Berlin Blog Reflections
Week 1 Reflection
This first week in Berlin has been quite engaging, to say the least. Our group has been everywhere from touring Humboldt University to experiencing the Soviet War Memorial to visiting a Gemeinschaftsschule in West Berlin. In between all these excursions, I have been sampling the greatest food I’ve ever had while abroad (in all seriousness, I don’t think I’ve ever traveled somewhere and had every single meal be exceptional).
I believe what I connected to the most was the Soviet War Memorial. I have studied World War II and the Cold War extensively, and I was always intrigued by the Soviets role as a global power with a totalitarian societal structure. We often heard about the role propaganda played in expressing the wishes of the state to remain the center of public and private life, and I now believe I only superficially understood the concept. Once I visited the memorial, I realized the overwhelming power propaganda has over an individual. The war memorial is set up to literally dwarf visitors, where the Soviet flags, Soviet soldier statue, and large stone obelisks surround and overpower the sightseers. It is an obvious plight to display the authority, victory, and ultimate power of the Soviet people, the “winners” of WWII. However, I truly felt the authority of the Soviet state when standing in the presence of the memorial. Everywhere you turned, you saw vast and, in all honesty, divine-like statues that reached toward heaven. In particular, the Soviet soldier statue carrying the German child and crushing the Swastika, you climbed stairs in order to get closer to the commemoration, but never were you on the same level as the statue- you were always looking up to it. I never felt overwhelmed when looking at the statues, but rather in a constant state of awe. And that is exactly how the Soviet State wanted people to react when they created this site.
At that moment, I felt I truly understood the power behind propaganda. I spent so many hours discussing the meaning and purpose behind Soviet and American posters and slogans in the Cold War era, I thought I could reflect on the purpose of propaganda without falling into the “trap” of its ulterior motives (build up the authority of the state it represented in the eyes of the citizen). But actually going to the Memorial, I was saying to myself how extraordinary the Soviet state was in the aftermath of WWII.
This experience showed me the power of visuals and artistic representation in presenting an issue with a message. With the War Memorial, that message was the strength of the Soviet Union, and its right to dictate Berlin as an Allies member during the war and its immense sacrifice in terms of Soviet lives. Authority and power are fundamental to the identity of the Soviet State. This ties to my research project, as I am focusing on the intersection of memorials and street art and how they represent (or do not represent) an urban identity. I wished to focus on the Berlin Wall, a piece that can be categorized as both street art and memorial. But how does the identification of the Berlin Wall, as a memorial, street art, or both, change how its message is perceived? And from this initial identification, do Berliners feel the site’s message represents their urban identity?
However, I must take into account that the Berlin Wall, in particular the East Side Gallery, consists of commissioned art pieces. On that note, while the Wall is an open air gallery, many of the controversial pieces were removed, indicating that the Wall is viewed more heavily as a memorial worth preserving than a piece of street art that attracts people to express themselves and bring to light issues in a new way. Does identifying a message as controversial make it more “street art?” In Berlin, who defines what is street art and what is not? Can something be considered street art if it is commissioned and preserved by a governing body?
Week 2 Reflection
The longer I stay in Berlin, the more I feel confused about the concept of a “Berlin identity.” One thing is for sure- to be a Berliner and to be a German is not the same thing. What I mean by this is that the identity of Berlin is so distinct from the rest of Germany, that while one can be a Berliner and therefore a German, a German is not necessarily a Berliner. Many people I have met, Germans and tourists alike, have mentioned this uniqueness of the city; it has a pulse one cannot easily nail down. One man I asked about this put it best: “Berlin is the cosmos.” I also have found it interesting that many of the people I have approached assuming they are Berliners (the rapid German gives them away) turn out to be from different areas around Germany, such as Hamburg or Frankfurt. I feel this is an indication of the globalization of Berlin. I therefore begin to define Berlin not as a “German city” but rather as a multicultural metropolis within Germany.
