If you want to get out of a bad situation, the only thing to do is to just do it, regardless of consequences. That's what I told myself as I walked out of the Carleton University library, holding hands with my boyfriend Jean-Pierre Moineau in public for the first time. It was a cold, windy day in February, and Ottawa was blanketed with snow. Nevertheless, I swear I didn't feel the chill. I just felt my guy's warm, firm hand squeezing mine as we made our way through the quad. My name is Ceylin Iskinder, and I'm a young woman of Turkish descent living in the Capital of Canada.
Last year, my father, Mehmet Iskinder moved to the City of Ottawa, Ontario, from our home in Malatya, in the eastern region of the Republic of Turkey. As an Oxford-trained civil engineer, he was in high demand. He got hired by Terra Nova Limited, this big multinational corporation with holdings in the United States, Britain, Canada, Belgium, Brazil, South Africa, Turkey and Japan. They needed someone to spearhead their new Mergers and Acquisitions Division in Ottawa, and felt my dad would be the perfect man for the job. Honestly, I didn't feel like leaving Turkey for Canada. Leaving Turkey meant leaving my old life behind, along with my friends.
I visited Canada twice before and found the place cold and boring. Dad loves it, and honestly I don't know why. Nevertheless, Ottawa became our new home. I transferred from Inonu University, one of the largest schools in Turkey, to Carleton University, a little-known school in the Canadian capital. You can feel the joy radiating from these lines, can't you? Anyhow, I began my studies in Criminology at Carleton. I was in my second year in the Law program at the University of Inonu and honestly, starting from scratch at Carleton University felt like a slap in the face. Canadians are so damn backwards it's not even funny. They only recognize university degrees from Britain, America and Australia. As if the rest of the world didn't matter. Whatever.
In the City of Ottawa, Ontario, I experienced a brand new world. I expected the Canadian capital to be lily-white and boring. I was half right. Ottawa is still boring but it's full of immigrants of non-European descent. Riding the bus or train, I saw so many Africans, Arabs, Chinese and other ethnic groups I could only guess at. A lot of people keep mistaking me for a Mexican broad, which I find annoying because I've never been to Mexico or any Latin American nation. Hell, I don't even speak Spanish! Throughout my life, I've been told that I looked like something other than what I am. My mother, Fatima Bagis Iskinder, was half Turkish and half Black. My grandfather on my mother's side, Grandpa Kemal is Turkish and my grandmother Aisha is Somali. I guess that makes me seventy five percent Turkish and twenty five percent sub-Saharan African. I stand five feet eleven inches tall, busty and curvy, with light bronze skin, long black hair and pale bronze eyes. So, um, for the last time, I am NOT Mexican!
