4 ms·

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citiz

by malshe 3mo ago

Here is my anecdote. I was in Germany recently and met with a South American woman. We briefly talked about our immigrant experiences. She is now a German citizen married to a German man. However, she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one. By contrast, when I became an American citizen, my American friends (white and hispanic) insisted that they attend the naturalization ceremony.

joe_mamba 3mo ago
As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general. Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have. It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors. The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs. Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society. The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.
- bellowsgulch 3mo ago
  The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe, with the exception of maybe Japan, who is xenophobic enough that you wouldn't want to try to become Japanese anyway. Canada, England, France, and the US, to name a few, seem to have done it wrong considering how immigration is a constant complaint and weaponized topic in their politics, but likewise Japan has too, just on the other end of the spectrum. I'm unsure who does it well.
  - stickfigure 3mo ago
    Immigration is a hot topic in every society. You can hear people in Arizona kvetching about the Californians that move there.
  - BeetleB 3mo ago
    > The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe I can't speak for the other countries, but in the US it's almost entirely an agenda being pushed. When I hear people say this, it's not because of any experience they've had, but just a repetition of talking points. Virtually none of them had a negative story to tell. I've heard far, far worse stories in some European countries.
    - bellowsgulch 3mo ago
      There are notable issues in the Southwest in the United States where people don't speak any English at all, and speak only Spanish, suggesting they are legal citizens born of illegal immigrants, or are still illegal immigrants themselves.
      - BeetleB 3mo ago
        I don't doubt they speak only Spanish, but this is the part I contest: > There are notable issues What are the issues? Which (English speaking) Americans have been so negatively impacted because of this, and how? I don't live in the Southwest, but we have them here as well. They speak little/no English. Yet both they and the people around them live just fine.
tough 3mo ago
The oldest american "citizens" are merely 250yo. Like the country. My point being, everyone in America is more or less an "immigrant" if you go back enough on their family tree, but the Native Americans.
- panick21_ 3mo ago
  Germany is a much newer country.
  - raverbashing 3mo ago
    Yes on paper but no In the end Prussia ate Germany
  - throw-the-towel 3mo ago
    But a much older culture.
    - IncreasePosts 3mo ago
      There was no unified "German" culture before Germany, so it doesn't make sense to talk about a "German" culture. Is it the northern maritime German? The southern Bavarian German? The Rhinelanders? The Swabians? Swiss germans? Northern Italian germans? Austrian Germans? There was the German ethnicity, and a mosaic of Germanic languages.
      - denismenace 3mo ago
        Nonsense. Just because there was no stricly "unifed" (whatever that means) German culture does not mean that German culture does not exist. There is clearly a shared core of culture and ethnicity to all the listed peoples. But again you can continue with trying to make it seem as if everything is equal to everything else. I'll leave you with this little thought experiment. If we put a northen German, a Swiss German and a Spaniard in a room, how long will it take for the two germans to realize they have more in common with each other than the spaniard?
bossyTeacher 3mo ago
Relative to South America, Germany is going to feel very unfriendly. I think it's a matter of perspective. Also, countries that are very homogeneous (ie everyone looks the same) are probably going to have some ethnic ideas built in their idea of citizenship so your citizenship will be question if you don't look like them or behave like them. South America and Germany are very different regions culturally sitting at opposite ends of most cultural traits so her experience isn't surprising.
arka2147483647 3mo ago
There is deep history here. For most of the past centuries, most Europe was from where you immigrated FROM, not where you immigrated TO. There just is not the kind of immigration culture as in America. Some people don’t even have a notion why anyone would want to come to Europe.
Barrin92 3mo ago
>because nobody made her feel like one I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience. However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing. It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.
- backwardsponcho 3mo ago
  You hit the nail in the head. Those who say stuff like "nobody makes me feel integrated" would also very much struggle to befriend people in their own country if they got dropped anywhere else other than their home cities away from friends and family. Making new friends after school is hard, no matter where in the world.
chis 3mo ago
It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.
- dghlsakjg 3mo ago
  If German is an ethnicity, I don't see why the US, which is older than the German Confederation (let alone the subsequent countries that have existed since then on that same land) has a distinct culture and set of shared values, cannot be.
  - Hardwired8976 3mo ago
    Native Americans would be a ethnicity but the US was taken over my European settlers. Europe the Germanic people have existed way before , a country is not tied to the ethnicity.