On a different note, I want to reflect on my time at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, as this was the event from Week 2 that impacted me the most. To be fair, I didn’t give the concentration camp visit much thought as we traveled from Berlin to Oranienburg, the town that housed the camp. But as we got closer and closer to the site, I became increasingly quiet and sick. The cold, dark drizzle that accompanied our visit certainly added to this disheartened mood. I had thought I could prepare for the events we would experience, but I began to doubt myself. Once inside Sachsenhausen, I grew queasy and lightheaded, particularly when we visited “Station Z,” the area constructed during the war to implement the systematic murder of prisoners. As our guide pointed out the crematorium, complete with about four ovens in various states of disrepair, I felt my knees give way. I was at the point of vomiting, even though I never would have expected myself to feel so affected by this site. I spent the entirety of my education learning about WWII and the Holocaust and its atrocities as a detached student. However, actually visiting the site of a concentration camp, knowing that thousands upon thousands died right where you were standing, is what made me realize the true extent of this horror. Around 11 million people died in the Holocaust, and while we can talk about this number all we want in a classroom, you don’t feel the weight of this number until you see a concentration camp for yourself.
On that note, I was quite disgusted by the other visitors at Sachsenhausen that day, the majority being teenaged German school kids. Many groups were interacting as if they were at the mall- horsing around, laughing uncontrollably, and running around to talk to their friends. This was hard for me to deal with, seeing as I had reacted so dramatically to the site and these kids were acting as if they had no idea where they were, as if they had took for granted the close proximity of this vital piece of history to their homes. I got the feeling this was not the first time they had visited a concentration camp, so in a way the reaction they had was one of boredom, of routine.
It wasn’t until later in a group discussion that I understood where this reaction came from. People from our group mentioned that at the school visit, they learned that students in Germany systematically cover WWII in their history class. In my experience, WWII and the Holocaust are taught often, as they are significant parts of history, but they make up only a section (maybe three weeks?) of a larger yearlong class focused on European or US History (as in US involvement in WWII). However, in Germany, students spend months out each year covering the causes, consequences, and legacies of WWII. In the way that this information is grilled into students’ minds, it is no wonder these school kids seemed almost disinterested in their surroundings- they covered this topic to the point of exhaustion. In no way does this excuse discount the disrespect I felt and still feel as a visitor to the camp that day, but it does shed light on how German students interact with their history. What this taught me, in terms of Berlin and German identity, is that WWII and the Holocaust are still very visible wounds. While these students seemed disconnected from the site, it may also be tied to they’re age, and simply not being old enough to understand the significance of their surroundings. I began to wonder, is the way Germany’s history is taught to its students in effect detrimental to their understanding of the nation’s past?
Week 3 Reflection
This week was a bit disorienting, as I saw my research project shift in focus to a topic I did not foresee. This all started when we went to the Gymnasium on Monday, and talked with students and teachers alike about their experiences in school, and compared it to our education system in the U.S. I found myself asking the students not about their interpretation of the Berlin Wall, which would directly relate to my research project, but how they felt about their history classes, and how they were structured. The two girls I talked too explained that they spent months learning about WWII and the Holocaust, and that they began covering these intense topics as early as 2nd grade. I was appalled, as I certainly could not see myself as a 2nd grader having the maturity to understand total war and genocide. However, the girls also mentioned that students are relatively disinterested by history curriculum, which supported my experience with the students at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was then that I began to ask myself, “How does the curriculum surrounding Reunification impact how German students identify the Berlin Wall?” I want to explore how the way a student is taught a subject impacts how they identify the subject, and consequently, how they identify themselves.
