In this paper, I will draw on ethnographic research conducted in Turkey, beginning in 2011, to explore the ways in which Kurdish university students are “claiming,” defining, and understanding “Kurdishness,” or what it means to be Kurdish in Turkey. After the emergence of the modern Turkish Republic in 1923, the state instituted a series of nation-building reforms aimed at modernizing, Westernizing, secularizing, and homogenizing the Turkish citizenry. These reforms spanned a wide range of topics, yet at their core was the idea of promoting the ideal of a “pure” Turkish nation, what has been called “Turkification” (Navaro-Yashin 2002; Houston 2008; Güvenç 2011). In the process, entire groups of the ethnically diverse citizenry of Turkey either chose or were forced to identify as “Turkish.” In recent years, however, the Turkish state has begun a series of reforms, including the establishment of a Kurdish language television station and the opening of Kurdish language programs at a handful of universities, which have resulted in more public acceptance of the Kurdish population of Turkey. While in Turkey, I heard some people criticizing these reforms as political moves, rather than actual, substantive change. However, at the very least it seems that claiming Kurdishness is no longer a completely taboo subject Turkey. I intend to explore Kurdish university students’ claims to the Kurdish collective identity category, and their negotiation of Kurdishness in the Turkish city. I find that Kurdish university students seem to be particularly concerned about their place as Kurds in Turkey, as they continue to be reminded of their marginalized status in Turkish society. I will examine ties between identity and collective memory as expressed through students’ narratives of and nostalgia for the collectively remembered past, as well as descriptions of their everyday lived experiences in the present and their hopes for the future. My analysis of claiming Kurdishness will help to augment recent scholarship on identity and ethnicity in Turkey.