HOW DO IMMIGRANTS CHANGE SOCIETY? (2) Engin Erkiner
Türkçe English Deutsch Italiano Français Ελληνικά Kurdî Español HOW DO IMMIGRANTS CHANGE SOCIETY? (2)
The second generation, also called the “lost generation” in Germany, played an important role in the change of the majority society . It can be said that the first generation lived on the margins of German society. There were Turkish neighborhoods and barbers, grocery stores, travel agencies, in short, everything necessary for living. It was enough to know a few sentences of German, the rest was Turkish.
When the children of the first generation started going to school, they had to spend years between work and home and on their own. Immigrants who lived introverted lives began to open up to society. This opening developed on the basis of friction.
There was marked racism in German society and school-going children were well educated.< /span>he was trying not to see it. The fact that immigrant parents did not care about their children's education and did not send them to kindergarten in order to save money was an important factor in why these children did not receive a good education.
The reason why the second generation is called the "lost generation" is that they feel alienated not only in Germany but also in Turkey. Their Turkish was bad, as was their German. They could not get along with their peers when they went to Turkey on holiday because they had inevitably acquired some habits in the German society they had lived in for years.
The leading problem of this generation was xenophobia. We can also see this in the poems, stories and novels of the period, which are called “migrant worker literature.” Most of the writers did not know literature. Literature is primarily fiction, not telling about experiences. The subjects of the writers of immigrant worker literature were their experiences. It is correct to define these works as "sociological literature". The common theme was xenophobia; The Germans were bad, the Turks were good.
There were also people from this generation who excelled by being well educated, but they had to struggle hard to achieve this. The situation was especially difficult for women because they were under pressure from their families as well as the advanced racism in German society. They envied the freedom experienced by German women, but for this they had to overcome the obstacles brought by their families.
One of the popular writers of this period and German The title of a book by Saliha Scheinhardt, "Women Who Cry Blood" is the result of this environment.
The generation that lived through the Second World War and bore the psychological impact of Hitler's fascism began to die. Very few of these people were able to save themselves from that psychological effect. It is important that the 68movement defended the rights of foreigners in society (the word immigrant was not used in those years, because immigrant meant settlement). It is important to advocate for foreigners to have more rights in reducing the concept of a superior Germanic race. He found the ally he was looking for, not in the first generation, but in the second generation. The foreign-origin MPs of the Greens, one of the products of the 68 movement, are the result of this understanding.
The second generation is challenging It held on in society with a struggle and was decisive in the change that took place after 1990. It paved the way for the third and subsequent generations.
