My ex was like that; 3rd generation, no German pass.
Her grandad worked the factories, her mum was born and grew up in the workhouses next to the factories (apparently they’d hand him lunch through the wall), and her mum had no formal education other than sunday school.
Fiercely proud of their heritage and shunned/mocked by previous generations of Germans, they didn’t see the need to get German citizenship. Even my Ex.
When I saw the way things were going in Germany, I begged her to get her German passport before it was too late. I hope she did.
It’s an incredibly sensitive topic for both ethnic Germans and descendants of Gastarbeiter (as well as for people who are both, obviously), and I’m an autistic foreigner, so I’m trying to be delicate, but I might be missing the mark.
It seems to me that it created a group of people treated as second-class who weren’t given the tools to do well in the German education system, and systemic discrimination solidified that. I hear complaints from (some, racist) Germans that immigrants haven’t integrated, but how could they (obviously there are individuals who integrate under those circumstances, but that’s not going to work with a wave of immigrants from the same country- they’ll just form cultural enclaves, because they won’t get community support otherwise)?
For more recent immigrants, like my coworker from Syria, who’s been in Germany for nine years as a refugee, the choice is between staying a refugee (the German government could at any time say that Syria is safe again and send him back with a few days’ notice) and applying for residency outside of his claim for asylum, thereby giving up his right to asylum (so if they say no, he’d also have to go back with a few days’ notice). His wife and their daughter are in the same position. How on earth can anyone expect him not to teach his daughter Arabic? She might at any point have to move to Syria.
My ex was like that; 3rd generation, no German pass.
Her grandad worked the factories, her mum was born and grew up in the workhouses next to the factories (apparently they’d hand him lunch through the wall), and her mum had no formal education other than sunday school.
Fiercely proud of their heritage and shunned/mocked by previous generations of Germans, they didn’t see the need to get German citizenship. Even my Ex.
When I saw the way things were going in Germany, I begged her to get her German passport before it was too late. I hope she did.
It’s an incredibly sensitive topic for both ethnic Germans and descendants of Gastarbeiter (as well as for people who are both, obviously), and I’m an autistic foreigner, so I’m trying to be delicate, but I might be missing the mark.
It seems to me that it created a group of people treated as second-class who weren’t given the tools to do well in the German education system, and systemic discrimination solidified that. I hear complaints from (some, racist) Germans that immigrants haven’t integrated, but how could they (obviously there are individuals who integrate under those circumstances, but that’s not going to work with a wave of immigrants from the same country- they’ll just form cultural enclaves, because they won’t get community support otherwise)?
For more recent immigrants, like my coworker from Syria, who’s been in Germany for nine years as a refugee, the choice is between staying a refugee (the German government could at any time say that Syria is safe again and send him back with a few days’ notice) and applying for residency outside of his claim for asylum, thereby giving up his right to asylum (so if they say no, he’d also have to go back with a few days’ notice). His wife and their daughter are in the same position. How on earth can anyone expect him not to teach his daughter Arabic? She might at any point have to move to Syria.