    - dghlsakjg 3mo ago
      A country is not tied to ethnicity but this thread is about how German is an ethnicity. I’ve heard plenty of arguments about the German Volk as a distinct entity. The argument was pretty decisively lost according to my grandfather. Tell me, where does my Jewish German heritage fit in to Germany as an ethnicity? For some reason they didn’t feel very German when they left despite meeting all the qualifications…
      - kuschku 3mo ago
        > Tell me, where does my Jewish German heritage fit in to Germany as an ethnicity? For some reason they didn’t feel very German when they left despite meeting all the qualifications… That's a good point, and personally one of the reasons I disagree with the ethnic definition of "nation". The other reason are of course the frisian, danish, sorbian, etc and many other similar minorities that have historically lived in the region of modern Germany. I think the french definition (which defines the nation almost entirely around the language, not ethnicity or origin) is a much more interesting and useful one. Language determines who you can talk to, and what media you can read or watch.
aleph_minus_one 3mo ago
> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't. So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life. Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history. With this in mind, the advice should be obvious: This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life. What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.
- eldaisfish 3mo ago
  would you say that a swiss german and someone from Hamburg have more in common than someone from Bavaria and someone from Helsinki?
  - kuschku 3mo ago
    That's an interesting question. Personally, I'd say the north of Germany has more in common with Danish and Dutch people than with Bavarians (who in turn have more in common with the Austrians than with us).
    - FabCH 3mo ago
      It’s a super interesting example because the Swiss German in the question would also vehemently disagree that they have anything in common with the German :) I’m actually curious if the GP expects „yes“ or „no“ as an answer, because I couldn’t even say. It’s probably „yes“, but…
vlian2088 3mo ago
>she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one well, because she isn't one. had she moved to China, she wouldn't magically become Chinese.
- cmrdporcupine 3mo ago
  As much as Europeans might find the North American notion of identity and citizenship odd and ahistorical and anachronistic, the reverse is also true. The idea of "nationhood" tied to ethnicity isn't even that old on the continent. Just dates to the modern era. People in feudal Europe were not calling themselves Germans. They could barely think beyond their village or fiefdom or whatever. I don't even have to go far back in the history of Germany and the defunct states that preceded it to find a patchwork of languages and cultures all of which would only be colloquially called "German" but many of which would be in fact mutually unintelligible from a linguistic POV and often quite apart culturally too. I've also always found it more than a bit absurd that I as a second generation son of a German immigrant to Canada could -- because of blood descent -- claim a German passport and citizenship despite never having lived there. Then again with the way North America is going, if I wasn't tied down here, I'd be tempted to do that and spend my retirement there, instead.
  - vlian2088 3mo ago
    it doesn't matter whether you call them "German" or "people whose ancestors hail from the region of modern Germany". they are unique people, ethnically and culturally different even from their neighbors, let alone from those being imported from all around the world to suppress their wages and keep their rents high. it's not controversial, for example, to say that Ukrainians and Russians are different people. the intent behind equating our superficial similarities to us being "one people" is obviously malicious. likewise, it shouldn't be controversial to say that Europeans and South Americans/Asians/Africans/etc are different people. the notion that Hassan ibn Hassan from Mogadishu magically becomes a German if he moves to Frankfurt is as absurd as the notion that Hans Hanssen from Frankfurt would magically become a Somali if he moved to Mogadishu.
lazyant 3mo ago
My prejudice is that there are only a few countries in the world (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, possibly others I don't have experience with) where coming as an immigrant they take you in and you can be considered from that country.
kdheiwns 3mo ago
As an American, to me it's always felt like non-white Americans are never really accepted as "full" Americans by people as a whole. If a German guy moves to America and gets citizenship, he might be known as that German American guy, sure. But if he has kids, they'll just be called American. Over 100 years ago, some Chinese people moved to America. Those people had kids. Those kids had kids. Those kids had kids. Some of those kids also had kids. But what are those 5th or 6th generation Americans called? Asian Americans or even Chinese Americans, even if they've never been outside of the US and nobody in their family several generations up the line has either. And people who were forcefully brought to America 300 years ago still have their descendants being called "African American" instead of simply "American." I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".
- mrtksn 3mo ago
  I think the test for being accepted is when you screw up. For example, if you parked wrongly do you become “that foreigner/ethnic guy” or do you remain “one of our idiots”.
nikanj 3mo ago
How is your English compared to her German?

