Banquet intends to 'rekindle' Turkish community

While some students would fly to Istanbul to pursue their interest in Near Eastern culture, the Turkish Student Association held their own gathering for the Philadelphia community at Houston Hall.

Last Friday, about 250 guests, students and faculty from various Turkish cultural associations around the area enjoyed Turkish food, music and calligraphy in Houston’s Hall of Flags for Philly Turkish Night 2013 — an annual banquet hosted in turn by Penn, Drexel and Temple universities.

With a community-building dinner, live entertainment and acclaimed community speakers, the banquet let scattered Turkish communities — from Philadelphia to south New Jersey — mix and mingle with each other only four days before Turkish National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.

“Everyone is talking about it,” said Ayten Huseyin, a freshman at Temple University.

At the event there were several prominent figures in the local Turkish-American community, including Levent Bilgen, consul general from the Turkish Consulate in New York, who felt “honored to be among our young generation.”

“Turkish culture focuses not so much on individualism but on friends in groups, so when students are away from family and friends, such cultural gathering is very important to them,” Bilgen said. “But the U.S. culture is also very open, so people have a quick transition” integrating into American life.

“We have about 10,000 to 20,000 Turkish-American students in the U.S., and our student body is very qualified,” he added. “They will get the benefit of their hard work very soon with the qualified U.S. education.”

Having prepared for the banquet for more than two months in advance, Engineering junior Eza Koch — co-president of the Turkish Student Association at Penn — said the goal was to “rekindle” the Turkish community.

“We use social media to hook people in through various events and help them connect to the larger group,” Koch said. “With shared values, people immediately feel at home.”

Koch’s words rang true for many students, either from Penn or other schools, attending the banquet.

“[This gathering] helps our homesickness,” said Can Sitik, a second-year graduate student in Drexel College of Engineering.

“There seems to be a perception that only Turkish [people] come to Turkish night,” said Ayca Arig, a freshman from Temple University, who hoped to see more promotion of Turkish culture on university campuses.

Besides students, Turkish residents from the Philadelphia community also attended the banquet. Necdet Uzdilli, who emigrated from Turkey 17 years ago, came with his family after learning about it from some friends at Temple.

Commenting on the presence of Turkish culture on campus, Koch thinks it has been “underrepresented.”

“Turkish culture is not Arabic, Persian or Eastern European,” he said. “We have a very unique ethnicity and culture, but we’re looking forward to mixers with other student groups.”

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