Four years ago, I was my way to the Dusseldorf airport from a job interview and started chatting with my cab driver. He had three kids and, in response to my impressed look, he laughed and said, "It's up to us, the Arabs and the Canadians to make the babies here, because the Germans aren't making them!"
So, my son was born earlier this month in a German hospital to a Hungarian mother and a Canadian father, and I did my small part to fulfill Germany's economic goal of replacing the ranks of its aging population with a beautiful hybrid baby boy. And what an international love child! He'll get his mother's command of the Hungarian language and his father's Canadian English, along with a German education, starting out in a Kindergarten.
The country he will grow up in is as international as he is, though it's still different from my own settler state of a homeland. My mother, born in Canada to Dutch immigrants, still remembers attending the ceremony where her parents, brother, and sister were made Canadian citizens.
Those ceremonies are still celebrated by soon-to-be citizens and Canadians like me, who grew accustomed to seeing short clips of these ceremonies on the local evening news – back when people used to get their news from the TV.
You won't find that in Germany, or elsewhere in Europe. There's no Ministry of Multiculturalism and Germany doesn't bill itself as a Promised Land. It's the World's Workshop and it needs skilled workers. This is a transactional relationship, which is why there are so many foreigners in Germany and why so many of them come and go. It's not that they can't hack it – although many will give you an earful about the food, weather, language, or bureaucracy – it's just the way it goes in the European Union. People move where the opportunities are and their host countries accept them, with little pomp or ceremony. My Syrian cab driver wasn't far off, Germany is still a country that relies on its guest workers, even for their babies.
But those Syrian cab drivers, Hungarian designers, and Canadian copywriters who stay have found something beyond the pragmatic benefits for living and working in Germany. Sure, we contribute to, and enjoy the benefits of, a functioning social welfare system. And that system may care little about whether we stick around, but there are times where we have met informal multicultural ministers in Germany. Like the patient government workers who hear our faltering German and reply slowly, clearly, and respectfully for our German-novice ears. Or the helpful colleagues and friends who've offered advice or included us in some local custom, which often involves beer and/or raw meat.
When you stick with it, good things come to you here. It often takes the barest of minimums, like using your lousy German or keeping an open mind. Then, gradually, you lay down some roots. You feel less like a guest worker and the whole thing doesn't feel like a transactional relationship.
As the years go by, as the character of Germany evolves with those of us who stay and make a life here, I'm excited to see what my son will encounter. He will never have experienced this awkward guest worker phase that we endure. He'll be a local kid born in Germany with foreigner parents, like many other kids he'll meet at school. What will his generation bring to their Germany?
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