Born in Istanbul in 1999, Arev is of Kurdish and Armenian origin. In 2005, his mother left Turkey for Ile-de-France, in the hope of finding a better life. They first move in with Arev’s aunt, who takes care of filling out all the administrative paperwork. “At the end of CP, I knew how to speak French”, remembers the brunette. After a while, the young student feels that asking for help from her aunt and cousins starts to get awkward. In CE2, the eldest of the siblings – his two sisters will be born in France – then begins to exercise a contract of indefinite duration: that of interpreter and moderator between his parents and the social environment (institutions, doctors, etc.).
At the time, the studious student sometimes had to skip classes to help his family. Today, the young woman of 23 years continues, on a daily basis, to take days to accompany her parents to medical appointments. And, each year, she fills in their taxes with care, even before we ask her.
Sophie was born in France. His parents left Algeria after the war; they met in Paris and had three children. “My parents didn’t go to school, but they speak French. On the other hand, my mother is illiterate, she reads neither Arabic nor French. It’s something she suffers from a lot. Sometimes she even cries about it”testifies the youngest of the siblings, aged 27.
Her older sister, Sabrina, initially took over all administrative and medical duties. But, as Sophie grew, her mother expected her to pick up the torch and rise to the occasion. “At 8 years old, my mother told me that, since my sister knew how to write checks at 6 years old, I had to be able to do it too. I was made to understand that she was not mistaken”, she remembers.
The “house secretary”
Through their work, the psychologists Muriel Bossuroy and Perrine Jouve observe that it is often the elders who occupy the role of translator – which is a source of pride for them. By removing the language barrier, children are empowered from an early age. “One day, we had a car problem and we didn’t have the gray card with us. Spontaneously, I pulled out the seventeen character vehicle identification from memory. The person on the other end of the line was shocked. Whether it’s numbers, login credentials… I know everything by heart! »says Arev, who is still called “house secretary” at 23 years old. After a few years of practice, the older ones tend to delegate to the younger ones, because this substitute job is heavy. This is what Sophie’s big sister gradually did. Today, one manages the Pôle emploi files while the other takes care of those of the CAF.
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