belonging
• racialization
• second-generation immigrants
• Turkish immigrants

Notes

1. ‘Second generation’ describes native-born children with at least one foreign-born parent (Rumbaut, 2007).

2. 7 million are Turkish nationals (http://www.migrationeducation.org/22.0.html).

3. Naturalization among Turks decreased to 33,388 (2006) from 104,000 (1999), declining since the new law came into effect.

4. Personal interview, November 2001, Berlin.

5. The new law ‘rocks the foundation of meaning of German, and the nature of citizen’ (Mandel, 2008, p. 321).

6. People with Turkish ancestry in NYC metropolitan area, 33,680.

7. Six Berlin Turks were active in Turkish organizations, nine never were and two were active in a political party. Two NYC Turks were members of US professional associations, nine had been involved in Turkish associations at some point, and two had no involvement. In both communities, participants reported participation as children (language, folkdance classes).

8. Participants attributed this to greater freedom of expression and representation.

9. See Isin & Turner (2007) on citizenship processes becoming more difficult in Europe as the focus on security has increased post 9/11.

10. See Duyvendak (2011) on European primordial assumptions of ‘nation as home,’ as compared with a more ambivalent US approach.

11. Germany requires Turks to provide proof of relinquished Turkish citizenship before granting German citizenship. The US does not.

12. http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.pdf

13. Peter Schuck, Op-Ed (2010).

14. ‘[T]he security concerns of migrant-receiving countries make their immigration policies and practices more restrictive, while their economic interests make such policies more selective’ (İçduygu & Sert, 2010, p. 4).