Project Proposal- Minority experience in Berlin

Background: Our group’s theme is the minority experience in Germany where we will focus on the Vietnamese, Turkish, and Berlin community. Our group was able to settle on the main theme of our project after discussing our interest in different German immigration policies, minorities and their interactions with the German people, and the impact of nationalism. This topic will help others to further understand the social structure of Germany as well as investigating the impact of Germany’s immigration policies on minority communities.

Trang Le
The Vietnamese Community:
I became interested in this topic while researching about the different minority groups living in Berlin. At first, it was a struggle to narrow down the topic since I was curious about all types of minorities. I was researching based on the question “what it means to be a Berliner”? I was also thinking about the media’s depictions of minorities. These ideas did not connect well with the ideas from the other members of my group. However, I was able to discover information about the Vietnamese community living in Berlin during my search. I gathered a lot of interesting stories and news about the challenges that the Vietnamese went through while living in East and West Berlin. I became curious about the Vietnamese people’s experience in Berlin after the fall of the wall and most importantly their current lifestyle. Their assimilation into the German culture is the most intriguing. I believe that it is relevant to learn about the different cultures that exist in Germany and how they were affected by Cold War ideologies as well as different government policies.

Anna Lee
Berlin:
I am interested in how Berliner’s view immigrants living within their city’s boundaries. By investigating immigration policies and Berlin attitudes towards immigrants, I hope to learn something about German nationalism. I became interested in German nationalism when Misha talked of how Germany might be the first country to successfully accept a supranational identity. In this day and age, where the term “global citizen” is bandied about more frequently due to rapid globalization, can we really shed our national identities as easily as it is implied when one states that he or she is a “global citizen?”

Trang Le
Question: "What are the different challenges that the Vietnamese people (East and West) face living in Germany (from the fall of the wall to now) and how has their identity changed as they try to assimilate and whether the German culture is flexible to assimilation?

Background that helped me formed my question:
Due to the Cold War and Vietnam War, many Vietnamese either fled to West Germany or a lot were offered a work contract with the East Germans before the fall of the wall. After reunification, many of these immigrants in the East were being deported because their contract was over. Although some left, many had to stay behind because they have already built their new lives in Germany and some feared persecution from the new Vietnamese government. The West Vietnamese assimilated to the German culture well. However, the East German Vietnamese were still struggling with the aftermath of the fall of the wall. In the mid 90’s “new legislation narrowed guarantees of asylum and many East German Vietnamese were being hunted down and deported. After learning about all of this, I wanted to do more research about the experience that Vietnamese people have today in Germany and is there still a big difference between those in the east and those in the west. I want to explore different places in Berlin and observe the differences in lifestyle, beliefs, and cultural practices between the two Vietnamese groups. In the New York Times article called The Vietnamese in Germany: No Jobs, No Country, Alan Cowell discussed the experience the Vietnamese people had living illegally in East Germany and their deportation by the German government. He said “some of them gave up everything in Vietnam to come here. Here, they have jobs, houses, children at school. They will do everything they can to stay in Germany. In their own land, they are strangers." This quote made me curious about the psychological experience of living in Germany, with all of its history with Nazism and Communism. I wonder how the Vietnamese people in East who came from North Vietnam feel about the fall of the Berlin wall and ultimately communism. I want to learn more about their perspective as well as those in West Germany.
As I dive into my research I will keep the following quote by Michael Smith and John Eade in mind,
“citizenship is not only formal legal status, but also a form of belonging that requires immediate aural and visual recognition. Even if becoming German is not possible, being in Germany generates certain types of performances that become visible through the body, language, and bodily practices. It is through these performances, through the body, that one begins to see links between citizenship as an official legal status and as everyday practice.”

Cultural sensitivity: I will try to avoid biases when I interview people and ask them questions about their beliefs and values. I will be subjective when speaking with the different Vietnamese and German people. Although I have grown up in Vietnam and have had the minority experience in America, I understand that the Vietnamese people in Germany will have a much different experience than my own. I will be sensitive to their perspective. In addition, also as foreigner in Germany, I will learn about the different cultural differences in order to make be comfortable when interviewing people in Germany.

