Category Informed Tourism
Beyond Berlin: London and other transplants
This past week, I visited a good friend who, like me, is an American transplant, now living in East London – a place where the corner store owner greets you in an upbeat banter and the sign to a ‘Carolina Fried Chicken’ joint dances in the light from the neighboring gastropub. Multicultural, maybe. But London’s multiculturalism has a few faces and facades. And, in the end, it’s the people that matter more than the cultural installation, many themselves transplants with open-ended expiration dates… [Read more!]
Interview: the Klezmer Gentiles
International artists in Berlin occupy a semi-privileged position, able to ask critical questions of society without being publicly rebuked. An example of such an artist is Soliman Lawrence. Soli has been photographing the memorialization of Jewish culture in Poland for years, following the tracks of a new form of engagement with the past, as enacted by a more recent generation of Poles. In contrast to Poland, Germany now has its fair share of Jews. What might this mean for memory and its rituals?…[Read more!]
Review: Seeing Berlin Through The Homeless
They wait for the subway doors to close before they address the car with a rehearsed speech. “Excuse the interruption, I am one of Berlin’s annoying homeless people”… it usually begins, as they peddle newspapers and scan the crowd for an outstretched hand holding change or food. The majority of us keep our hands tucked away or firmly gripping our phones. Some of us fall into convenient bouts of exhaustion, promptly leaning back and closing our eyes. In this moment, we are restricted to a shared space…[Read more!]
Lens: An Ode to the Maybachufer
From Berlin’s “problem district” to more expensive than spießig Charlottenburg: Kreuzberg’s made quite the transformation over the decades, but migration continues to shape its identity and reputation as a district. The bulk of Kreuzberg’s diversity stems from the ’50s and ’60s, when guest workers were recruited by West Germany to fill labor shortages after World War II*. Kreuzberg’s dilapidated housing became home to guest workers, primarily from Turkey…[Read more!]
Rave: the Political Berlinale
The festival of the golden bear invites the local to become a voyeur and thereby, to recall the headlines, the paroles, the debates, the sagas of the last year – to make meaning of images and thus to make sense of things, or, at least, to just make some sense. In the spirit of the critical viewer and in celebration of themes close to Berlin migration politics, I give you this rave of timely films and the 3 local contexts that make them and this Berlinale so special…[Read more!]
Beyond Berlin: Difference on the Blessed Isle
For about three weeks this holiday season, I explored the small tear-shaped island of Sri Lanka with a close friend from Berlin. Though Sri Lanka and the South Asia region were new terrain for us both, this wasn’t our first backpacking rodeo. We were experienced enough travelers to expect the ups and downs that a trip of this magnitude would throw our way. We reveled in the highs – a school of fish gracefully drifting past us 12m deep into the Indian Ocean, the exquisitely pungent scents and colors of turmeric and homemade roasted curry powder…[Read more!]
Beyond Berlin: Difference in the Wet Country
For nearly a month this holiday season, I explored the social fabric surrounding my US origins with a German national, who had never before been to the land of plenty. Through the fresh eyes of ‘the foreigner’, I saw my part of America unfold under a curious and critical lens. America is a country that defines itself by historical narratives of migration and manifest destiny. What one encounters on the road in its northwestern corner, however, is a bit more mundane. At closer glance, emptiness and the prosaic everyday give food for thought, in regards to locating and valuing difference wherever it bubbles up…[Read more!]
Happy Weekend Review: An Old-New Christmas Market
Let’s just come right out with it: It’s hard to beat Christmas in Germany. Glühwein, cookies, classic lights, decorations strewn across homes and street corners, a calendar that expects, nay, requires you eat a chocolate per day… it’s simply wonderful. Though I grew up in the US, my family celebrated Christmas the Teutonic way. I have more than fond memories of hiding the Buttergebäck and Lebkuchen in the laundry room from our Opa so he wouldn’t devour them in one sitting, ripping open a human-size Adventskalendar in the course of one night made by our Oma…[Read more!]
Beyond Berlin: the Istanbul Connection
Istanbul gives Berlin its baseline. In kind, Berlin is richly integrated into the complexity of Istanbul. For no relationship is ever purely one-sided. And so a Berlin : Istanbul connection, which moves beyond Gastarbeiter music and Fatih Akin films, is what one can find after six days immersed in the shapes and silhouettes of this city of 13 million…[Read more!]
Rave: Why Remembering the Holocaust is Good for Immigrants
In 2005, Germany officially became an immigration country with the establishment of its federal office for migration. The question – who are the Germans anyway? – has become increasingly important in deciding what to impart to these newcomers set to stay. Expats are good at constructing Germanness for the Germans themselves, often leaving out the Holocaust in such a description of ‘German identity’, however. Today’s Germany – an immigration country – is a republic built on tragic events like the Holocaust, just as France is a country built on colonialism. Everything has a context, and it is this context that immigrants to Germany should learn to understand for the sake of a more complete country – a civic society which respects differences and celebrates them…[Read more!]
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