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#WhoAmI: Finding myself - Full episode

October 18, 2014

They may be from different parts of the world but Amin, Ka-yeon and Alina share a common challenge: carving out their identities in the face of discrimination and prejudice.

https://p.dw.com/p/1DXxQ
Protagonisten von Life Links Folge #WhoAmI
Image: DW/Life Links

Finding myself

"Who Am I?", that’s what Ka-yeon is asking herself in Seoul, South Korea. She escaped from the neighboring North - and is now trying to fit in: “I want to perceive myself as a South Korean, but people still call me an escapee from North Korea; so I cannot completely shed this image, this stigma, of someone who has escaped.”

“Who Am I?”, Alina is asking herself in the outskirts of Paris, France. Wherever she has lived she has always experienced rejection because of her Roma roots: “It’s hard to like myself when everybody hates Roma people.”

"Who Am I?", Amin in Cologne, Germany, has possibly already found his answer to that question: German. But it is something he has battled with because of his Egyptian heritage and the insistence of those who ask where he is “really” from. “I take the liberty to call myself that. Was it easy? No. It took a lot of long, hard thought. Finally I found the guts to say it. I’m brave enough to say ‘I’m German’.”