Turkish Associations in the United States: Towards Building a Transnational Identity

Abstract

Migrant associations have always been an important feature of migrant communities, assuming a significant role towards identity formation and integration in the host society. Such organizations also create an important transnational link between countries of origin and settlement. Using the example of Turkish associations in the United States and their institutionalization process, this essay argues that organizational dynamics of immigrants are greatly affected by the general attitude towards immigrants in the host country and homeland policies regarding emigrants (macro level), their relations with other ethnic groups already resident in the host country (meso level), and the status of immigrants and some of their pre‐migration characteristics (micro level).

Notes

1. Marlov Schrover and Floris Vermeulen, “Immigrant Organizations,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 31, No. 5 (2005), pp. 823–32.

2. John Friedman, The Prospect of Cities (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002); Nedim Ögelman, “Documenting and Explaining the Persistence of Homeland Politics Among Germany’s Turks,” International Migration Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (2003), pp. 163–93; Nedim Ögelman, “Immigrant Organizations and the Globalization of Turkey’s Domestic Politics,” in Rey Koslowski (ed.), International Migration and the Globalization of Domestic Politics (London: Routledge, 2005).

3. Héctor R. Cordero‐Guzman, “Community‐based Organizations and Migration in New York City,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies,” Vol. 31, No. 5 (2005), pp. 889–909.

4. Schrover and Vermeulen, “Immigrant Organizations,” p. 823.

5. Douglas Massey et al., Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); quoted in Cordero‐Guzman, “Community‐based Organizations and Migration in New York City,” p. 907, see note 3.

6. See Prof. Kemal H. Karpat’s article, “The Turks Finally Establish a Community in the United States,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006), pp. 167–86.

7. See for example Elizabeth C. Babcock, “The Transformative Potential of Belizean Migrant Voluntary Associations in Chicago,” International Migration, Vol. 44, No. 1 (2006), pp. 31–53; Roger Waldinger, Eric Popkin and Hector A. Magana, “Conflict and Contestation in the Cross‐border Community: Hometown Associations Reassessed,” Ethnic and Racial Studies, Vol. 31, No. 5 (2008), pp. 843–70; Caroline B. Brettell, “Voluntary Organizations, Social Capital, and the Social Incorporation of Asian Indian Immigrants in the Dallas‐Fort Worth Metroplex,” Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 78, No. 4 (2005), pp. 853–83; Alejandro Portes, Cristina Escobar and Alexandria W. Radford, “Immigrant Transnational Organizations and Development: A Comparative Study,” International Migration Review, Vol. 41, No. 1 (2007), pp. 242–81; José Itzigsohn, “Immigration and the Boundaries of Citizenship: The Institutions of Immigrants’ Political Transnationalism,” International Migration Review, Vol. 34, No. 4 (2000), pp. 1126–54; Gerald Gamm and Robert D. Putnam, “The Growth of Voluntary Associations in America, 1840–1940,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Vol. 29, No. 4 (1999), pp. 511–57; Anna Karpathakis, “Home Society Politics and Immigrant Political Incorporation: The Case of Greek Immigrants in New York City,” International Migration Review, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1999), p. 55–78.

8. See Justin McCarthy, The Ottoman Peoples and the End of the Empire (New York, Oxford, 2001).

9. Barbara Bilge, “Turks”, in David Levinson and Melvin Ember (eds.) American Immigrant Cultures: Builders of a Nation (Gale Group, 1997); quoted in Rifat N. Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya: Amerika’ya İlk Göç Eden Türklerin Yaşam Öyküleri [From Anatolia to the New World: Life Stories of Fırst Turks Migrated to the United States of America] (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2004), p. 264.

10. Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya, p. 28.

11. David M. Reimers, Other Immigrants: The Global Origins of the American People (New York: New York University Press, 2005), p. 215.

12. Richard B. Turner, Islam in the African‐American Experience (2nd edition) (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003), p. 120.

