I Yell Because I Care, Part 2: Lines in the Sand

"I guess it's like my mama says, I yell because I care." - Ariana Waynes

This is the second part of a three-part reflection on the subject of foreigners, and being a foreigner, in Austria. In Part 1, I discussed my own positionality regarding this issue, and whether I am qualified to speak up on this subject. Part 2 describes the current situation with immigrant incorporation in Austria, using examples from my personal experience. In Part 3, I turn once again to my own position, questioning how I can best show solidarity with other Ausländer in Austria and, in some small way, contribute to a solution. 

I had always known, on some level, that discrimination against people with "migration backgrounds"* was a problem in Austria. But I had always considered it to be something that happens "out there" -- in villages, among older people. Not in the city I love, and coming from my friends and colleagues, from people who have been nothing but hospitable towards me. Not in my school, my ostensibly progressive, weltoffene (cosmopolitan) school, "wo Vielfalt Schule macht." 

I Yell Because I Care, Part 1: Ausländer in Austria

"I guess it's like my mama says, I yell because I care." - Ariana Waynes

This is the first part of a three-part reflection on the subject of foreigners, and being a foreigner, in Austria. In Part 1, I discuss my own positionality regarding this issue, and whether I am qualified to speak up on this subject. Part 2 describes the current situation with immigrant incorporation in Austria, using examples from my personal experience. In Part 3, I turn once again to my own position, questioning how I can best show solidarity with other Ausländer in Austria and, in some small way, contribute to a solution. 

As my one-year mark in this country approaches, I am feeling more and more like a member of this society. I will never be an Austrian, of course, but I've realized that I don't need to leave my American identity behind in order to feel beteiligt - to feel like I'm part of national life here. I care about what happens here, politically, socially, in terms of social justice, not in the abstract way I care about what happens in other parts of the world, but in the deep, personal way I care about what happens in the United States.

Which makes me feel like I can criticize it.

Learning German: Daham

I've been in Vienna for just short of three months now, and I've reached a point in my adjustment where I can say that nowhere in the world feels as much like home right now as this city does.

German differentiates between "die Heimat" ("home," as in the place where you're from) and "daheim" / "daham" ("home," as in where you live). I will always have a special connection to Pittsburgh -- in my complete admiration for working-class culture, in the way a turn-of-the-century brick factory brings tears to my eyes, in the way I value grit more than anything, in my complete and utter belief thats unions are the way to a better life. (Speaking of which, check this out!) Pittsburgh is and will always be a part of who I am.

But, at least for now, I'm a Wienerin, too. I have built a life for myself here.

Drill, Baby, Drill!

I love my job. The kids are, for the most part, engaged and interested in discussing American life and politics, and almost every day I come home with a new story to tell about something my students said. The teachers have begun to warm up to me, recognizing that I can actually lead really great lessons and giving me freedom to let my imagination run wild in coming up with fun activities that relate to the topics they're discussing in class. Not all of my lessons are home runs, of course, but almost every week, at least one student in one of my classes will come up to me and say, "That was really fun. Thank you." Teaching really is the best thing ever.

As great as things are at the Karajangasse are, though, there's one dark reality staring all of us in the face: These kids are not going to do well on the Matura.

Nur Du Allein

I realize that many of my blog posts lately have been quite snarky. Because I'm so familiar with Wien now, I don't feel the need to gush over it the way I once did. I prefer to write about the things I find amusing, the things that strike me as odd as I go about the city interacting with its people.

Sometimes, though, even this hardened Wienerin is struck by how lucky I am to live in such a magical city. Like this weekend, when the first Christkindlmärkte opened.

"Check" it!

English is cool here. This means that advertisements* -- although ostensibly in German -- will consist of as much as 80% English words ("Laser shows! Gratis drinks! Die Night wird awesome!"). Rappers will try to sound tough by spitting lines like "Kein Gangster auf der Street ist so beliebt bei den Kids." And pretty much everyone drops English words into their everyday speech.

When I first arrived in Austria, I was very paranoid about this. Is this person just saying "Beste Party Ever" or "That's it" because I'm around, and I'm missing out on some Ur-Austrian expression that they would normally say?

Slowly, though, I've been realizing that that's just the way German works. In fact, I'm often the one who looks silly for using German words, when everyone just uses the English one. When I wanted to know what to pack for my work at Uni Wien last summer, I looked in my favorite online dictionary / Austrian lifeline for the best translation of "dress code," and proudly wrote in my email to my boss, "Gibt's Kleiderregelungen?" "Nein, es gibt keinen Dress-Code" was her response.

