Local Stories

Admiralbruecke in Kreuzberg
March 7, 2014 3

Interview: Three Dimensions of Integration

It's easy (and admittedly amusing) to reduce expats to stereotypes, as if we all neatly fall into one or the other category based on which country we hail from, what we do for a living, or where we party and eat brunch. Reality is always more nuanced and multi-dimensional. Dare we even say, interesting?... [Read More!]
Dong Xuan Center Berlin, Vietnamese
February 27, 2014 0

Viet in Berlin: Images from Dong Xuan Center Lichtenberg

Lichtenberg's Dong Xuan Center consists of 6 hangars, stocked tightly with all the things one might come to miss living far away from a place, where a broth of cardamom and ginger is paired with any meat imaginable and the most delicate of noodles; where a certain kind of manufacturing can turn out plastic and fabric wares for all sizes and ages in bulk; where sweet things might come packaged in banana leaves, wrapped around sticky mango rice like presents. Or this is the impression one might get of Vietnam, when visiting Dong Xuan - a Mecca in the middle of former East Berlin, little Hanoi amidst not so little Plattenbauten... [Read More!]
December 11, 2013 5

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!]
November 30, 2013 3

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!]
November 20, 2013 2

Roma in Berlin: Bureaucracy in Lichtenberg

On the first Tuesday of every month, the Migrantenrat Lichtenberg (immigrants' plenary) meets to address issues of migration affecting the district and its neighborhoods. The gospel of November's session: The Roma are coming! 2014 will be a year of change for Roma in Berlin, primarily for those who have come from Bulgaria and Romania. They will have access to the social welfare system, the situation will change dramatically. But this is about families, not simply numbers... [Read More!]
November 11, 2013 1

Lens: With Wings, Roots, and Sweaty Hands

"Punctual. Exact. Productive. Closed off. Careful. Inflexible. Humorless." And some "Goethe" and "Einstein" thrown in for good measure. Was this really all a group of seemingly well-educated professionals had to say about German identity? No wonder the facilitator had started to draw sad faces on the list... [Read More!]
Schoenes Cafe in Graefekiez, Kreuzberg where I ran into the "Diversity in the Big City" girls and chatted multiculturalism and Collidoscope.
September 6, 2013 3

Multiculturalism, Diversity, and the Big City

With my back to them at the street-side café I felt like a judge on "The Voice", straining my neck for any hint of where they were from or what they looked like, resisting the urge to swirl around and start dancing on my chair. Truth be told my ears had perked up as soon as the trio plopped down at the table behind me, switching between topics like gentrification in Kreuzberg and the cultural difference between Kaffee and "coffee" as quickly as they were switching between German and English... [Read More!]
August 13, 2013 0

Reviewing the Rave: “We are the We”

We're so used to talking all the time that words tend to lose their effect. Especially when the talking is predominantly happening in one direction, as it so often does in immigration discourse. The Migrantas organization is unleashing an alternate voice within immigrant women in Germany that is arguably just as powerful: their artistic creativity... [Read More!]
August 7, 2013 2

Ramadan with Neighbors: It’s About Showing Up

For those non-Muslims among us, Ramadan is an almost hidden spectacle with mysterious allure: the hot tea, the music, and the platters of food only come out when the sun has turned in for the day or before it has even appeared. We hear the clatter of dishes from our neighbors’ windows late into the night or watch children unpack colorful sweets on Eid al-Fitr, all without necessarily being able to place these traditions in our own line of experience. In honor of the last night of Ramadan, here is a reflection on an event Sophia and I attended last Friday as part of Berlin's festival die Nächte des Ramadan, the Nights of Ramadan... [Read More!]
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