13. Karpat states that although statistics on immigration from Turkey in Asia started to be kept as of 1869, they were most of the time unreliable and a very limited number of people were recorded. For example, it was recorded that between 1867 and 1881 only 74 Asian Ottomans entered the United States and no information was provided for the ten‐year period after 1885. By 1910, the number of Ottomans from Asia was given as 59,729 (K. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860–1914,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1985), p. 181.

14. Garbi Schmidt, American Medina: A Study of the Sunni Muslim Immigrant Communities in Chicago, Vol. 8 (Lund, Sweden: University of Lund, Department of History of Religions, 1999), p. 40.

15. Gönül. Pultar, “Shadows of Cultural Identity: Issues of Biculturalism Raised by the Turkish American Poetry of Talat Sait Halman,” in Ruth Hsu et al. (eds.), Re‐placing America: Conversations and Contestations (Honolulu: University of Hawaii and the East‐West Center, 2000), p. 131; Talat S. Halman, “Turks,” in Stephan Thernstrom (ed.), Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 992; Yvonne Y. Haddad, Not Quite American? The Shaping of Arab and Muslim Identity in the United States (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2004), p. 3; Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life (2nd ed.) (New York: Perennial, 2002).

16. Barbara Bilge, “Voluntary Association in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” in Yvonne Y. Haddad and Jane I. Smith (eds.), Muslim Communities in North America (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), p. 385; Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America,” p. 182.

17. Berrak Kurtuluş, Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’ne Türk Beyin Göçü [Turkish Brain Drain to the USA] (Istanbul: Alfa, 1999), p. 53.

18. Frank Ahmed, Turks in America: The Ottoman Turk’s Immigrant Experience (Greenwich, CT: Columbia International Press, 1993), p. 11; see also Kemal Karpat, “The Turks in America,” Turcs d’Europe…et d’Ailleurs, Les Annales de l’Autre Islam [Turks in Europe and Elsewhere, Annals of Other Islam], No. 3 (1995), p. 223; John J. Grabowski, “Prospects and Challenges: The Study of Early Turkish Immigration to the United States,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Vol. 25, No. 1 (2005), p. 86.

19. Kemal Karpat, “The Turks Finally Establish a Community in the United States,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1 & 2, (2006), p. 169.

20. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 14; Bilge, “Voluntary Association in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” p. 386.

21. See Işil Acehan, Outposts of an Empire: Early Turkish Migration to Peabody, Massachusetts (unpublished master’s thesis submitted to the Department of History, Bilkent University, May 2005, accessible at http://www.thesis.bilkent.edu.tr/0002829.pdf) on the role of American consulate in Harput and American missionaries there in the increased number of Armenians and Muslims alike at that time.

22. Ìlhan. Kaya, Shifting Turkish American Identity Formations in the United States, unpublished dissertation, Florida State University (2003), pp. 48–9; Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya, p. 339.

23. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America,” p. 182; Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya, p. 25.

24. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America,” p. 187.

25. Ibid., p. 186.

26. Ottoman Empire followed the principle of jus sanguinis whereas the United Stated adhered to the jus soli principle.

27. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America,” pp. 189–91.

28. Leland J. Gordon, American Relations with Turkey 1830–1930 (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1932) quoted in Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya, p. 31.

29. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America.”

30. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 10–11; Kaya, Shifting Turkish American Identity Formations in the United States, p. 48.

31. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 12.

32. Ahmed notes that coffeehouses were foreign to American culture until the arrival of Turks, and the highest concentration of coffeehouses in New England were along Walnut Street in Peabody: Turks in America, p. 66. However, coffeehouses did not only function as “clubhouses” for men, but they were also used as informal employment agencies, charity organizations, and public places where people used to meet to celebrate religious holidays: Bilge, “Voluntary Association in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” pp. 392–93.

33. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 75; Bilge, “Voluntary Association in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” p. 381; Grabowski, “Prospects and Challenges,” p. 87.

34. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 15.

35. Ibid., p. 12.

36. Acehan, Outposts of an Empire; Ahmed, Turks in America; R. N. Bali, “From Anatolia to the New World: The First Anatolian Immigrant to America,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1 & 2 (2006), pp. 53–69; Karpat, “The Turks Finally Establish a Community in the United States.”