Sometimes, though, German uses words that, at first glance, look like English -- but will confuse the living daylights out of you if you are actually a native speaker of English (or, as German speakers would say, "eine Native Speaker"-- even though everyone is a native speaker of something!). Here are some examples, for your (Schaden)freude:

Schweigen ist Schuld

Today, I went on a Stadtrundgang in commemoration of (Reichs)kristallnacht, also known as the Novemberpogrom. Every year, a group of citizens comes together to research and organize a tour of another part of the city in order to uncover stories of the Nazi period that have been forgotten, often in places where no public memorials stand. This year, the focus was on the 4. and 5. Bezirke. We were on the move for around two hours, listening to stories of burned synagogues, "arisierte" (aryanized) shops and apartments, and street violence.

Private memories, most notably the first-person accounts of several people who had lived in the district before fleeing the country, became public. Three police officers accompanied us on our way, stopping traffic at every intersection for us to pass through. At some of the stops, people heard our portable microphone and came out of their houses, or opened the windows of their flats, in order to hear and remember.

Schüler Say the Darndest Things

In general, I've been really impressed by the English levels of my students. I am, of course, getting a bit of a biased sample, because only the ones who feel comfortable enough to speak in English tend to participate in class. And I'm not surprised that some of them prefer to not speak, because the kids can be quite brutal to each other. On Wednesday, for example, I had one of my sixth-form classes do small group discussions about various issues in the American election. One of the groups was talking about Afghanistan, and so one of the boys said, "Yes, war is bad. It costs much death of soldiers." Whereupon his partner gave him a dirty look and said, "Much death of soldiers? Seriously?"

Because young people in Austria watch so much American television*, they have a really good idea of what correct English sounds like -- even if they can't quite speak it themselves. Stefan, a friend of mine from my dorm, for example, speaks absolutely awful English. (He once asked me how to translate "Studenten" when he was trying to have a conversation with one of the people in the dorm who speaks no German.) But another time, we got to talking about TV shows, and he quotes me an entire scene of Family Guy, in perfect English (punctuated, of course, by German phrases like "Und dann schaut er durchs Fenster und sagt...").

I try to be supportive of my students even when they make mistakes, so that they'll continue to want to speak. Sometimes, though, I find it hard not to laugh along with their classmates at some of the things they say. And so, in the spirit of Schadenfreude, here are some of my favorite exchanges with students in the past three weeks:

An Open Letter to the Austrian Holiday Gods

Dear People Who Set Holidays (and let's be honest, there's probably a Magistratische Abteilung somewhere responsible for this),

There are many people who are much more qualified than me to speak on the matter of Ausländerfeindlichkeit. I'm neither an Austrian nor an immigrant - just one of the "good" Ausländer who happens to be living here for awhile. And although I know and love many aspects of this country, I don't feel like it's my place to enter into its larger societal debates -- that's something y'all need to figure out for yourselves.

I have only one small point to make. Eid-al-Adha should be a national holiday.

Learning German: der Ampelmann

Picture this: You've just been dropped onto a street corner in the middle of some world-class city at three in the morning. You're standing outside some trendy club, and various artsy / "anti-establishment" people are milling around, speaking various languages with various accents. Other than that, the city is quiet -- no cars are to be seen or heard. You could be anywhere. But you will know within 60 seconds whether or not you're in a German-speaking country. Just wait and see whether anyone crosses the street.

Bäck tsu School

"WIR WOLLEN KEINE WANDERKLASSE" screams the sign in large letters, surrounded by more personal messages from individual students. It's a protest against the decision of the school where I'm teaching to force one group of seniors to move classes each period, rather than giving them a room of their own, which is normal. To my students, it's a constant source of irritation, a reminder that they attend a "ghetto school," as several of them have complained to me. (I can't really comment, as I've only ever been to one Austrian school, but my students are really engaged and the building is not lacking in facilities in the least.) To me, however, it's a daily reminder of the ways that Austrian schools differ from the ones I attended in the United States.

The Past is Never Dead

Last night was Lange Nacht der Museen, when all of the museums in Austria stay open until 1am and are free to enter with the purchase of a 13-Euro ticket (11-Euro if you're a student like me). It's a Pflichttermin, as the Austrians say, an event you absolutely must attend. Even if, like the friends I went with, you're not really a Museumsmensch and this is your one Kulturabend of the year.