Daily Schedule:
I plan to go to the different Vietnamese Restaurants and shops in Berlin and talk to the restaurant owners as well as the customers. I will also explore small towns outside of Berlin where there might a large community of Vietnamese people. I will take a lot of pictures of the places I visit and compare the differences both between East and West as well as Berlin and the rest of Germany. I would also like to visit the Vietnamese Embassy in Berlin and perhaps gain some knowledge about the different immigration policies and governmental programs for minorities. I will compile a set of questions I want to ask the people I interview and keep log of the answers in a notebook.

References:

Cowell, Alan. "The Vietnamese in Germany: No Jobs, No Country." The New York Times 13 Oct. 1995. 10 June 2009 <http://www.nytimes.com/1995/10/13/world/the-vietnamese-in-germany-no-jobs-no-country.html?sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all>.

Smith, Michael P., and John Eade. "Cities, Migrations, and Identities, Transnational Ties." Google Books. 10 June 2009 <http://books.google.com/books?id=Djgu9hWumXwC&pg=PA135&lpg=PA135&dq=vietnamese+people+in+Berlin+Germany&source=bl&ots=SezF1Pnxho&sig=m90ehcJGcZyVPI8NCifXWrlEkEQ&hl=en&ei=z58kSp79G5C-NI7NqbUF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#PPA137,M1>.

"Vietnamese people in Germany." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 30 Mar 2009, 19:36 UTC. 30 Mar 2009 <http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Vietnamese_people_in_Germany&oldid=280710407>.

Anna Lee
Question:
Why is Germany against immigration, indicative in their immigration policies of “tolerance” which acknowledges their presence but nothing more, yet Germans pride in their sensitivity towards nationalism, almost to the point where it is implied that Germans embrace their supranational identity (EU) more so than their German national identity?

Germany has been called the “reluctant land of immigration,” unable to form integrative policies for their immigrants as well as continuously rejecting EU proposal’s for a common immigration policy (Dettke, 2001). Furthermore, their current immigration policies are called policies of “tolerance” where immigrant minority communities are recognized but no integrative policies are implemented. Therefore, immigrant communities grow as little enclaves within Germany, separate little worlds of their own, as German policies make it harder for immigrants to find jobs. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants are documented in Germany but no legal status is given to them, thus they are in a state of limbo even as they have been living in Germany for years. The policies of tolerance, as they make it harder for immigrants to find jobs, force them to rely on welfare. This has helped spur the mentality within German society that immigrants are lazy and are only taking German taxpayer money when in fact, many of these immigrants have no choice but to rely on welfare due to the restrictions that bar immigrants entrance to the German job market (Henninger, 2007). With the world becoming an increasingly globalized place, states must face the massive influx of foreign bodies as it becomes easier and easier to cross boundaries. The confrontation between state citizens and foreign bodies such as immigrants within Germany, say something significant about German nationalism and whether or not a German national identity is still strong and kicking.
Due to Germany’s history of terror and devastation (WWI, WWII, the Cold War, and the Berlin Wall), there is a notion that Germans are extremely sensitive to nationalism. Supposedly, Germans do not favor flashes of patriotic colors or waving of the German flag as Americans do, unless it is at soccer games (Misha’s guest lecture). If Germany is leaning towards embracing a supranational identity while shedding their national identity behind, then what accounts for the reluctance to accept immigrants and embrace them if German nationalism only shows its face at soccer games? Other traces of German nationalism that have come to my attention is with the recent economic crisis, Germany has been having difficulty accepting economic policies that will help out their fellow EU countries. Unwilling to spend German money on “other” country’s problems, is this kind of attitude representative of a country who supposedly embraces their supranational identity than their national identity?
Hopefully during my stay in Berlin, I will be able to investigate this question within Berlin and see if Berlin has a more accepting attitude of foreigners especially with such a large Turkish population within their city’s borders.

