Hatice Güneş

Hatice Güneş was born in Turkey in 1974 or 1975 and came to London in 1992. She talks about feeling a foreigner in Istanbul and about the realisation that London was her home.

Listen to Hatice (mp3, 564kb)

Transcript

'I think it was how people treated me, people actually treated me like an outsider, and I felt like an outsider. And, for example, every time I went to the market I’d think I was just performing a simple task as ordering like a kilo of tomatoes or something. And the person who’s like selling them would say, "oh, where are you from? You speak different Turkish". And the person himself would be speaking Turkish in a very strong, you know - would be often a Kurdish man who doesn’t actually speak even as good Turkish as me, but he would notice that I wasn’t from there. 

'Everywhere I went, it happened all the time. "Where are you from?  Why you have a different accent?" People make you feel so, you are different, you’re not one of them, you don’t, they didn’t know what to do with me, I suppose. It was like, I wasn’t ignorant, but I didn’t actually look like a normal professional Turkish woman either. It was difficult, I think, it was difficult for them to work out where to put me, you know. "Who the hell is this woman?"… 

'I think what it did to me, living in Istanbul, it made me realise where I actually felt more at home, you know. And I felt like London was my home, you know. When I came to London, you know, it was just, all of a sudden myself again, you know. It was nicer, I think. Yeah, I think, I think London is where I belong, really.'

Copyright Evelyn Oldfield Unit