My favorite collection was at Oberes Belvedere. There was quite a bit of Austrian art from the turn of the twentieth century (including many works by Gustav Klimt, pretty much the only Austrian artist of wide international acclaim, and also the favorite artist of my friend Tatenda from last summer, who invited me to accompany her and some friends on their Lange Nacht adventure.)

Der Stephansdom

Oktoberfest: The German Version

There are certain words that come to mind when you think of Oktoberfest: Gemütlich. Feuchtfröhlich. Prost. There are other words, though, equally German, that you do not think of when you think of Oktoberfest: Effizient. Durchgeplant. Anstrengend.

Somehow, even though everyone knows that Germans love to sing cheesy yet awesome Schlager songs (click the links!) and drink beer for hours on end, and everyone knows that Germans are rigid, efficient beings who lead a society best described as "well-managed," I had never really thought about how those stereotypes conflict.

Or rather, how they mix with one another. Because while Oktoberfest might indeed be a sloppy, happy mess of singing, beer drinking, and Dirndl wearing, it is also an exercise in regulated consumption, of finding the perfect balance of Hendl, Brezn, and Wurst that will allow you to keep drinking for an entire day. It is Germany, in both the ways I expected and the ways that surprised me.

German Movies That are Not About Nazis (or the Stasi!)

When people in the US ask me whether they should learn German, I respond with another question: "How much do you want to learn about World War II?" Because my German-learning experience felt in many respects like a six-year seminar on the Holocaust (with some Wiedervereinigung thrown in).

I'm not sure of the reasons for that--maybe they want to make sure that we never forget how sucky Germans were/are, and continue to be loyal to America--but I know that it's not the case in other countries. At the Goethe-Institut in Schwäbisch Hall, for example, one of the classes mentioned the various Nazification laws in the 1930s. Of couse, my American friend in the class, having taken five years of German class in the States, was ready to roll: she began ticking off dates, laws, and penalties as the French, Japanese, and Romanian students in the class, who had been taking German just as long, looked on in bewilderment. 

And some people really enjoy that. They study German because they're interested in the Holocaust, or in music, or in nineteenth-century philosophers, or in Romantic literature. But I'm not one of those people. I'm still not quite sure why I love studying German so much, or why I am so enthralled with Austria, but it has nothing to do with music, mountains, or Nazis. I enjoy experiencing the ways more global cultural elements take on a German / Austrian spin: for example, I read a feminist blog auf Deutsch, and I love German hip-hop.

I also love watching German movies. Unfortunately, the German movies that are well-known in America always seem to discuss the same themes. (Even the most famous "Austrian" movie of all time is half-cheerful frolic through the mountains, half-"Oh shit, the Nazis!") Some of these films are even great. But there's a lot more to German-speaking cinema than Downfall, Goodbye Lenin, and Das Leben der Anderen. Here are some of my favorites.

Learning German: die Stempelgesellschaft

The largest employer in the United States (and the world, incidentally), depending on whether you include public-sector work, is either the Department of Defense or Walmart.* The largest employer in Austria, by contrast, is the City of Vienna. This size is indeed appropriate, as Vienna accounts for 1/4 of the entire population of the country, and the city provides a vast number of services that Americans could only dream of, like a dense network of free youth centers, an on-point public transit system, and a really cool new initiative that aims to bring people together to create community charters.

But it also means that you can have experiences with bureaucracy that are quite frustrating / funny, depending on your outlook. Like, for example, registering for university. Even before I arrived in Austria, I had filled out an online registration form and submitted various documents to the Fulbright Commission, who would visit the admissions office in person to submit them. And so, I thought, with all my paperwork turned in, my matriculation papers and student ID would be waiting for me when I arrived in-country.

False.

Orientation Live Blog*

Oh, the joys of Fulbright Orientation. You wake up at an ungodly hour, traipse to the Fulbright office in Museumsquartier, and sit down to listen to nuggets of wisdom like this:

"This is Jürgen. He's one of the five nice people in Vienna."

"All in all, being occupied by the United States was a really good thing for Austria. That's really the start of the Austrian political system."

"You might not notice that many cultural differences between the US and Austria--not as many as you would if you were going to spend a year among the cannibals in Papua New Guinea who run around naked."

"Austria totally defies everything we know about neoliberalism. You'll be here for a year, so in your interactions with 'The Natives,' try to figure out if you can why Austria is so prosperous despite having high taxes and a redistributive [rolls eyes] welfare state. It makes no sense."