This hunch was further supported by out visit to the Junge Islam Konferenz (Young Islam Conference). At JIK, I was intrigued by the presenters personal account of going to a school in Dortmund with a large percentage of people who are “visible migrants,” a term used to distinguish minorities who receive harsher discrimination from the larger label of “migration background,” as “migration background” oversimplifies a diverse group of people who receive different treatment based off how they look. For example, the man presenting at JIK was white, blonde, and spoke perfect German, yet was from a “migration background” as his parents were not native Germans. However, his treatment as a “foreigner” would be much different from someone who was a refugee from Libya, because one looked “ethnically German” and the other did not. In any case, our presenter noted how many of his peers did not identify with the German history curriculum taught in school because many were so excluded from society to begin with. How can you identify with a society that works so hard to “other” you? In addition, many of these students did not identify themselves as a combination of their nationality and German, such as “Turkish-German” but rather as only their nationality, “Turkish.” As an American, I find this hard to grasp, as no one in the U.S. truly identifies himself or herself as anything other than “American.” Yes, you have the distinctions of “African American” and “Chinese American,” but “American” is always a part of their identity, unless they are not from America or have not lived there for an extended period of time. I found the concept of living your entire life so “othered” by the society you grew up in that you don’t identify with it so disheartening. To solidify this message, the presenters at JIK showed us a video of the German Men’s National Team at the World Cup in 2014 singing the German National Anthem. As the camera looks at each player as they sing their nation’s anthem, there is no missing that three of the players are silent. Özil, Boateng, and Khedira are the three “visible minorities” on the soccer team, while their “ethnically German” teammates recite their anthem with pride. I was shocked because I remember watching every game Germany played in the 2014 World Cup, and yet I never picked up on this fact that many players opted to not participate in singing the German national anthem. The idea of “othering” was staring me in the face, on display for the entire world, and yet I didn’t even recognize it.
This is why I am quite interested to see the results of my survey, and how students identify themselves (as German, Turkish-German, Turkish, etc.) and how they identify the Wall (as a memorial or an open-air gallery).
Reflection #4
In this blog post, I was asked to reflect back on the title of this program “Reenacting German and American Identities,” and how this perspective has changed. I remember signing up for this program thinking I understood the differences between what it meant to be German, and what it meant to be American. I know now that my understanding then was superficial and under defined, but at that moment, I thought I could classify the differences in the two nations into exact differences between the two cultures. For instance, the Germans had their three-tiered school system of Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium, while the Americans had high school with a few alternative and charter schools that eventually led to college. Both the U.S. and Germany had relatively strong economies. The U.S. was proud of its involvement in WWII, while Germany wasn’t particularly boastful. Both Americans and Germans liked their cars. The majority of my ideas on the German culture came from myths surrounding stereotypes, which I took to be truth.
Our time in Germany definitely changed how I viewed these identities. I feel my greatest source of insight came from the survey I handed out to Humboldt American Studies students about how they identify the Berlin Wall, as a “memorial” or as an “open-air gallery,” and consequently, how they identify themselves (as German, as another nationality, as a Berliner, etc.). And the results were striking in that they did not provide me with a solid conclusion, but rather, left me more confused. In just my demographic questions alone, which I had assumed would just establish whom my sample was, I had a wide range of answers in how people identified themselves. I had students say they were neither German nor a Berliner, students that were both a German and a Berliner, students that were German and not a Berliner, and students that were not German but were a Berliner (note: this group was substantial, not just an outlier). When I say this, this means I had students that considered themselves Berliners, yet identified as Indian, Turkish, etc. I find this interesting, as I had assumed that if you identify with a city, say Seattle, then you must also identify with where the city is located, the U.S., as this contains the city. So I, as a Seattleite, also identify as an American. However, just my demographic questions alone opened up the question of how much we can attribute locational identity to personal identity. Why would one identify with the city Berlin but not Germany as a whole? I tie this back to an interview I did at the Gymnasium in Kreuzberg. There, I talked to two girls of “migrant backgrounds” who had lived in Kreuzberg their entire life, and spoke perfect German. However, both spoke to the difficulties of living in Germany, of how people stare at them for wearing a headscarf and having darker skin, yet they had “gotten used to it over the years,” a testament to how long and often they had been “othered” by the society they lived in. It was no wonder they identified with Berlin, a multicultural city with a population that works to support diversity, but not with Germany as a whole, a larger population that worked to separate the girls from the ethnic “German.”