Cultural Sensitivity: As I do interviews I will be sensitive towards my interviewees and be aware of where they come from and their background. I will be courteous at all times and try my best to not let my intellectual curiosity overstep my bounds. With the help of Trang and Joe, hopefully I can interview both the Turkish and the Vietnamese without being insensitive towards cultural norms.

Daily Schedule:
I plan to visit immigrant communities within Berlin, tagalong with Joe and Trang, as they visit their places, in order to ask questions of my own. I also want to go to museums that showcase German history and ask questions about German nationalism among the people there. I will also be going to soccer games or other sporting events if I can in order to see how much Germans love their soccer! This is a tentative schedule, more like a summary of where I want to go. Hopefully I can solidify my plans in order to carry out my research project soon.

References:

Strizky, Johannes Von, (2009). Germany’s Immigration Policy: From Refusal to Reluctance. 10 June 2009 http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_eng/Content?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/Elcano_in/Zonas_in/ARI93-2009

Henninger Max, (2007). Germany Takes a New Look at Immigrants. 10 June 2009< http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,471662,00.html>

Dettke, Dieter (2001). Germany’s New Immigration Policy. 10 June 2009, Retrieved from Google Documents.< www.fesdc.org>

Response to the Edge of Heaven

The thing I found most interesting about this film is the relationships between parents and their children. When Ali said that he had to raise Nejat alone and that Yeter sent all of her money t her daughter to be used for education, I was very touched. Perhaps I find human relationships fascinating. Some films really explore these ideas well. This film reminded me of Spanglish in a sense. It involves people who are raise in different cultures and must struggle to balance their world with their parent's world. I am not a parent so I do can not completely understand the depth of a mother's or father's love for their children, but from this film, I was exposed to such passionate ideas of love. It was a sad momement when Nejat said that he does not associate with murderers when referring to his father. Although it is justifiable on his part to have some resentment towards his father for committing such a horrible sin. Although Nejat's statement was very strong and a bit heartless, he eventually forgives his father at the end of the movie. I notice an interesting trend with forgiveness in this movie. Susanne disapproved of Lotte being with Ayten. She did not want her daugher to leave and go to Turkey. Susanne went as far as cutting Lotte off financially. However, eventually Susanne's motherly instincts kicks in and she became very worried about her daughter. In her quest to discovering Lotte's whereabouts, she is hit with the terrrible news that Lotte had died. This was a tragic moment, but it helped Susanne realized that she made a mistake by not supporting her daughter. She was able to forgive both her daugher and Ayten. Forgiveness was a powerful theme in this movie and I believe that it relates very well to the Turkish and German experience. There have been many conflicts, wars, discrimination that occured in Germany, but people have always been able to move past these things beacuse of forgiveness. It is not an easy aspect of progress, but it can make quite an impact.

Istanbul's choice

As I was reading Istanbul’s Choice by Asu Aksoy, I am reminded of a conversation I had with my cousin. She was telling me about her experience studying abroad in Turkey. In short, she had a great time there. She especially loved Istanbul. I guess I was a somewhat surprised because I had always thought of Turkey as an “old country” with very conservative people. Fun would not be the first word that comes to my mind if I had to describe Turkey. When I saw pictures of my cousin and her friends at a night-club and swimming in their bikini’s, I was really confused. My cousin finally explained that Turkey is actually quite liberal and resembles the western world. Thus, I was less surprise when Aksoy stated, “Istanbul is regarded as one of the most dynamic cities in the world, open to change and indeed changing fast. It amazes how much globalization has affected our world. I guess it is not hard to imagine that this force could affect major changes in a country. The article said that after WWII around the time before 1980’s, Turkey had a policy of Import Substitution Modality. This policy promoted local trading, and discouraged imports from the industrialized markets. In other words, Turkey was resistant to globalization. However, like many other policies of isolationism, this economic one soon died. It was replaced with progressing new markets, consumerism and industry. Of course, with this follows a city with more openness to new cultures. “neoliberalism brings together very different constituencies with diverse lifestyles, values, beliefs and practices”. I thought that this article brought up an interesting, but ironic trend in globalization. Although globalization promotes many developing countries to become more open and encourages diversity. At the same time, the exchange of products has caused the people in many of these countries to become more homogenized. Shawn showed us this effect with his pop-out book which showed men in Paris, shanghai, and New York wearing similar outfits. It was hard to distinguish the people between these three cities.