Americans Have No Culture

Because it's basically an ERASMUS-Heim, my dorm seems to be built on the principle of cultural exchange in a way that I've never experienced before. Sure, I had plenty of international friends at Harvard. But at Harvard, the specific countries where my friends came from were not that salient to their public identities. We talked about sex in Georgia, transportation in France, educational philosophy in Nepal, etc. whenever it came up, but because we were all trying to fit into the cosmopolitan culture of Harvardland, national identities were not a huge part of our daily reality.

Here, it's altogether different. I've already talked about how this represents the first time many of the students here have gotten the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. And part and parcel of that is a kind of "food and festivals" multiculturalism that seems to be pretty common in the Heim.

What if this wasn't just for a year?

When I told my roommate that I had already lived in Austria on two separate occasions, and was coming back for a third time, the first question she asked was, "Would you ever consider staying here long-term?"

It's a valid question, and one, I'll admit, I've given a lot of thought over the past year or so. Because I am getting into the meat of my twenties, and more and more of my friends are meeting people they could see themselves settling down with. And so the question of location takes on added importance.

Guess I Got My Swagger Back

Although I tried to maintain a positive outlook, my first few days in Austria did not go well. The problems started in the airport, when a lady asked me where the Gleis was for the S-Bahn, and I could barely get out the words for "down the steps there." When I went to pick up my roomkey from Martin's colleague, I was up to full phrases -- but only one at a time. When I tried to put together a two-phrase sentence, I ended up just trailing off halfway through. And then a girl around my age offered to help me with my baggage, but I just stared blankly at her because it took me like 30 seconds to figure out what she was saying.

Ok, I thought, I'll chalk that up to the fact that I haven't slept for 20 hours and am feeling the first stirrings of a horrific cold. But even after sleeping for ten hours, my attempt to introduce myself to my roommate auf Deutsch did not go as well as planned. Shit, I thought, have I forgotten how to speak this language? That could make things interesting.

But in the past few days, things have definitely been looking up. Finally able to get out of bed after a week-long Erkältung (cold), I've begun interacting with people, and I've found that my Deutsch skills are not as degraded as I had feared. In fact, I think I'm getting my Vienna swagger back:

Austrians are Funny #1

In the grocery store on Saturday, next to the cartons of tomato, carrot, and apple juice, I found sauerkraut juice. It's supposedly part of "Wellness für den Darm," which in English means "it gives you the runs like crazy." This is apparently a good thing.

Hey, at least it's organic!

First (Third?) Impressions

Like every child of the 1990s, I love Harry Potter. But several things about the books have always bothered me: (1) If Europe's Christians decided to make witches and wizards their bitter enemies for several hundred years, why does the (witchcraft and) wizarding world still celebrate Christmas? (2) Are Muggle-born children really ready to give up their entire culture at age 11 and never look back? (3) Dumbledore's explanation aside, isn't it immoral to not share the "technological" advances of wizards with the rest of the world? It's this last one that irks me the most, though. Not because 100 million people died from the Spanish flu, which a quick spell could have healed, but because every time I travel, I think to myself, "Damn, I really wish I could apparate."

Inspiration, Round 3

It's become something of a tradition for me to express my thoughts about my imminent departure in the form of a song lyric I can't get out of my head. This summer is no exception, as I've been haunted by the first lines of a song from, of all things, Pocahontas--the most American of Disney movies. It comes to me as I flip through GRE vocabulary flash cards, as my feet pound the track of my former high school on a run, as I slowly but surely fill my suitcases with clothes, books, and other items I can't bear to leave behind:

What I love most about rivers is
You can't step in the same river twice
The water's always changing, always flowing

I wanted to return to Austria partly because I feel comfortable there. I know that train tickets are much cheaper when you have a VORTEILScard (although it has always been unclear to me why it couldn't just be called a Vorteilskarte), that you have to move it in the grocery store checkout line if you don't want the customers behind you flashing you increasingly dirty looks, that almost anything can be found somewhere along Mariahilferstraße, and that THERE IS NO FUCKING U5 (seriously, oida, what the fuck?).

But you can't step in the same river twice. Austria will have changed in the thirteen months since I've been there, and more importantly, I've changed as well. A lot of times I feel like I'm in a relationship with Austria. Well, we've been on hiatus for over a year now, and now I've decided to try to rekindle things. But there's no way of knowing whether sparks will fly this time as they have in the past. I've met plenty of expats in Austria who absolutely hate the place, and I don't want to become one of them. I have loved Austria, and I want to believe I will love it again. But a part of me--the part of me that doesn't even believe in love--wonders whether that's even possible.