by malshe 3mo ago

joe_mamba 3mo ago

As someone who lived in the US briefly, I found Americans are just a lot more hospitable to foreigners, than Germans and most other Europeans in general. Probably because there's no such thing as an US-American ethnicity, but there definitely is at least one or more unique and very distinct ethnicities and cultures for every European country, and simply getting the passport as a foreign adult, does not also buy you into those clubs, you just got a piece of paper, not the culture and belonging the locals with ancestry there have. It's not something you can learn as an adult living in a big international city with lots of expats and international companies, it's something you get from growing up there surrounded by that culture and ethnic ingroup created by your ancestors. The equivalent for americans would probably be those whose ancestors were there before the civil war but that's a smaller % of the population today vs the more recent immigrants compared to Europe. Sure, there's as much immigration to Europe as well, per-capita as in the US, but a lot of it is undesired and the native Europeans have various cultural and bureaucratic glass ceilings to keep working class immigrants in the least desirable jobs, while they kept the more desirable governmental, academic and managerial jobs. Not knocking them for it, they're free to run their societies the way they see fit, but then they also shouldn't be surprised when, unlike in the US, the second or third generation migrants growing up in the ghettos who are full citizens now, decide to blow themselves up, shoot up a cafe or drive a truck through a crowd, because of how unaccepted and held down they feel by the native European society. The issue I see seems to be on how US and EU treat integration of migrants. In the US you ge equal opportunities and freedom to do whatever you want as long as you don't hurt anyone, while in the EU you get endless strict rules and welfare which not only don't compensate the glass ceilings and isolation, it also pisses off the locals to see their high taxes going to foreigners who don't integrate. The other reason might be that migration to the US is more from Canada and latin america which is culturally similar to the US, while EU migration is mostly from africa and middle east which are very different culturally.

bellowsgulch 3mo ago
The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe, with the exception of maybe Japan, who is xenophobic enough that you wouldn't want to try to become Japanese anyway. Canada, England, France, and the US, to name a few, seem to have done it wrong considering how immigration is a constant complaint and weaponized topic in their politics, but likewise Japan has too, just on the other end of the spectrum. I'm unsure who does it well.
- stickfigure 3mo ago
  Immigration is a hot topic in every society. You can hear people in Arizona kvetching about the Californians that move there.
- BeetleB 3mo ago
  > The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe I can't speak for the other countries, but in the US it's almost entirely an agenda being pushed. When I hear people say this, it's not because of any experience they've had, but just a repetition of talking points. Virtually none of them had a negative story to tell. I've heard far, far worse stories in some European countries.
  - bellowsgulch 3mo ago
    There are notable issues in the Southwest in the United States where people don't speak any English at all, and speak only Spanish, suggesting they are legal citizens born of illegal immigrants, or are still illegal immigrants themselves.
    - BeetleB 3mo ago
      I don't doubt they speak only Spanish, but this is the part I contest: > There are notable issues What are the issues? Which (English speaking) Americans have been so negatively impacted because of this, and how? I don't live in the Southwest, but we have them here as well. They speak little/no English. Yet both they and the people around them live just fine.

tough 3mo ago

The oldest american "citizens" are merely 250yo. Like the country. My point being, everyone in America is more or less an "immigrant" if you go back enough on their family tree, but the Native Americans.

