Brot-Moral

Light was thick and full of potential, remember

that night in the years of 8pm curfew

when summers were long 

and wet

under sheets, waiting for morning, remember

these things.

Light hit my adult room with its adult worry 

today

I wished you were here to

whisper a story into my curled 

back

and let the day end

Beyond Berlin: London and other transplants

This past week, I visited my good friend D in London who, like me, is an American transplant*. We have similar trajectories and political ponderings, though his roots lie far from mine in the American Deep South (here’s a beautiful piece he wrote about his home in Mississippi). D now lives in East London, where the corner store owner greets you in an upbeat banter and the sign to a ‘Carolina…

World Cup Fever: How malleable is German identity?

In 2006 Germany hosted the World Cup; it also organized a social-marketing campaign for the sole purpose of revamping and re-solidifying patriotism. These things, i.e. national pride, rarely happen organically, particularly for countries with strong regional identities and histories of division. The goal of the campaign: the encouragement of colors-wearing, flag-toting, ‘Schland’-cheering…

Review: Berlin needs you (but why?)

©Barbara Dietl

Why is immigration important? The debate takes many angles. There’s the demographic argument, that developed countries with low birth rates and aging populations need bodies to maintain the replacement rate. There’s the globalization take, that the movement of people in all forms is increasingly inevitable and contributes to global competitiveness and 21st century skills. The moral…

Interview: the Klezmer Gentiles

An interview is never one-sided – in fact, it is a constructive conversation. I am as much a part of this piece and the artist who answered my questions. Without the contributions of the other, individual statements would hold little significance. So thanks, Soli, for letting me share our conversation. 

International artists in Berlin are one category of newcomers who, although shaping the…

Review: Seeing Berlin Through The Homeless

In Berlin they are especially visible on the Bahn. They wait for the subway doors to close before they address the car with a rehearsed speech. Excuse the interruption, I am one of Berlin’s annoying homeless people… it usually begins, as they peddle newspapers and scan the crowd for an outstretched hand holding change or food. The majority of us keep our hands tucked away or firmly gripping our…

Rave: the California Breakfast Slam Effect

The relationship between food and identity, or simply food and a sense of belonging, is well-known to those of us who have sought out Hass avocados or Toll House chocolate chips (often in vain) in places beyond the United States. For me, there is something ultimately gratifying, even safe, about opening that jar of Adam’s peanut butter or letting the smell of buttermilk biscuits fill my Berlin…

On April 2, the new Berlin Institute for Empirical Research on Integration and Migration (BIM) was launched. Certainly not the first institute of its kind in Germany, Berlin’s Humboldt University, the Hertie Foundation, the Federal Employment Agency, and the German Football Association held a press conferenceto frame this initiative as new and needed. The reason: the field  - what is really known…

Interview: The Taxi Driver

Had I hopped into Orhan’s taxi en route to the airport, I likely would’ve assumed he was Turkish and left it at that. He might have asked me where I was flying to and I might have commented on the weather. He would’ve pulled my suitcase out of the trunk and wished me a good flight, and I would’ve thanked him. But instead, thankfully, I met Orhan in a very different context – our Wednesday evening…

Review: “Schwarz gemacht” and the white audience

As a student of my own history and place in this world, nothing is more difficult for me than to write about issues of privilege, white-ness, black-ness, and justice in one sitting, because there is so much that can go wrong, so many terms that can be mis-used or mis-assigned, and so many truths that cannot be conveyed in one text. I have done my best. And with all my socio-anthropological…

Interview: Three Dimensions of Integration

Immigrant integration and identity can be very personal subjects and not everyone wishes for their views and experiences to be made public. Though all the stories in this interview are true, names and cities have been changed to protect the artist’s identity, per his request.

It’s easy (and admittedly amusing) to reduce expats to stereotypes, as if we all neatly fall into one or the other…