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.

I know that people (especially Americans) who've spent time in foreign countries have really varying views on this topic -- I had a great conversation last summer with a high school friend who has spent a bunch of time in Jordan about this very issue -- and I do wonder I would feel differently were I not in Western Europe, but in a post-colonial context, where issues of power and privilege would be more evident. But I feel like I've at least earned the right to add my voice to the national debate here -- at least on the issues that personally affect me. That voice can then be ignored, discounted, given less weight than that of an Austrian, whatever -- and I don't necessarily feel like that's wrong -- but I don't feel anymore that it's not my place to take on some of the larger political issues in this country.

This sometimes brings me into trouble: my students, for example, sometimes react negatively when I express a negative opinion of some aspect of Austrian society. When we were talking about smoking, for example, one of my students mentioned that if you buy cigarettes for someone under age 16, you can't get into trouble with the law, the person who sold you the cigarettes does. Even if they had no way of knowing that you were going to give them to a kid. "That's really silly," said one of my students. "Yeah, totally, that's a really stupid law," I agreed, whereupon another student shot back, "Yeah, but there are lots of stupid laws in the United States."*

Of course there are. My criticisms of Austria are not rooted in some misguided belief that the United States is a better country -- in fact, on most aspects of life, I strongly prefer the Austrian way. They're rooted in the understanding that Austria could be a better country, and my hope that it will become one.

Which is why the topic of Ausländerfeindlichkeit has really started to rub me the wrong way. The situation with "foreigners" in Austria is incredibly tense, in a way I've never experienced before and am only beginning to understand. There's so much anger, especially among the young people I come into contact with, that I don't see how a resolution could come anytime soon.

But, because I care deeply about this country, I've been able to think of little else in the past month. In school, with my friends (both in Austria and around the world during our emails and Skype sessions), on the streetcar, when I sat down to blog -- the question of why the situation is so bad, how it became that way, and what can be done has almost constantly vexed me. And more than that -- it's pissed me off. The way that the Newtown shooting pissed me off. The way that Trayvon Martin pissed me off. The way that reading that the Department of Defense is the second-largest employer in the United States pissed me off. My patriotism has never been of the flag-waving variety. It's more of the shriek-in-frustration-because-there-is-so-much-injustice-it-can-feel-insurmountable variety. "I guess it's like my mama says," reads one of my favorite poems, "I yell because I care."

Consider this my yell.



* And Austrians think that Nationalstolz isn't a thing.