Neslihan Sriram-Uzundal:
My inspiration
Neslihan’s parents before they migrated to Germany in the 1970s, Credit: unknown.
How can curricula and educational practices move beyond deficit- and pain-centered representations of minorities toward a comprehensive understanding of their lived experiences, not exclusively framed through migration histories?
In rural Turkey in the 1960s, on her first day of school, my mother was dragged out of her classroom by my grandfather, who believed education was harmful for women. After migrating to Germany in the 1970s, my mother experienced a second silencing through stereotypical and colonial narratives that portrayed her as an uncivilized and uneducated migrant wife. In response, she raised us while emphasizing the transformative power of education.