panick21_ 3mo ago
Germany is a much newer country.
- raverbashing 3mo ago
  Yes on paper but no In the end Prussia ate Germany
- throw-the-towel 3mo ago
  But a much older culture.
  - IncreasePosts 3mo ago
    There was no unified "German" culture before Germany, so it doesn't make sense to talk about a "German" culture. Is it the northern maritime German? The southern Bavarian German? The Rhinelanders? The Swabians? Swiss germans? Northern Italian germans? Austrian Germans? There was the German ethnicity, and a mosaic of Germanic languages.
    - denismenace 3mo ago
      Nonsense. Just because there was no stricly "unifed" (whatever that means) German culture does not mean that German culture does not exist. There is clearly a shared core of culture and ethnicity to all the listed peoples. But again you can continue with trying to make it seem as if everything is equal to everything else. I'll leave you with this little thought experiment. If we put a northen German, a Swiss German and a Spaniard in a room, how long will it take for the two germans to realize they have more in common with each other than the spaniard?

bossyTeacher 3mo ago

Relative to South America, Germany is going to feel very unfriendly. I think it's a matter of perspective. Also, countries that are very homogeneous (ie everyone looks the same) are probably going to have some ethnic ideas built in their idea of citizenship so your citizenship will be question if you don't look like them or behave like them. South America and Germany are very different regions culturally sitting at opposite ends of most cultural traits so her experience isn't surprising.

arka2147483647 3mo ago

There is deep history here. For most of the past centuries, most Europe was from where you immigrated FROM, not where you immigrated TO. There just is not the kind of immigration culture as in America. Some people don’t even have a notion why anyone would want to come to Europe.

Barrin92 3mo ago

>because nobody made her feel like one I'm German. Very rarely is the issue that people will in principle treat her as foreign, there's sometimes still the stereotype that you "can never be German" but in most places in the country that's not my experience. However what is important is that you need to elbow your way in. There's a saying "nur sprechenden Menschen kann geholfen werden*. (only people who speak up can be helped). If you think someone's gonna carry you in that's not gonna happen. That's the biggest mistake I see immigrants make. It's a private and personal culture but people respect someone from the outside who shows initiative, and nobody is easily offended by someone being assertive, that's seen as a good thing. It's not the kind of place where you can just wait and people will read what you want off your face. Doesn't even work for Germans, if you feel left out, you'll have to stand up and say you want to be in.

backwardsponcho 3mo ago
You hit the nail in the head. Those who say stuff like "nobody makes me feel integrated" would also very much struggle to befriend people in their own country if they got dropped anywhere else other than their home cities away from friends and family. Making new friends after school is hard, no matter where in the world.

chis 3mo ago

It is an interesting divide. "German" is both an ethnicity and a citizenship, and it's possible to become one but not the other. "American" on the other hand is purely a citizenship, and so it is possible to become an American after immigrating.

dghlsakjg 3mo ago
If German is an ethnicity, I don't see why the US, which is older than the German Confederation (let alone the subsequent countries that have existed since then on that same land) has a distinct culture and set of shared values, cannot be.
- Hardwired8976 3mo ago
  Native Americans would be a ethnicity but the US was taken over my European settlers. Europe the Germanic people have existed way before , a country is not tied to the ethnicity.
  - dghlsakjg 3mo ago
    A country is not tied to ethnicity but this thread is about how German is an ethnicity. I’ve heard plenty of arguments about the German Volk as a distinct entity. The argument was pretty decisively lost according to my grandfather. Tell me, where does my Jewish German heritage fit in to Germany as an ethnicity? For some reason they didn’t feel very German when they left despite meeting all the qualifications…
    - kuschku 3mo ago
      > Tell me, where does my Jewish German heritage fit in to Germany as an ethnicity? For some reason they didn’t feel very German when they left despite meeting all the qualifications… That's a good point, and personally one of the reasons I disagree with the ethnic definition of "nation". The other reason are of course the frisian, danish, sorbian, etc and many other similar minorities that have historically lived in the region of modern Germany. I think the french definition (which defines the nation almost entirely around the language, not ethnicity or origin) is a much more interesting and useful one. Language determines who you can talk to, and what media you can read or watch.