Tying back to the theme of the program, “Reenacting German and American Identities,” while I was appalled by the German societies treatment of these girls, I realized that in many ways, this issue is prevalent in the U.S. We talk about immigration today as a way to “other” people, especially Hispanics, from the rest of the “pure” American society with identity labels such as “alien,” although many of these people have lived in U.S. for years (similar to the “migration background” people in Germany). We use these labels to distance ourselves from the people who want to be Americans, and therefore make it harder for them to carry out their goal. The reality is many Latinos, similar to the Turkish population in Germany that rose out of the “guest worker” era of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, have made a home here, and are actively contributing to our society and economy. It is wrong to refer to these people as “aliens” or “illegals,” as these instantly other them from their society, and add a negative connotation to their status (aliens and illegals elicit images of people who don’t belong, are different from everyone else).
In the second part of my survey, I asked students to identify the Berlin Wall as a “memorial” or as an “open air gallery” and explain their answer. When I created this survey, I expected to find a clear trend in what people thought about the Wall- Berliners saw it this way, Germans saw it that way, foreigners saw it another way, etc. However, what I found was the opposite. I had a range of answers, from it should be preserved as a memorial so that “we don’t forget our past,” to preserved as an art gallery because “art can be historical too.” And none of the answers correlated to how the person identified themselves. It was chaotic, but also very foretelling of Berlin’s multicultural population. While this finding was initially confusing, I eventually saw this as indication that one should not assume locational or cultural identity is personal identity. These are related, but at the same time, quite separate. In other words, I cannot just assume that because a person is from some country or city that they will view the world through the norms of that area’s society, but rather, respect them as an individual with unique views. A person with a “migrant background” can be just as “German” as someone who is white and was born in the country, because “migrant background” is an identity label that insufficiently groups and others people under the assumption that they are not German and must be treated differently. Essentially, my reinterpretation and understanding of “Reenacting German and American Identities” is Germany and the U.S. and the world is becoming more globalized, and we therefore must adjust to this change. We can no longer use race, religious clothing, skin color, etc. to determine someone’s identity- we must respect the right of the individual to define themselves.
Reflection #5
As soon as I returned to Seattle, something just felt… off. I’ve been home for over a week, and this feeling continues to bother me, even though it is fading. The fact that it is fading though, also frightens me, as it is a sign that I am readjusting to life in Seattle, and it is Europe and Berlin that are becoming foreign once again. When I think back on my study abroad experience and travels, my mind always comes back to the same image- waiting for the U-bahn at Schlesisches Tor, our stop in Kreuzberg. Standing on the platform, anticipating the next train, watching Berliners run for the train as the alarm signaling doors closing began to sound. I know, it is such a weird idea disconnected from the larger concepts of our program. But so many things about the U- and S-bahn systems in Berlin are what connect me to those memories of the program. When an action becomes part of your daily ritual, you don’t notice or appreciate it until it’s gone. I remember the early days of learning the system to get to Humboldt, to get to the Reichstag, figuring out where Manka’s apartment was, etc. Coming back to Seattle, the first thing I noticed was our indulgence on cars and our utter failure of a public transportation system. I was quite angry my first days back, as I sat in my car fuming over traffic, wishing I could be back in a place where a train connected the city together quickly and was accessible to all. I will always remember when I felt I had conquered the Berlin U-bahn system, for it was then I felt Berlin opened up to me, and it was only myself that stood in the way of me conquering the city itself. And the implications of this simple skill were far reaching. As I continued traveling after the program, I was able to easily understand Amsterdam’s, Paris’, Frankfurt’s, and Munich’s public transportation systems, in addition to the Deutsches Bahn that connected all of Germany. And the majority of these I overcame alone. It was this sense of individual confidence that I truly miss about Europe, my ability to move about freely by myself and never feel the need to lean on someone else to explore a foreign place. While I believe I can continue this to some extent in Seattle, the familiarity of my destinations detracts from the confidence of diving headfirst into an uncharted city. I will always remember my time in Berlin, in this study abroad program, as what pushed me to find this individual confidence in travel, a skill I am certain I will benefit from in the future.