37. Schmidt, American Medina, p. 40; Haddad, Not Quite American?, p. 4.

38. Kaya, Shifting Turkish American Identity Formations in the United States, p. 51.

39. Halman states that almost 86 percent of the 22,000 Turks who entered to the United States between 1899 and 1924 returned to Turkey: “Turks,” p. 993. Ahmed also confirms that only fewer than 20 percent stayed after 1923: Turks in America, p. 80.

40. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 81.

41. Halman, “Turks,” p. 993.

42. Grabowski states that through the Red Crescent, a Turkish organization operating in the United States at that time, some Turks who remained registered surnames in accordance with the surname law adopted in 1934 in Turkey: “Prospects and Challenges,” p. 97.

43. Reimers, p. 216.

44. Turhan Oğuzkan, “The Scope and Nature of Turkish Brain Drain,” in Nermin Abadan‐Unat (ed.), Turkish Workers in Europe, 1960–1975: A Socio‐economic Reappraisal (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1976), pp. 74–103.

45. Halman, “Turks,” p. 993.

46. Kaya, p. 2.

47. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 85.

48. Ibid., p. 86.

49. Halman, “Turks,” p. 994.

50. Ibid., p. 992.

51. See Bilge’s article on the Turkish community of metropolitan Detroit and adjacent Ontario and patterns of intermarriages between Turkish and Americans. Barbara Bilge, “Turkish‐American Patterns of Intermarriage,” in Barbara C. Aswad and Barbara Bilge (eds.), Family and Gender among American Muslims: Issues Facing Middle Eastern Immigrants and their Descendants (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), pp. 59–106.

52. Halman, “Turks,” p. 994; Kurtuluş, Amerika, Birleşik Devletleri’ne Türk Beyin Göçü, p. 55.

53. Kaya, p. 58.

54. In 1996, the INS estimated that their numbers were fewer than 30,000. See Reimers, p. 216.

55. Uğur Akıncı, “Germanification of Turkish Americans” (www.theturkishtimes.com/archive/02/05_15), quoted in Kaya, p. 58, see note 22; also quoted in Roberta Micallef, “Turkish Americans: Performing Identities in a Transnational Setting,” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2004), p. 240.

56. There is unskilled chain migration to the United States from the Black Sea region in Turkey, mainly from Yağlıdere, Giresun (Müzeyyen Güler, “Turkish Immigrants in the United States: Men, Women, and Children,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1 & 2, (2006), pp. 145–65, and from Yuva, Giresun (Lisa DiCarlo, “Migration from Giresun to the United States: The Role of Regional Identity,” International Journal of Turkish Studies, Vol. 12, Nos. 1 & 2, (2006), pp. 133–43. Hemşerilik is an important concept in choosing the United States as a destination country among immigrants.

57. Reimers, p. 216, see note 11.

58. Micallef, “Turkish Americans,” p. 233.

59. Unpublished OECD’s SOPEMI Report on Turkey, Prepared by Ahmet İçduygu 2004.

60. According to the US Census Bureau, ancestry refers to a person’s ethnic origin or descent, roots or heritage, or the place of birth of the person, the person’s parents, or ancestors before arrival in the United States.

61. See www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/0850051.pdf.

62. Kaya, p. 2.

63. Şebnem Köşer Akçapar, “Do Brains Really Go Down the Drain? Turkish Highly Skilled Migration to the U.S. and the Brain Drain Debate in Turkey,” Revue Europėenne des Migrations Internationales (REMI), Vol. 22, No. 3 (2007), pp. 79–108.

64. Ahmed, Turks in America, p. 65.

65. Karpat, “The Turks in America,” p. 234.

66. See Mehmet Fuat Umay, Cumhuriyetin KuruluşYıllarında Bir Devrimci Doktorun Anılaırı [Memoirs of a Revolutionary Doctor in the Early Years of the Republic], prepared for publication by Cahit Kayra (Istanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2006).

