Me against the world

Identity sɴ ᴅᴇ

Identity is something I haven't really struggled with, but at the same time kinda did or do now sometimes. When people (specificly in Germany) ask me were I'm from, I always reply 'Senegal', even though I was born and raised here in Germany. Strictly speaking it's true, I only have a senegalese citizenship and I'm proud of that. Normally when you are born in Germany, you automatically get a german citizenship, but I guess my parents insisted for me and my brother to have a senegalese one. As I've mentioned in a previous chapter, my parents always made sure we knew, where we come from and remember our "real home". I'm so grateful that my parents spoke Wolof (main language in Senegal) with us, showed us the seneglese culture as much as they could here in Germany and regularly took us to Senegal, so we would know our country. With so much input from my parents and certain comments or actions from other people that  should remind me that I am "different" or not a real german, it is easy for me to immediately reply 'Senegal'. I also often do that, so I can ditch that question: "Yeah, but where are you really/origanally from?" or "Where are your parents from?".  When I get asked these questions, I know that this person will never accept me as a german and most of the time I'm fine with that. 

In my Info I wrote that I'm a young black, senegalese girl and now I notice how normal and easy it was for me to write it down like that. I think until I was 19 or maybe 20 years old I never had an issue with saying that I'm just senegalese and fully proud of it (I'm still very proud to be senegalese 😅). I remember a conversation I had with a former classmate. She asked me if I was thinking about to get a german citizenship soon and I replied with simply no. I remember that it was difficult for her to understand why I was still choosing the senegalese citizenship over the german one, since I was born and raised here. I explained her that I felt a bigger connection to the senegalese culture and that many people would never accept me as a german. I gave her the example that, if a stranger would look at me, they would never initially describe me as a german let alone a european and that's a fact. I remember that she got quiet for a while and that she was thinking about what I've just said. Sometimes I feel guilty, because I feel like that I give the impression that I don't want to be german and that's not true! Back then it was just easier for me to say that I'm senegalese and senegalese only. I felt like I knew my heritage and when I got confronted with either racism or stereotypes, it was just another reason for me, why I just wanted to be senegalese. I didn't want to acknowledge the german side of me and I pretty much supressed it, which I realise now: I can't do that anymore.

It's funny how you can get a small identity crisis all of the sudden, even though you thought you were sure of it. That's what I had to experience a while ago. One day I was on Instagram and I saw a meme where it was about a german guy with foreigner parents. He portrayed it in a funny way that in Germany he would recieve comments like "you're not german" and then when he went to his "homecountry", he would recieve comments like "you're german" or "the german". And at the end he was standing there with an identity crisis. In this moment I realised that the exact same things happened to me. When I'm in Germany I get told that I'm not german, but when I'm in Senegal all of the sudden I'm the german or not senegalese enough and to be honest: That hurts! I was suddenly wondering:"What am I? Where do I belong then?". I started to reflect about comments my cousins had made to tease me and always remind me that I'm not senegalese as they are or how people could immediately tell that I didn't live there just by the way I was walking. I was thinking: "Maybe I'm not really a senegalese or atleast not as much as I thought I was". And that was kinda shocking to me. For the first time in like 20 years I didn't really know who I was or where I belonged. 

I was thinking about why people couldn't juste accept you for who you were/are and why they always had to categorize you into something. With that question in my mind I decided to simply stop doing that to myself and I finally fully accepted that I have a german side in me and that I wanted to fully acknowledge that for the first time. I realise now that I'm priviliged to experience the best of both worlds, like the german school & healthcare system or senegalese food & music, but I also experience the negative sides like racism in Germany or the corrupt/incompetent government in Senegal. There are so many things that I love and hate about both countries, I can't even name them all, otherwise this chapter is getting too long. After having my mini identity crisis, I'm glad that I now know again who I am and I'm happy about the way I see myself.