Journal for Reading Reflection

            Kristina Graaf, Sharon Otoo, the readings for this week, the people I have talked to in my community partners, the people I have talked to on the street, and my prior expectations of Berlin, Germany have all helped me understand German nationalism and the insider outsider theory that influence the identity of the people living in Berlin. I have learned a lot about the way people identify by walking around Berlin and comparing the actions and decisions of people here to those of people in the United States. The memorial culture, and the tendency for many to want to ignore hard parts of history shows that although Germans highlight their wrongs, they still choose to ignore some of their past. Ignoring this past goes along with the conversation I had with one person who said that people want to ignore issues such as race because they do not want to talk about the wrongs that they participated in. This goes along with talking about nationalism and race. People who choose to ignore are mostly people who do not want to have the conversation about the potential racist and nationalist ideas they have.

            Language, like in “Imagined Communities,” is a huge deal in Germany. It is interesting to compare the different community partners and their perspective on integration and whether or not people should speak German. My community partner is less strict about learning German, and want to be inclusive to all those who do not speak the language so they can present a welcoming community. Other community partners are more forceful about learning German. It is interesting to watch nations form through languages, but also breaking the language barriers and watching how people maneuver through communities with different languages shows how people in both people in the United States and Germany chose to identify. The different community organization have different opinions, and I can see how being forced to learn German but also being allowed to continue speaking your language can have plusses and minuses, especially as a refugee trying to gain citizenship.  

            I have had a great time comparing how people in Berlin form their identities and how people in the United States form their identities. I have found recently that Seattle, although it is considered a very progressive city tends to be more of what I call a “white feminist” because everyone says they believe in equality, but move into the suburbs when black people into the area, or push black people out of certain areas, like the Central District, when gentrification occurs. Hearing Kristina say Germans ignore their history, and listening to Sharon talk about similar black feminist issues that black women in Seattle face shows that the areas are not much different. While Germany seems very progressive, specifically in Berlin, there are instances where we can see that refugees actually aren’t as accepted as we would be lead to believe.

            I love both Seattle and Berlin, but language, race, and history are still topics that many people do not want to think about. Germany and the United States specifically discriminate against people that are not similar because of the language barrier and how people choose to remember their history.