Uyghur and Tibetan Voices Project
Anonymous Uyghur (#3)
This Uyghur refugee, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, speaks about the many facets of cultural genocide, from compelling Uyghurs to mandatorily study Chinese instead of their native language and restricting them from maintaining their traditional appearance. These practices are described as part of a broader agenda of forced assimilation of the Uyghur community. In addition, she shares the challenges that Uyghur refugees in the US have with communicating with their families back in China given the extreme circumstances which prevent them from talking freely. These stories reveal the systemic oppression affecting Uyghurs, and how it dramatically affects even those who have come to the US.
Internal Coloniziation
"That's how China grows…assimilate, expand, assimilate, expand. That's how they grow [throughout] history"
"When I see Xianjing….we don't like that name because that's a colonial name… was called East Turkistan, but China…renamed it so that so that people will forget the history behind it…they didn't keep the original name, the goal is [they] don't want people to remember this is a different place…that’s why it's a very colonial kind of term and we don't like it… even though right now we don't have officially the country, but we internally…still like to call our place East Turkestan"
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Cultural Genocide
"Uyghurs are Turkic people…we look different…but China is forcing you to look like them because right now, growing long beard is not allowed….some people want to grow beard, they don't want us grow beard…and they want people to remove the hijab… they want us to just make it look like Chinese and the school system… now we don't have options, Chinese became mandatory…studying Uyghur was discouraged… they will try to make you one of them."
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"When they try to force you to become somebody you're not, then the issue happens… we are Muslim, so we have different practices…we want to go to the mosque to pray…. We don’t eat pork…China doesn’t like that...we don’t drink…so many things are different between our culture… and their goal is to make us one of them… there is a forced kind of assimilation…"
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"during this cultural genocide and [making] us forget our language…we started a Saturday School to teach [the children] our language…one of our foundations does this kind of work..."
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Families Disrupted
"I was wondering how the conflict is impacting both you and your family here. And then also your family back home in China? Yes, affecting big time…our children grew up here, they have [only a] very vague concept of cousin, Grandpa, grandma..because you don't see them…right now we have a very limited communication with them, with some family they don't have any communication they can't fully receive any all from US… it's unhealthy environment, but this is what it is…"
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"they cannot talk freely… we don't know what's going on there even we hear them. We talk very limited stuff..you [can not] ask them any detailed question you know, just very general, just hear the voice…and that really [causes] mental problem for us…90%, 95%, 100% of Uyghurs…have some sort of depression…"
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" the people here receive calls saying if you be vocal about it…we’re going to put your parents in jail…threatening in this way…a lot of people being forced to keep silence…"
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How Can We Help?
"I think one is just keep whenever get chance I can study about Uyghur issue and they raise their voice right now we can have great amount of support…from yourself, from the community…to help us."
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"That's why we want people to just keep sharing whatever they learned to other people….to raise awareness and supporting all the [legislation]"
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