aleph_minus_one 3mo ago

> she said she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one As a native German, I actually have difficulties with concepts like "identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]" or "naturalization". I really would say these are concepts that US-Americans (or people who were "shaped" by US mentality) seem to deeply care about, but Germans very typically don't. So, my opinion/advice is: she should simply abandon such concepts ("identifying as [nationality]", "feeling like [nationality]", "naturalization") that, as a native German, are simply far away from the mentality that I observe in daily life. Don't forget that a unified Germany was a concept that only involved in the 19th century, so "Germany" is more of a somewhat "synthetic" unification of various historical, and very different, federal states where the unifying element is rather what is now considered to be a shared language, ethicity, culture and history. With this in mind, the advice should be obvious: This woman should concentrate on getting really good in German, and learn about the more than 1000 years of (what is now German) culture and history, and additionally learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life. What she should not do, is caring about what "identifying as" or "feeling like a" German means - she should put this out of her mind, since modern Germany is a very synthetic unification of what were historically very different sovereign nations that share what is now considered to be a common language, ethicity, culture and history.

eldaisfish 3mo ago
would you say that a swiss german and someone from Hamburg have more in common than someone from Bavaria and someone from Helsinki?
- kuschku 3mo ago
  That's an interesting question. Personally, I'd say the north of Germany has more in common with Danish and Dutch people than with Bavarians (who in turn have more in common with the Austrians than with us).
  - FabCH 3mo ago
    It’s a super interesting example because the Swiss German in the question would also vehemently disagree that they have anything in common with the German :) I’m actually curious if the GP expects „yes“ or „no“ as an answer, because I couldn’t even say. It’s probably „yes“, but…

vlian2088 3mo ago

>she can't identify as a German because nobody made her feel like one well, because she isn't one. had she moved to China, she wouldn't magically become Chinese.

cmrdporcupine 3mo ago
As much as Europeans might find the North American notion of identity and citizenship odd and ahistorical and anachronistic, the reverse is also true. The idea of "nationhood" tied to ethnicity isn't even that old on the continent. Just dates to the modern era. People in feudal Europe were not calling themselves Germans. They could barely think beyond their village or fiefdom or whatever. I don't even have to go far back in the history of Germany and the defunct states that preceded it to find a patchwork of languages and cultures all of which would only be colloquially called "German" but many of which would be in fact mutually unintelligible from a linguistic POV and often quite apart culturally too. I've also always found it more than a bit absurd that I as a second generation son of a German immigrant to Canada could -- because of blood descent -- claim a German passport and citizenship despite never having lived there. Then again with the way North America is going, if I wasn't tied down here, I'd be tempted to do that and spend my retirement there, instead.
- vlian2088 3mo ago
  it doesn't matter whether you call them "German" or "people whose ancestors hail from the region of modern Germany". they are unique people, ethnically and culturally different even from their neighbors, let alone from those being imported from all around the world to suppress their wages and keep their rents high. it's not controversial, for example, to say that Ukrainians and Russians are different people. the intent behind equating our superficial similarities to us being "one people" is obviously malicious. likewise, it shouldn't be controversial to say that Europeans and South Americans/Asians/Africans/etc are different people. the notion that Hassan ibn Hassan from Mogadishu magically becomes a German if he moves to Frankfurt is as absurd as the notion that Hans Hanssen from Frankfurt would magically become a Somali if he moved to Mogadishu.

lazyant 3mo ago

My prejudice is that there are only a few countries in the world (US, Canada, Australia, Mexico, possibly others I don't have experience with) where coming as an immigrant they take you in and you can be considered from that country.

kdheiwns 3mo ago

As an American, to me it's always felt like non-white Americans are never really accepted as "full" Americans by people as a whole. If a German guy moves to America and gets citizenship, he might be known as that German American guy, sure. But if he has kids, they'll just be called American. Over 100 years ago, some Chinese people moved to America. Those people had kids. Those kids had kids. Those kids had kids. Some of those kids also had kids. But what are those 5th or 6th generation Americans called? Asian Americans or even Chinese Americans, even if they've never been outside of the US and nobody in their family several generations up the line has either. And people who were forcefully brought to America 300 years ago still have their descendants being called "African American" instead of simply "American." I say this as someone who myself emigrated from America. Nobody calls me "that American guy." I'm just "that guy".

mrtksn 3mo ago
I think the test for being accepted is when you screw up. For example, if you parked wrongly do you become “that foreigner/ethnic guy” or do you remain “one of our idiots”.

nikanj 3mo ago

How is your English compared to her German?