Turks face integration challenges in Germany

This article focuses on the difficulty Turkish Germans have when trying to claim a German identity. It brings up problems in defining German identity, where one woman appears to have been well-integrated as a child — dressing like other German girls and refraining from wearing the head scarf — but is ultimately unable to have her German identity accepted by her ethnic German peers.

Although the title states that Turkish immigrants face “integration challenges,” this is only true for the immigrants isolated from German society and not for those interviewed. A more accurate title would have been “Turks Unaccepted in German Society” because Turkish immigrant Zehra Yilmaz was well-integrated and held strong German values that even prevented her from relocating to her family’s ancestral city Ankara where women lacked rights. She rejects a completely Turkish identity, but is denied a German one. Her comments echo the statements made in the documentary Omulaule heisst schwarz which tells the story of Namibian children who were sent to the GDR for many years before returning after re-unification. Those interviewed in the documentary spoke about being unable to fit into an either/or identity after returning to their country of origin.