My cultural identity

How has becoming a German changed the way I feel about myself? Or... has it?

Music:
"Style Funk" and "Hot Swing"
Creative Commons Attribution licence

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[berulan]

”It's not the colour of my password or even the colour of my skin that defines me.” is a great line and should be reality for everybody.

[kieferngruen]

For me as a German the only time I had to state my race on an official form was actually in Britain. I already commented this under Hayley's video.
It happened when I worked as foreign language assistant at a school in the UK for a couple of months a few years ago. I was really shocked when I had to check these boxes about my ethnicity in a form on my first day there. This was the first time I had ever seen this and it felt very wrong to me. So I drew an additional box on the form and wrote "schwäbisch" next to it. Nobody ever complained :D

[MichaelMacAllister]

I was born in the US and spent the first couple of years in Virginia. Then my German/American parents moved to Germany. For the next 18 or so years I was the American kid. Then I joined the US Air Force thinking I'd be among my 'fellow Americans'. To them I was the German. Hard lesson to learn, that you're neither. Anyway, still in Germany and loving every minute of it :-)

[thehotyounggrandpas]

I left Britain when I was 8 and have lived for 40 years in Mallorca. I don't feel Mallorquín or Spanish and I don't feel British, I feel me. I have no pride or affinity for any piece of land or flag and find it strange that anyone would. Strange.

[hanshartfiel]

I'm German and have lived in the UK now for over 47 years. I try and go to Germany once a year on holiday. No, not that I miss it or feel home sick but to show my son where his old man comes from. Despite the length of time I've lived in the UK I'm still an outsider but the same applies when I'm in Germany. Occasionally I'm being asked when was the last time I've been home and my answer is always "every day". Germany is the place where I was born, I'm a German national but my home is where my bed is and right now it is in the UK.

[reinhard]

I'm living in a "foreign" country, too. But for a German I am probably in the easiest country: Austria.
I still feel (and am) German, but for living and thinking I'm Austrian. I don't want to go back as I have been here the longest time of my life. And I don't have to change nationality. There are only very few things I can't do: politics (at least at higher levels), army, police(?), international sports competition.

[toreur]

You are not British, you are not German - you are Andrew!

[Korschtal]

I chuckled all the way through this because I feel exactly the same: I would also be utterly lost trying to live in the UK as I moved here at 21, more so because I now have a German qualification that is very hard to translate into English. As with you I feel sort of culturally British (although I've wondered a bit in the last few years) but I'm functionally German in everyday life.
I had to point out to my mum who was a little upset about me taking German citizenship that I would be able to retain my British citizenship, and I was just doing it so I could keep living and working here.
I generally tell people I'm British and German but I was born in the UK.

[lol-xswz]

"When I'm in Germany I don't feel completely German, and when I'm in X, I don't feel completely X"

This is something I hear a lot from citizens with a migration background. It's really interesting.

[Cowboy-in-a-Pink-Stetson]

Thank you.
I have been living in Germany for 2/3 of my life now, but born and raised in England. I have had dual nationality since 1977 when I was duly conscripted to the Bundeswehr!
Although I have been here for over 40 years now I still feel English, but I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (just around the corner actually, in Darmstadt).
I can vouch for every word you said as I have the same feelings about identity and culture. p.s. love your videos.

[idraote]

People have this innate drive of pigeon-boxing everything to ease their unease at having to comprehend slightly more complex situations.

[haukesattler]

Dear Andrew. About the question "How does feel it now that you are German Citizen":
I would probably answer the question as that the difference feels more or less like: "The difference you would feel between before your 20 birthday and a few day after. "
Before you were a teen and now you are not anymore. Now you are at a completely different age. That must feel different, right? Right? ;-P

[InterCity]

Your feeling about not being completely British or German is exactly how all of us of dual nationality feel (where we spent a large chunk of our lives in A and the later chunk in B). For me it’s I don’t feel completely German or completely American. We are the limbo folk.

[jonathanscott]

I feel much the same. I am British, but now, also a German citizen, but I am still learning to be German. At the moment, I am having to learn what a e. V. is. (Eingetragener Verein) Weirdly, I have been asked to possibly join the administration of a German Historical club. Life is sometimes strange.

[_aullik]

How dare you, going out and getting a tan.

[jackhat]

I noticed that in Europe people see national culture and upbringing as more important than concepts of race and family lineage. This is a big difference form former colonial countries where race and family heritage is everything (eg USA, South Africa, Malaysia, Australia)

I am in Australia and over here a lot of people identify themselves with where their family originally immigrated from. For example Australians with British heritage call themselves "Anglo -Saxons", people with Italian or Greek heritage identify themselves as Greek or Italian Australians, a lot of people from the South Australian region identify as "Australian Germans" and many children of Asian immigrants call themselves "Asian Australians".

[veranicus]

Thank you for this video, i am kind of culture exchange video geek.
I think Haley Alexis lateley made a few very valueble videos, going into some very specific cultureral diffrences.
I even used her videos as bases for some discussions \ conversations.


Btw i think your videos are great for getting a diffrent point of view or better exploring some diffrent povs.
Glad you feel comfortable in Germany.
Greetings and love from Schleswig-Holstein.

[chrisburns]

As someone who also has dual British German nationality, I describe myself as European. I feel that many of my values are core European ones and that drives my self identity. It's over simplistic for me to define myself as either nationality.

[tad]

Your video got me remembering an experience I had. In summer 2016 I moved to Bonn for an internship and had to get a temporary resident visa. During the registration, they asked me what my religion was. I must have been visibly taken aback, since the immigration officer said it was only for demographic data or something. But I didn't like the idea of telling the government what religion I was, especially since I'm Muslim (albeit non-practicing/irreligious) and the Arab refugee crises was still happening, but I didn't want to create an issue so I told them anyways. It's funny, being from Canada I'm used to filling out my ethnicity on forms (and see the demographic benefit it provides) but never religion.

[lotharschepers]

From the perspective of a native babyboomer German, I would rate you as our Brit.