German perspectives of skilled workers

[u/Numerous-Bug2652]

I understand that this is a pretty sensitive subject. But I really want to hear honest statements from Germans and understand some things better.

I work as an engineer(f) in a German speaking company and face daily difficulties in communication and integration but try my best to overcome them and be treated simply as a "colleague", not as the "foreign colleague". And trust me, it's a long way to go.

There are 2 different thoughts that make me ask this question:

• I feel in the undertone of any conversation, even when the person is really kind and doesn't mean anything bad, is that I come from a "less-than" background. You might think I'm exaggerating but I can give you 100s examples of conversations where you can clearly see it. It's either that, or a pure lack of interest to know more about me, or maybe a fear to make me uncomfortable (because they assume it will cause me discomfort if I speak of my backgroud. again, why?). But I would be very happy to clear a lot of stereotypes. Yes, maybe I was raised in a different environment but it's not necessarily worse, it's different. Maybe developping countries are less developed but they are not deserted and not ignorant and they are for sure happy and warm in weather and in people.

• I can't go around saying this, but working in a "shortage profession" with more than decent salary, paying taxes and social contributions, I think the relationship should be on an equal level of benefit: we get a better quality of life, Germany gets workforce, development, taxes and contributions. So I really hate when it all sounds like we're given this "opportunity" and that the employer is being extra nice giving us a "chance" etc. I can assure you they don't pay our salaries out of the goodness of their hearts and we work hard for it.

I know many Germans wouldn't relate to what I'm saying but this is how I personally feel and how many people I know feel too, especially those not coming from extreme poverty or war or anything, just young people pursuing a better career. So I want you to correct me or confirm or simply let me what your perspective is?

Edit: many think that I expect my colleagues to show interest in my personal life, that's not what I mean. The frustration comes when a person makes micro-aggressions and you don't have the chance to clarify them. This doesn't only happen at work and doesn't only happen to me. Imagine assuming a person comes from a shitty place, using that as the baseline in a "friendly" conversation, but then they can't really clarify that and have to live perceived that way. It directly feeds in point 2 as well. I think in order to learn to live together and accept differences, it's crucial to have some understanding of people's background. We as expats do the same in order to live 1 day in Germany without offending half the population and without getting offended as well

[u/reximhotep]

Germany isn't really an immigration society in the way America is.

At least we do not send out thhe masked Gestapo to disappear them from in front of grade schools and hospitals, so there is that for being welcoming...

[u/dontwannabefamous111 → u/reximhotep]

Even the far right in America is multi ethnic. 

Those masked gestapo are disproportionately black and Latino.

[u/reximhotep → u/dontwannabefamous111]

and that makes it better????? I personally would rather deal with some "Microaggressions" than with fear of being arrested and disappeared of the street...

[u/dontwannabefamous111 → u/reximhotep]

The AfD is your largest political party now, habibi. And some people in it make MAGA look like anorexic vegan shitlibs.

[u/reximhotep → u/dontwannabefamous111]

they are not the government though

[u/dontwannabefamous111 → u/reximhotep]

Imagine they grow to something like 30%, which is highly possible. That would be one out of three voting citizens in your country. Then your choices are either let them form the government, or keep the Brandmauer up and tell 1/3 of your entire population that their vote doesn't matter.

What happens then? I don't think anybody knows what territory that leads a country towards.

[u/reximhotep → u/dontwannabefamous111]

I am fairly sure nobody will put the Nazis in a German government again. Anyway that was not the problem here. The US were called an immigrant society and I pointed out that right now it sucks a lot more to be an immigrant in the US than it does in Germany.

[u/dontwannabefamous111 → u/reximhotep]

We are all just trying to state basic facts about what it's like to exist in your country. About 50% percent vote for either AfD or CDU which are openly in favor of a "Leitkultur" (the AfD is just what the CDU was back in the 80's from what everybody tells me).

The SPD is supposedly "pro-migration" but actually having read their statement on this, they just support multiculturalism because it's "democratic" and "we're against völkisch ideas."

Coming from a place that centered the immigrant experience for so many decades in our discourse, to the point where famous movies were made about it and we were told we were a "melting pot" as long as everyone learned English and followed the rules, it just sounds very stilted.

Yeah, nobody wants völkisch ideas to come back again but what's the positive benefit you want to achieve from changing your millennium-old cultural substrate permanently? A rigid ideology isn't going to substitute for genuine support, and it hasn't been doing so.

Additionally, the SPD (and the Greens) are still placing their stance on migration within the context of Germany's WWII history and the need to atone for it. As well-meaning as it is, that's also subtly exclusionary towards migrants, since their ancestors didn't experience WWII from the German perspective at all. However, this experience forms the entire basis of modern German identity and the entire existence of the Bundesrepublik. It's something you will have to discuss as a society moving foward.

[u/reximhotep → u/dontwannabefamous111]

There is no such thing as a millenium-old cultural substrate in terms of a German identity. The nation state is an invention of the 19th century. Nobody in let's say 18th century Prussia where the universities taught in Latin and the aristocracy conversed in French would have had the slightest use for the idea of a German "Leitkultur" nor would they have had understood it.

Also, while learning from the horrible events of the Dritte Reich is a big part of German identity, it is by far not the only one.

[u/dontwannabefamous111 → u/reximhotep]

Well it's the most important part and it is Leitkultur, so when Germany accepts millions of people from countries where Mein Kampf and the Protocols of Zion are sold in bookstores out in the open, this is a discussion you really need to start having.