From There To Here
Zozan Balci · 66 min
Zozan Balci's journey from silencing her Turkish mother tongue as a child to becoming a celebrated researcher reveals how mixed-heritage individuals are quietly erasing parts of themselves just to survive belonging.
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Zozan Balci grew up speaking German, Italian, and Turkish in her home in Germany. One day she realised she couldn't speak Turkish anymore. As an adult, she wondered what had happened to a language she once spoke fluently, and whether others with mixed ancestry had the same experience. That question became her PhD research, and later her book.
What Zozan discovered was that heritage languages are not lost through logic or strategy. They disappear because of the emotional weight of wanting to fit in. When children start school and realise for the first time that they are different, they begin to distance themselves from their heritage language and culture. A research participant named Kai illustrates this perfectly: when asked to say hello in Greek during school assembly, he said "I don't know", even though he did know. He didn't want to be different. If he pretended not to know, he could be like everyone else. Over time, pretence becomes reality. Language is practice. Stop speaking it, and you forget.
But Zozan's work goes beyond language loss. It explores what it means to be ambiguously brown, to be asked "where are you from?" by strangers at fruit shops, in bars, at conferences. Nine times in one day at a New Zealand conference. The question carries weight because it is asked every single day to some people, and never to others. It costs them the space to talk about anything else, including their work. Getting someone's name right, by asking how to say it and making the effort, is a small act that removes a burden they have carried a thousand times before. It signals that you will not erase them.
Zozan moved from believing something was wrong with her upbringing to recognising that the systems around her were wrong. The multiplicity and critical perspective born from her experience are her strengths. Home is not a place. Home is the people around her who make her feel safe and like she belongs exactly as she is, without explanation.
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