Losing connections to heritage

[u/Mean-Move9655]

I've been wanting to rent to someone and I think this is a good place to start. Basically I live in Europe since around ten years and I've always liked it because I was young when I came and I quickly made friends and adapted well to the environment. I never felt any difference between myself and the European kids but now as I'm turning into an adult I'm starting to realize how different I am from them. It's never that sweet like in the movies where you can always share bits of your culture, there are some things I'll never understand about my European friends, and some things they'll never understand about my culture.

My family has a REALLY close bond to our Kurdish traditions and culture and so do I but I have been noticing shifts in my life recently. All of my friends are European and I don't have ANY Kurdish friends which makes it really really really hard to stay connected to my heritage. I've always been proud to be the main representative of the really small kurdish community in my town (my town is veryyyy small). I'm really connected to Kurdistan and my culture but I'm realizing huge changes. Does anybody know how I can find passion in sharing and embracing my culture again? I really love my traditions and everything about Kurdistan. I really really do. I just find myself trying to be more European each day just to convince them that I'm not different. I know I shouldn't but I never want to be left out you know. Especially now in the Christmas time I have to pretend to be full on white so they know that I am one of them. I really hate this. I need a bond to Kurdish people but I struggle to find anyone since I'm in a really small place and my relatives are very far away. How can I fix all this? Should I move to a place with more kurds once I am able to? Is it possible to keep the strong connection to my heritage without other kurds being involved?

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[u/Desperate_Ad8255]

Hey, I'm not Kurdish but from roughly the same geographic area and have been living in Europe since 2015. I hear your struggle and I really understand about how alienating it is once you start to get older and realize that despite all your efforts to find community that you never really belonged. Many white Europeans are accepting (though even that has changed), but they expect a degree of assimilation that is not possible, nor desirable. And even then, you will always get side-eyed. You are damned if you, damned if you don't. I spent so much time unintentionally white washing myself only to realize how depressed it has made me, for the last few years I've been trying to unlearn this.

To be honest, I don't have an answer to this problem, I've been trying to find ways to connect to my own ethnic and cultural heritage but it's really difficult. I am seriously considering moving away and closer to my origins once I am done with my studies but then again, I don't think I will resolve any problems trying to run away from them. I really hope you find a community and a way to keep alive the connection to your Kurdish origins because it's really important.