Lights along the path
Finding immigrant role models to guide my journey
I recently wrote an article over on my Berlin newsletter, Alte Frau - New Life, about how to move to Germany to do an apprenticeship.
Not actually having done this myself, I wanted to hear the perspective of people who had. And that is how I found this interview between Naija Girl in Germany and Diary of a Nigerian German, two creators who are originally from Nigeria, and have studied, lived, and worked in Germany for several years.
I ending up subscribing to both channels, not just because they both had work experience in Germany and I am about to embark on a job search, but because so many of their experiences echoed those of my own.
The insane wait times at the Ausländerbehörde, the disconnect between what employers say they want and what they really want (really, between what the government says businesses want and who they will really hire), the opaque labyrinth of local bureaucracy.
As American immigrants, I think we often hear about how important it is to integrate into the culture of the country to which we've moved. We're told to learn the language and be sure to get outside the "expat bubble."
But we often don't realize how important networking with other immigrants is.
Other diasporas mostly already understand they need to connect with and learn from other immigrants - be it be who have also moved from their homeland or others.
No one is going to understand you and your struggles like someone who has shared them firsthand.
That's why in cities all over the planet – from San Francisco's Chinatown to the Turkish community of Berlin's Kreuzberg district – you have established immigrant enclaves where groups of people from the same countries gather together to help each other out.
Don't underestimate the value of the network of people who are from where you're from when you need to find a doctor or a school or a job.
In my personal vocabulary, I use the term expat to refer more to communities of people living outside their home country who mostly only socialize with people of their same nationality and who have definite plans or a strong desire to return there.
Immigrants, on the other hand, are living indefinitely in their country of residence, and have strong ties to both their native land and where they live.
Historically, though, Americans abroad have fallen more into the expat category of non-citizen– they live apart from the rest of the community and form clubs, schools, and religious organizations with the word "American" in the title.
Because of the United States' position as a (arguably 'the') world superpower,
American immigrants are seen as temporarily situated overseas instead of a member of particular community who has foreign ancestry and citizenship.
Without a doubt, this comes with lots of privileges.
English is the most widely spoken language* in the world. U.S. passports contain exceptions to travel and visa restrictions that most of the rest of the world doesn't enjoy. We aren't subject to the same prejudices and even harassment that immigrants from other countries face.
But when you're actually a U.S. American emigrant/immigrant and not an
"expat" one: many people - and sometimes you yourself - forget you're going to need help.
Watching another video from Naija Girl, I found myself nodding along when she talked about her frustration when the immigration office refused to grant her a work visa--when she had already accepted a job offer--because the offered salary was too low.
Cathi Harris
I marveled at her perseverance in spending a year living apart from her fiancé and struggling to afford train fare to visit on the weekends.
As a parent of a recent high school graduate, with another waiting shortly in the wings, I realized that I needed their stories about living as international students in Germany and about how hard it really is to find a job when you finish your studies.
My kids will soon be in the same boat.
I can count on one hand the number of American parents I know here who plan for their kids to go to a German university or do a German apprenticeship program. Mine probably will, so I need to find some other immigrants for them to learn from.
When we first moved here, I was certain that my kids needed to be in an English-language or at least a bilingual school.
We were lucky to secure my daughter, then entering 10th grade, a place at one. But because she only learned a very basic level of German, she's now taking a gap year to study German at a language institute before applying to universities.
But my twelve-year-old was another story. He went to a public German school, starting in a class with kids from Ukraine, Syria, Romania, and India to learn the German language.
Most other families--including others like us, here on the coveted EU Blue Card--can't afford the luxury of a private international school. They learn German, and then they go to school in German, and then they go to college or university or do apprenticeships, in German.
My son is now bilingual.
He and the other kids in his class speak their "mother tongue" at home and German at school and with their friends.
Just like all the immigrants I knew back in the States who somehow – at the time I couldn't fathom how – learned English in record time. Just like the Turkish families who moved here in the 1960s and '70s.
There was a time when I didn't really think it was possible. But I knew that people did it. And if they did, then he could – and we could – too.
*By total number of speakers. Mandarin Chinese has the largest number of native speakers in the world. English has the a smaller number of native speakers but a larger number of people who speak it as a second language.