Tag Archives: home
Interview: Ali for (and from) Germany
In the wake of Germany’s World Cup victory, much has been said about a renewed sense of German patriotism and its implications. While some have feared a connection to Germany’s dark past, others have welcomed the discourse as a chance to shape a new sense of belonging within the country’s evolving demographics. We’ve already written something about it here. But what a discussion on national identity means on the personal level is another story. Or rather many stories. Here’s one…[Read more!]
Rave: the California Breakfast Slam Effect
Identity and belonging are closely intertwined with the foods we eat. The California Breakfast Slam, or CABslam, originally a pop-up breakfast establishment celebrating Americana classics like hash browns and maple syrup-drenched bacon, now hosts an unassuming ‘Beta’ restaurant space at the far edge of Neukölln’s Reuterkiez. A visit allows for the giddy return to childhood memories that lead to goosebumps and pride, or a combination of both. Let’s call this the California Breakfast Slam effect…[Read more!]
The Collidoscope Manifesto
A couple months ago, Collidoscope Berlin was invited to write its first guest post for the Global Citizens Initiative – an organization that aims “to build a network of people who see themselves as global citizens and want to build a better world”. Part of the task was to connect what we do here to the significance of borders. “Borders?”, we wondered, unsure how to proceed but mostly questioning why we had never concretely addressed the topic before….[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!]
Rave: a Colombian Culinary Homecoming
What role do embassies play in the lives of foreign nationals abroad? Beyond pure administration and diplomacy, cultural events that allow for a homecoming, a return to childhood, and a bringing together of compatriots might change how immigrants and expats live abroad and the involvement of embassies and consulates therein. The Embassy of Columbia in Berlin sponsored an event that did something just like this. A few weeks ago in Neukölln, Colombians and non-Colombians united over the genius of duck woven into starch – the duck, a true Berliner…[Read more!]
Interview: Hamid, Stardom, and the Difference Threshold
It’s November of last year and Kelly and I are visiting relatives of mine in Soest, a small town of under 50,000 in Northwestern Germany. We’re hanging out in the kitchen, chatting over a cup of coffee, when one of my cousin’s friends walks in. He pauses with one arm holding open the door, staring at us like a deer in headlights. Before we have the chance to say Hallo he’s turned and raced up the stairs to my cousin’s room. Teenage boys, we initially chuckled…[Read more!]
Interview: TV, the Treasury Minister, and Third Culture Kids
It’s not everyday you’re on TV, let alone get alluded to as a traitor by a host of public figures, including the Minister of the Treasury, all for being an expat. But both of these things happened to my friend and colleague Moran Yaheli when she was recently profiled in a report about Israelis living abroad…[Read more!]
Lens: Coming (home)
I’m pretty sure it was the 1st grade. We were drawing pictures of our families and I carefully wrote Mami under the lopsided stick figure cast as my mother. A kid next to me leaned over and inspected my work. “That’s not how you write ‘Mommy’!” he squealed. “Yes it is!” I responded fiercely, confident that this was exactly how my Mami had taught me to spell it. Our teacher overheard the bickering and swooped in for the rescue. We were both right, she explained patiently. Mami was just “Mommy” in a different language…[Read more!]
Lens: Going (away)
Human beings are mobile, in part due to the wonder of air travel, whose planes make relationship and imagination possible in spite of vast distances. Preparing to leave Berlin for my other home far away, I could not help but reflect on how mobility has changed what it means to love, to belong, to connect. Will my father’s face have aged? My mother’s mind? I turn toward the security line, into the place I am going. Umbrellas and the smell of moist newspapers, dreary winters full of long conversations near the sea…[Read more!]
Collidoscope 