67. Birol Akgün, The Turkish Yearbook, Vol. 31 (2000), pp. 99–117.

68. Micallef, “Turkish Americans.”

69. Ahmed, Turks in America, pp. 60–61.

70. Joseph M. Papo, Sephardim in Twentieth Century America (California, 1987); quoted in Bali, Anadolu’dan Yeni Dünyaya (İstanbul: Ìletişim Yayınları, 2004), p. 98.

71. Bilge, “Voluntary Associations in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” p. 400.

72. Halman, “Turks,” p. 995.

73. Ibid., p. 994.

74. For example, Anadolu Club, which was established on Long Island mainly by doctors and engineers as a professional society, is now located in New Jersey and has a wide range of members, from white collar to blue collar workers and organizes a wide range of activities from cultural gatherings and collecting social aid to fostering US‐Turkey relations.

75. Personal communication, April 2006.

76. For example, HasNa offers conflict resolution and professional skills training in Southeast Turkey and Cyprus. Turkish‐Americans also invest directly or indirectly in health and education services in Turkey through migrant associations. The American Turkish Society (ATS) invests in Turkey and supports projects in collaboration with non‐governmental organizations in Turkey. At the same time, ATS initiated a teacher exchange program and a fellowship for the training of young Turkish physicians in the United States. Other projects by Turkish‐American organizations involve opening micro‐enterprise training courses for Turkish rural women. Turkish Children Foster Care, Bridges of Hope Project, and Washington Turkish Women’s Association, through fundraising and donations from their members, help Turkish students with financial difficulties and support public schools in Turkey and donate computers and other material and assist them to build libraries and science labs.

77. Term taken after Peggy Levitt, “Social Remittances: A Conceptual Tool for Understanding Migration for Development,” Working Paper No. 96.04 (Cambridge: Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, 1996), available at: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hcpds/wpweb/96_04.pdf.

78. Şebnem Köşer Akçapar, “Highly Skilled Migration from Turkey to the United States,” in Kemal Kirişçi and Ahmet İçduygu (eds.), Land of Diverse Migrations: Challenges of Emigration and Immigration in Turkey (Istanbul: Bilgi University Publications, 2009).

79. One exception is the Turkish Society of Rochester, NY. This association was formed by a group of tailors brought to Rochester towards the end of 1960s. They also established their mosque and provided other religious services, such as funerals, and participated in interfaith dialogue. The association also offers social and educational services to its members.

80. Jose C. Moya, “Immigrants and Associations: A Global and Historical Perspective,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 31, No. 5 (2005), p. 846.

81. Fethullah Gülen has been living in Pennsylvania since 1999 due to medical and political reasons. In October 2008 he was approved for permanent residence or a green card after years of rejection by American authorities.

82. Personal communication with the author, June 2008.

83. Some of the mosques and cultural centers affiliated with the Süleymancılar in the United States are: Fatih Mosque in Brooklyn, NY; Süleymaniye Mosque in Deer Park, NY; Osmaniye Mosque in Moriches, NY; Selimiye Mosque in Boston, MA; Yeni Dünya in Clifton, NJ; Muradiye in Chicago, IL; Hamidiye in Rochester, NY; Aziziye in Bear, DE; and Mevlana in Bristol, PA (see Karpat, “The Turks Finally Establish a Community in the United States,” p. 177). The attaché for religious affairs at the Turkish Embassy in Washington, DC, stated that there is cooperation between Süleymancilar and Diyanet even more than Gülen’s group (personal communication, October 2008).

84. See www.taccenter.org for details.

85. See Moya, “Immigrants and Associations,” p. 849, see note 80.

86. See e.g. Floris Vermeulen, “Organizational Patterns: Surinamese and Turkish Associations in Amsterdam, 1960–1990,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 31, No. 5 (2005), p. 959; Moya, “Immigrants and Associations,” p. 852, see note 80.