Found my topic!!! Super Duper excited :D

Last night I was slaving away at my chemistry homework in Odegard library on the third floor (quiet floor). I was very frustrated with a problem involving molar fractions, vapor pressures of pentane and hexane, density of these gases, and so on with the science train. My eyes were so dried it felt like my contacts were a heavy sheet of hot sand. I finally gave up on the chemistry problem and started researching my topic for Berlin. I was still unsure on my specific area of interest within my top two topics. So, Google came to my rescue like always. I typed in Berlin Media and the first thing that pops up on the search was Google maps listing places in Berlin with the word “media” in it. Epic fail. However, I was still able to find information about the newspapers, news channels, libraries, and publications. I could already tell that all of this information was leading me nowhere far. Thus, I started searching fore more details on minority population in Germany. I was looking at charts and statistics on different nationalities residing in Berlin. As my eyes are scanning over the various population numbers and nationality labels, I was not expecting a big surprise. I saw Turkey listed with the most citizens and then Poland, Serbia, Russia , etc. But then something caught my eye, the data listed “Vietnam (12,165). Then I looked further to see if these statistics were all that out of the ordinary. What I found was very striking, aside from Thailand, which has the smallest population (5,878) living in Berlin, Vietnam was the only Asian country listed. This was very intriguing to me and so my Googling mode switched into high gear. It was amazing how much information I found about the Vietnamese experience in Berlin. I was very excited because not only does it relate to me personally, but I learned so many new history about my country and its people.
Here is some of the information that found:
Towards the end of the Vietnam War, there were myriads of Vietnamese refugees that had escaped to West Germany. They were called the “boat people”. The German government aided these people socially and economically. Soon, they were able to assimilate and adopt the German culture and lifestyle. Even more is that most of children of these Vietnamese refugees grew up only knowing German and lost most of their links to their Vietnamese culture. Additionally, East Germany at this time also invited lot of North Vietnamese people to come to Berlin to study and be trained in industrial programs. They had 5-year contracts with the East German government who mainly just wanted to do this in order to increase labor force.
The most interesting aspects about these two different groups of Vietnamese immigrants in Germany is that they were indeed separated by the social and political wall in their homeland, but even after they have escaped, they are confronted by a new dividing line; physically it is the Berlin wall, but figuratively it is the same wall that they had left behind in Vietnam.
This quote is referring to the East German Vietnamese workers. “In terms of their characteristics and relations to mainstream society, they were almost the exact opposite of the boat people: they were the elite of their country of origin, rather than refugees from it, and they knew that they would leave Germany, so put forth little effort towards integrating into East German society or learning the local language”.
I am very glad I came across this one small statistical fact on Germany’s minority population, which led me to discover so much more information about my home country. I am excited to find out more about the Vietnamese’s people’s experience now and before the fall of the wall. From what I have read, there is still tension between the Vietnamese people living in the East and the ones in the West. This seems to the shared sentiments for Berliners as a whole. I am curious about the effects that the Berlin wall has on the people surrounding it and not only that, but the social structures that were formed.
Ultimately, I am excited to be learning more about Berlin as a city of history, struggles, and conflict, but it will allow me to discover my own culture and how it was affected so much by a single philosophy “communism”.

