Kultur 6

Out of the articles this week, I think the excerpt from the book about Ausländer in Deutschland is the most interesting. Germany, along with most countries in Europe if you think about it, are not founded on the principle of having a diverse populous. Germany, for thousands of years, has been inhabited by Germans, just like other European countries. Immigration between European countries up until the Industrial Revolution wasn't very common, probably because languages were shared only in certain regions. America, however, was built with immigrants from multiple European nations. First, mostly settlers from the UK settled on the East coast, Spanish missionaries came to Florida and the Caribbean, the Irish came in the early 1900s and many German immigrants came during WWII. The native population of America is one of the smallest ethnic groups.

It is somewhat odd for me to think that in Germany, ethnic diversity has only in the last 50 years started to increase. Until then, I assume, Germany has been predominantly inhabited by those whose lineages stayed put in the region for hundreds of years. The native population of Germany and the rest of the region around it is the major ethnic group. The article mentions subtle racism that has started to become apparent in the country in the last fifty years. I think it's odd that just as America is starting to move towards racial equality in the 1960s and 70s that Germany is just starting to become more multiracial. Germany is still becoming more diverse through immigration, so it could be interesting to see from an American viewpoint how it deals with racism, discrimination, and immigration laws, considering that we have our fair share of problems with all three in the US.