This first week in Berlin has been quite engaging, to say the least. Our group has been everywhere from touring Humboldt University to experiencing the Soviet War Memorial to visiting a Gemeinschaftsschule in West Berlin. In between all these excursions, I have been sampling the greatest food I’ve ever had while abroad (in all seriousness, I don’t think I’ve ever traveled somewhere and had every single meal be exceptional).
I believe what I connected to the most was the Soviet War Memorial. I have studied World War II and the Cold War extensively, and I was always intrigued by the Soviets role as a global power with a totalitarian societal structure. We often heard about the role propaganda played in expressing the wishes of the state to remain the center of public and private life, and I now believe I only superficially understood the concept. Once I visited the memorial, I realized the overwhelming power propaganda has over an individual. The war memorial is set up to literally dwarf visitors, where the Soviet flags, Soviet soldier statue, and large stone obelisks surround and overpower the sightseers. It is an obvious plight to display the authority, victory, and ultimate power of the Soviet people, the “winners” of WWII. However, I truly felt the authority of the Soviet state when standing in the presence of the memorial. Everywhere you turned, you saw vast and, in all honesty, divine-like statues that reached toward heaven. In particular, the Soviet soldier statue carrying the German child and crushing the Swastika, you climbed stairs in order to get closer to the commemoration, but never were you on the same level as the statue- you were always looking up to it. I never felt overwhelmed when looking at the statues, but rather in a constant state of awe. And that is exactly how the Soviet State wanted people to react when they created this site.
At that moment, I felt I truly understood the power behind propaganda. I spent so many hours discussing the meaning and purpose behind Soviet and American posters and slogans in the Cold War era, I thought I could reflect on the purpose of propaganda without falling into the “trap” of its ulterior motives (build up the authority of the state it represented in the eyes of the citizen). But actually going to the Memorial, I was saying to myself how extraordinary the Soviet state was in the aftermath of WWII.
This experience showed me the power of visuals and artistic representation in presenting an issue with a message. With the War Memorial, that message was the strength of the Soviet Union, and its right to dictate Berlin as an Allies member during the war and its immense sacrifice in terms of Soviet lives. Authority and power are fundamental to the identity of the Soviet State. This ties to my research project, as I am focusing on the intersection of memorials and street art and how they represent (or do not represent) an urban identity. I wished to focus on the Berlin Wall, a piece that can be categorized as both street art and memorial. But how does the identification of the Berlin Wall, as a memorial, street art, or both, change how its message is perceived? And from this initial identification, do Berliners feel the site’s message represents their urban identity?
However, I must take into account that the Berlin Wall, in particular the East Side Gallery, consists of commissioned art pieces. On that note, while the Wall is an open air gallery, many of the controversial pieces were removed, indicating that the Wall is viewed more heavily as a memorial worth preserving than a piece of street art that attracts people to express themselves and bring to light issues in a new way. Does identifying a message as controversial make it more “street art?” In Berlin, who defines what is street art and what is not? Can something be considered street art if it is commissioned and preserved by a governing body?
Week 2 Reflection
The longer I stay in Berlin, the more I feel confused about the concept of a “Berlin identity.” One thing is for sure- to be a Berliner and to be a German is not the same thing. What I mean by this is that the identity of Berlin is so distinct from the rest of Germany, that while one can be a Berliner and therefore a German, a German is not necessarily a Berliner. Many people I have met, Germans and tourists alike, have mentioned this uniqueness of the city; it has a pulse one cannot easily nail down. One man I asked about this put it best: “Berlin is the cosmos.” I also have found it interesting that many of the people I have approached assuming they are Berliners (the rapid German gives them away) turn out to be from different areas around Germany, such as Hamburg or Frankfurt. I feel this is an indication of the globalization of Berlin. I therefore begin to define Berlin not as a “German city” but rather as a multicultural metropolis within Germany.