Germany's Cultural diplomacy

As I was searching for recent events and news in Berlin, Germany, I came across an article that relates well with our discussion on nationalism. Misha brought up this interesting topic and explained that much of the German nationalism has started to disappear. However, this article shows that some form of nationalism is good and the German government is still supporting it. The article discussed the recent expansion of Germany’s cultural diplomacy. They are using this form of diplomacy abroad. The article in particular talked about different institutes around the world that has showcase German academic achievements in science and engineering and also the arts. Additionally, the German government also funds a lot of schools in other nations to teach the German language courses. The budget for cultural diplomacy has increased by 30%, which means there is probably a lot of support for this from the German people. This is very intriguing to me because I perceive cultural diplomacy as a form of nationalism. In the word of Germany’s Foreign Minister, “cultural diplomacy offered new ways to gain influence in a world of cultural and religious conflicts”. Germany is providing a means for the rest of the world to learn about its culture, language, and achievements. This is an indication that Germany is still proud of its country and history and wants to spread these sentiments to other nations.

Here is the link to the article: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/265593,germany-expands-cultural-diplomacy-with-new-showcases.html

Topics to research in Berlin

The media has certainly affected all of our lives at some point or the other. Each day we are bombarded with all sorts of information from newspapers, television, radios, magazines, books, and the Internet. I am sure all of us have noticed that a lot of times we are given contradictory information. I know that I have had many instances where a lot of the things I have learned or observed throughout my life do not match up with what I read or see on TV. The role of the media is indeed a significant one. It has a huge impact in our lives. For Berlin, I am very much interested in analyzing the media’s influence on both East and West Berliners. How was the wall depicted in newspaper and on T.V for the German people? How much control does the government have over the information released. If there was propaganda, how was it used? Did the average family listen to the radio and keep up with the news? How did the journalists depict the wall in? What kind of euphemisms was used? If this were the alter, the objects I would put in this alter would be a pen, paper, dictionary, camera, photos, telephone, remote control, television set.
Another topic I was interested in for Berlin is learning more about immigrants such as the large Turkish community that resides in Germany. After the chaos of World War II, were there a lot of people from other minority groups living in Berlin? I would like to learn about their experiences. I know that we talk about Berliners and we separate those living in the east and those in the west. I keep hearing about vast differences between the two groups but I am curious about what defines a “Berliner”. Is someone born and raised in the city of Berlin and whose ancestors was German? Were there Asians, Middle Eastern, Americans, and other ethnicities that also spent their whole lives in Germany and witnessed the putting up and taking down of the Berlin Wall? Does their experience differ from those who are German? Besides the Wall, what other hardships did they go through and what helped them survive it all? I would put in this alter a pair of old shoes, clothing, books, family photos, letters, passports, birth certificates, and family tree.

The end of History

When I saw the title, The end of history, the first thought that came to my mind was “Is this possible”? Of course I have encountered the phrase, “History never repeats itself” many times, but I have never thought about history being nonexistent at some point. The end is such a permanent thing that it’s hard for me to believe that it could happen to history. Then again, I had no idea what Fukuyama was referring to with this title until I started reading his essay. That is when I realized that indeed there could be an end to history. Fukuyama was using history in terms of ideologies of the past that is slowly disappearing in our society today. The essay discussed Marx and Hegel’s theories on communism. I sensed that Fukuyama was promoting democracy and hinted that authoritarian and dictatorship states will not last long. However, I do not necessarily agree that democracy will win out and there will be an ultimate end to these other ideologies. I believe that some governmental systems cannot be altered because they are so deeply ingrained in a nation’s culture. For example, although the people in Great Britain share similar freedoms and quality of living as Americans, their government is set up differently. They still have their traditional monarchy system with the royal family still holding power of the country. This set up is most likely not going to change in time in the near future. Likewise, although the fall of the Berlin wall represented the fall of communism, it only did so for the Soviet Union. Communism is still very dominant in China and Vietnam. Perhaps the philosophies of Marx and Hegel have somewhat “ended” because communism today is not exactly like the communism several decades ago. It is like what Shawn had described about the statue of Mao Zedong in China. There were advertisements postings all around his statue. Of course this was not the communistic China that Mao had pictured. Certainly, governments and ideologies will evolve to ensure survival, but to have an end them seems to unrealistic.