87. Karpat, “The Turks Finally Establish a Community in the United States,” p. 170.

88. Bilge, “Voluntary Association in the Old Turkish Community of Metropolitan Detroit,” p. 400.

89. ASALA is short for the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia, and it is recognized as a terrorist organization that was mainly active between the 1970s and 1980s.

90. See Karpathakis, “Home Society Politics and Immigrant Political Incorporation” for a discussion of Greek immigrant incorporation into the American political system and how the “Americanization process” among Greek migrants was brought about by political concerns in the home country through migrant organizations, see note 7.

91. Personal communication with Dr. Oya Bain, October 2005.

92. The Turkish fair in Washington, DC, is organized on the first Sunday of October; the Turkish American Day Parade is organized on the occasion of the May 19 celebrations of the Youth and Sports Festival in New York City; the Children’s Festival is organized in the greater DC area to mark April 23 celebrations in Turkey. These festivals change their nature in a migration setting, as they become a symbol of Turkish‐American identity and presence in the New World. The Children’s Festival organized by ATA‐DC and celebrated by Turkish‐Americans on the occasion of April 23, 2007, became an international one and included other ethnic groups in the greater Washington area.

93. Ali Gitmez and Czarina Wilpert, “A Micro‐Society or an Ethnic Community? Social Organization and Ethnicity amongst Turkish Migrants in Berlin,” in J. Rex, D. Joly, and C. Wilpert (eds.), Immigrant Associations in Europe (Brookfield: Gower, 1987), pp. 86–125; Vermeulen, “Organizational Patterns,” p. 956, see note 86.

94. Ìlhan Kaya, “Identity and Space: The Case of Turkish Americans,” Geographical Review, Vol. 95, No. 3 (2005), pp. 425–40.

95. See article by E. Özyürek in this special issue.

96. There are 80 members of the Turkish caucus; 43 of them are Democrats.

97. One is a judge in Houston, TX, and the other is a trustee in Naperville in DuPage County, IL. Another example is given by K. Karpat, Studies on Turkish Politics and Society: Selected Articles and Essays (Boston, MA: Brill, 2004), p. 622. (Orhan Yirmibeş served as mayor of Delavan, in southern Wisconsin. He entered to the United States in the late 1940s as an economics student and stayed in the United States and became a businessman).

98. Personal communication during ATAA’s annual convention, May 2008.

99. See Itzigsohn, “Immigration and the Boundaries of Citizenship.”, see note 7.

100. Political action committees are organizations created by certain interest groups, including immigrants, to collect funds for contributing to election campaigns of their preferred political candidates. One political action committee is TC‐USA PAC in Washington, DC, and the other is Turkish PAC in Texas. These are bipartisan organizations created by Turkish‐Americans supporting political candidates and encouraging them to participate more in the US political process.

101. See Brettell, “Voluntary Organizations, Social Capital, and the Social Incorporation of Asian Indian Immigrants in the Dallas‐Fort Worth Metroplex” on a similar discussion regarding Indian immigrant organizations in the United States, see note 7.

102. This does not include any donations to presidential candidates.

103. See the website of the Turkish Coalition of America (www.turkishcoalition.org) for further details.

104. See the article in Turkish Newsweek published on November 1, 2008: “Balancing Hearts and Heads: Turkish Americans Typically Vote Republican. This Time, They Are Divided over which White House Candidate Should Get Their Ballot.” Available at: http://www.newsweek.com/id/166813.

105. Just a couple of days before 2008 elections in the United States, Turkish PAC announced that “it is not supporting Obama‐Biden ticket on the premises that if they are elected, their actions are expected to result in further deterioration of the already‐fragile friendship and cooperation between Turkey and the U.S.” (www.turkishpac.org).

106. See full text online at http://www.tc-america.org/obama_com.html.

∗ Peak immigration years were between 1904 and 1908, and 1910 and 1914. Between 1881 and 1914, 29,019 people were registered as entering to the United States from Turkey in Asia whereas 156,782 of them were from Turkey in Asia between 1901 and 1920. (See K. Karpat, “The Ottoman Emigration to America, 1860–1914,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1985), Appendix I and IX).