On a different note, I want to reflect on my time at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, as this was the event from Week 2 that impacted me the most. To be fair, I didn’t give the concentration camp visit much thought as we traveled from Berlin to Oranienburg, the town that housed the camp. But as we got closer and closer to the site, I became increasingly quiet and sick. The cold, dark drizzle that accompanied our visit certainly added to this disheartened mood. I had thought I could prepare for the events we would experience, but I began to doubt myself. Once inside Sachsenhausen, I grew queasy and lightheaded, particularly when we visited “Station Z,” the area constructed during the war to implement the systematic murder of prisoners. As our guide pointed out the crematorium, complete with about four ovens in various states of disrepair, I felt my knees give way. I was at the point of vomiting, even though I never would have expected myself to feel so affected by this site. I spent the entirety of my education learning about WWII and the Holocaust and its atrocities as a detached student. However, actually visiting the site of a concentration camp, knowing that thousands upon thousands died right where you were standing, is what made me realize the true extent of this horror. Around 11 million people died in the Holocaust, and while we can talk about this number all we want in a classroom, you don’t feel the weight of this number until you see a concentration camp for yourself.
On that note, I was quite disgusted by the other visitors at Sachsenhausen that day, the majority being teenaged German school kids. Many groups were interacting as if they were at the mall- horsing around, laughing uncontrollably, and running around to talk to their friends. This was hard for me to deal with, seeing as I had reacted so dramatically to the site and these kids were acting as if they had no idea where they were, as if they had took for granted the close proximity of this vital piece of history to their homes. I got the feeling this was not the first time they had visited a concentration camp, so in a way the reaction they had was one of boredom, of routine.
It wasn’t until later in a group discussion that I understood where this reaction came from. People from our group mentioned that at the school visit, they learned that students in Germany systematically cover WWII in their history class. In my experience, WWII and the Holocaust are taught often, as they are significant parts of history, but they make up only a section (maybe three weeks?) of a larger yearlong class focused on European or US History (as in US involvement in WWII). However, in Germany, students spend months out each year covering the causes, consequences, and legacies of WWII. In the way that this information is grilled into students’ minds, it is no wonder these school kids seemed almost disinterested in their surroundings- they covered this topic to the point of exhaustion. In no way does this excuse discount the disrespect I felt and still feel as a visitor to the camp that day, but it does shed light on how German students interact with their history. What this taught me, in terms of Berlin and German identity, is that WWII and the Holocaust are still very visible wounds. While these students seemed disconnected from the site, it may also be tied to they’re age, and simply not being old enough to understand the significance of their surroundings. I began to wonder, is the way Germany’s history is taught to its students in effect detrimental to their understanding of the nation’s past?
Week 3 Reflection
This week was a bit disorienting, as I saw my research project shift in focus to a topic I did not foresee. This all started when we went to the Gymnasium on Monday, and talked with students and teachers alike about their experiences in school, and compared it to our education system in the U.S. I found myself asking the students not about their interpretation of the Berlin Wall, which would directly relate to my research project, but how they felt about their history classes, and how they were structured. The two girls I talked too explained that they spent months learning about WWII and the Holocaust, and that they began covering these intense topics as early as 2nd grade. I was appalled, as I certainly could not see myself as a 2nd grader having the maturity to understand total war and genocide. However, the girls also mentioned that students are relatively disinterested by history curriculum, which supported my experience with the students at Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was then that I began to ask myself, “How does the curriculum surrounding Reunification impact how German students identify the Berlin Wall?” I want to explore how the way a student is taught a subject impacts how they identify the subject, and consequently, how they identify themselves.
This hunch was further supported by out visit to the Junge Islam Konferenz (Young Islam Conference). At JIK, I was intrigued by the presenters personal account of going to a school in Dortmund with a large percentage of people who are “visible migrants,” a term used to distinguish minorities who receive harsher discrimination from the larger label of “migration background,” as “migration background” oversimplifies a diverse group of people who receive different treatment based off how they look. For example, the man presenting at JIK was white, blonde, and spoke perfect German, yet was from a “migration background” as his parents were not native Germans. However, his treatment as a “foreigner” would be much different from someone who was a refugee from Libya, because one looked “ethnically German” and the other did not. In any case, our presenter noted how many of his peers did not identify with the German history curriculum taught in school because many were so excluded from society to begin with. How can you identify with a society that works so hard to “other” you? In addition, many of these students did not identify themselves as a combination of their nationality and German, such as “Turkish-German” but rather as only their nationality, “Turkish.” As an American, I find this hard to grasp, as no one in the U.S. truly identifies himself or herself as anything other than “American.” Yes, you have the distinctions of “African American” and “Chinese American,” but “American” is always a part of their identity, unless they are not from America or have not lived there for an extended period of time. I found the concept of living your entire life so “othered” by the society you grew up in that you don’t identify with it so disheartening. To solidify this message, the presenters at JIK showed us a video of the German Men’s National Team at the World Cup in 2014 singing the German National Anthem. As the camera looks at each player as they sing their nation’s anthem, there is no missing that three of the players are silent. Özil, Boateng, and Khedira are the three “visible minorities” on the soccer team, while their “ethnically German” teammates recite their anthem with pride. I was shocked because I remember watching every game Germany played in the 2014 World Cup, and yet I never picked up on this fact that many players opted to not participate in singing the German national anthem. The idea of “othering” was staring me in the face, on display for the entire world, and yet I didn’t even recognize it.
This is why I am quite interested to see the results of my survey, and how students identify themselves (as German, Turkish-German, Turkish, etc.) and how they identify the Wall (as a memorial or an open-air gallery).
Reflection #4
In this blog post, I was asked to reflect back on the title of this program “Reenacting German and American Identities,” and how this perspective has changed. I remember signing up for this program thinking I understood the differences between what it meant to be German, and what it meant to be American. I know now that my understanding then was superficial and under defined, but at that moment, I thought I could classify the differences in the two nations into exact differences between the two cultures. For instance, the Germans had their three-tiered school system of Hauptschule, Realschule, and Gymnasium, while the Americans had high school with a few alternative and charter schools that eventually led to college. Both the U.S. and Germany had relatively strong economies. The U.S. was proud of its involvement in WWII, while Germany wasn’t particularly boastful. Both Americans and Germans liked their cars. The majority of my ideas on the German culture came from myths surrounding stereotypes, which I took to be truth.
Our time in Germany definitely changed how I viewed these identities. I feel my greatest source of insight came from the survey I handed out to Humboldt American Studies students about how they identify the Berlin Wall, as a “memorial” or as an “open-air gallery,” and consequently, how they identify themselves (as German, as another nationality, as a Berliner, etc.). And the results were striking in that they did not provide me with a solid conclusion, but rather, left me more confused. In just my demographic questions alone, which I had assumed would just establish whom my sample was, I had a wide range of answers in how people identified themselves. I had students say they were neither German nor a Berliner, students that were both a German and a Berliner, students that were German and not a Berliner, and students that were not German but were a Berliner (note: this group was substantial, not just an outlier). When I say this, this means I had students that considered themselves Berliners, yet identified as Indian, Turkish, etc. I find this interesting, as I had assumed that if you identify with a city, say Seattle, then you must also identify with where the city is located, the U.S., as this contains the city. So I, as a Seattleite, also identify as an American. However, just my demographic questions alone opened up the question of how much we can attribute locational identity to personal identity. Why would one identify with the city Berlin but not Germany as a whole? I tie this back to an interview I did at the Gymnasium in Kreuzberg. There, I talked to two girls of “migrant backgrounds” who had lived in Kreuzberg their entire life, and spoke perfect German. However, both spoke to the difficulties of living in Germany, of how people stare at them for wearing a headscarf and having darker skin, yet they had “gotten used to it over the years,” a testament to how long and often they had been “othered” by the society they lived in. It was no wonder they identified with Berlin, a multicultural city with a population that works to support diversity, but not with Germany as a whole, a larger population that worked to separate the girls from the ethnic “German.”
Tying back to the theme of the program, “Reenacting German and American Identities,” while I was appalled by the German societies treatment of these girls, I realized that in many ways, this issue is prevalent in the U.S. We talk about immigration today as a way to “other” people, especially Hispanics, from the rest of the “pure” American society with identity labels such as “alien,” although many of these people have lived in U.S. for years (similar to the “migration background” people in Germany). We use these labels to distance ourselves from the people who want to be Americans, and therefore make it harder for them to carry out their goal. The reality is many Latinos, similar to the Turkish population in Germany that rose out of the “guest worker” era of the 60s, 70s, and 80s, have made a home here, and are actively contributing to our society and economy. It is wrong to refer to these people as “aliens” or “illegals,” as these instantly other them from their society, and add a negative connotation to their status (aliens and illegals elicit images of people who don’t belong, are different from everyone else).
In the second part of my survey, I asked students to identify the Berlin Wall as a “memorial” or as an “open air gallery” and explain their answer. When I created this survey, I expected to find a clear trend in what people thought about the Wall- Berliners saw it this way, Germans saw it that way, foreigners saw it another way, etc. However, what I found was the opposite. I had a range of answers, from it should be preserved as a memorial so that “we don’t forget our past,” to preserved as an art gallery because “art can be historical too.” And none of the answers correlated to how the person identified themselves. It was chaotic, but also very foretelling of Berlin’s multicultural population. While this finding was initially confusing, I eventually saw this as indication that one should not assume locational or cultural identity is personal identity. These are related, but at the same time, quite separate. In other words, I cannot just assume that because a person is from some country or city that they will view the world through the norms of that area’s society, but rather, respect them as an individual with unique views. A person with a “migrant background” can be just as “German” as someone who is white and was born in the country, because “migrant background” is an identity label that insufficiently groups and others people under the assumption that they are not German and must be treated differently. Essentially, my reinterpretation and understanding of “Reenacting German and American Identities” is Germany and the U.S. and the world is becoming more globalized, and we therefore must adjust to this change. We can no longer use race, religious clothing, skin color, etc. to determine someone’s identity- we must respect the right of the individual to define themselves.
Reflection #5
As soon as I returned to Seattle, something just felt… off. I’ve been home for over a week, and this feeling continues to bother me, even though it is fading. The fact that it is fading though, also frightens me, as it is a sign that I am readjusting to life in Seattle, and it is Europe and Berlin that are becoming foreign once again. When I think back on my study abroad experience and travels, my mind always comes back to the same image- waiting for the U-bahn at Schlesisches Tor, our stop in Kreuzberg. Standing on the platform, anticipating the next train, watching Berliners run for the train as the alarm signaling doors closing began to sound. I know, it is such a weird idea disconnected from the larger concepts of our program. But so many things about the U- and S-bahn systems in Berlin are what connect me to those memories of the program. When an action becomes part of your daily ritual, you don’t notice or appreciate it until it’s gone. I remember the early days of learning the system to get to Humboldt, to get to the Reichstag, figuring out where Manka’s apartment was, etc. Coming back to Seattle, the first thing I noticed was our indulgence on cars and our utter failure of a public transportation system. I was quite angry my first days back, as I sat in my car fuming over traffic, wishing I could be back in a place where a train connected the city together quickly and was accessible to all. I will always remember when I felt I had conquered the Berlin U-bahn system, for it was then I felt Berlin opened up to me, and it was only myself that stood in the way of me conquering the city itself. And the implications of this simple skill were far reaching. As I continued traveling after the program, I was able to easily understand Amsterdam’s, Paris’, Frankfurt’s, and Munich’s public transportation systems, in addition to the Deutsches Bahn that connected all of Germany. And the majority of these I overcame alone. It was this sense of individual confidence that I truly miss about Europe, my ability to move about freely by myself and never feel the need to lean on someone else to explore a foreign place. While I believe I can continue this to some extent in Seattle, the familiarity of my destinations detracts from the confidence of diving headfirst into an uncharted city. I will always remember my time in Berlin, in this study abroad program, as what pushed me to find this individual confidence in travel, a skill I am certain I will benefit from in the future.