Re: Euro-Immigrants

----- Original Message -----
From: "Laserlight" <laserlight@quixnet.net>
> Karl Heinz said:
> > What exactly do you mean by your question "What's up with all those
> Turks
> > and Kurds ?"  ?
>
> That would mean "There seem to be a lot of Turks and Kurds in Germany,
> why is that?"  I'd wondered that too--not so much "why does Germany
> have a lot of immigrants" but more "why does it appear that so many
> are Turkish" when they might just as well be from a mix of countries.
> On reflection, though, I'd think most of the Arabs would go to
> England, France or Italy (depending on their country of origin), most
> of the Balkan/Slavic people probably couldn't emigrate during the cold
> war, so the most convenient source of labor nearby would be Turkiye.

You are right about the Arabs and Slavic people.
I think the "many are Turkish" is partly a matter of perception.

In the 1960's Germany cast a wide net (as far as South Korea, actually)
looking for workers among friendly, poor countries - people from rich
countries wouldn't be intereseted and we didn't want too many from
unfriendly countries, which most Arab countries were at the time. Turkey
was
in NATO and hence a friendly country. I don't think many at the time
here
realized there was a difference between Turks and Kurds.

A lot of people came from Spain, Italy, Portugal, Jugoslavia and Greece
and
are still here. They are rather less conspicuous than the Turks for a
number
of reasons. They are not Islamic, so the religious difference isn't
there.
They generally had somewhat higher standards of training and a more
"European" culture. Both means they adapted more easily to Germany.
Their
descendants tend to marry people they meet here rather than an arranged
bride or groom from the home village. When their countries joined the
European Union, they could move more freely back and forth, and the
countries are better off, so Germany is no longer such a magnet to them.

Turks continue to come into Germany mostly through marriage and family
arrangements. Kurds from all the countries where they live want to come
into
Europe. And who could blame them, given their condition in Irak, Turkey,
Syria and Iran ? They don't just come to Germany. Italy for example,
regukarly picks up ships with Kurdish refugees/wanna-be-immigrants.

Presently, the largest number of immigrants to Germany are from Eastern
European countries. In Hamburg, for example, the Poles now are the
largest
single group of foreign nationals. In my boys' school, a third of the
kids
are Polish. This has actually been the natural recruitment area for
Germany
since the industrialization. There are many Polish-descended families
living
here for more than a century, nowadays German in all but their name -
literally. This area was closed off during the cold war. But they
integrate
very easily, not just for the reasons mentioned above, but they also are
visually indistiguishable from Germans. Many blonde or brown-haired
among
them, rather than the darker types from the South.

There are many immigrants from a lot of countries. An interesting
example
are the Vietnamese. In Western Germany, these were refugees South
Vietnamese
fleeing from the North Vietnamese and Chinese/Vietnamese boat people
from
slightly later. In the East, the DDR, when they had amanpower shortage
in
teh 1908's hired a lot of people from Communist Vietnam. Or the Afghans,
refugees from the wars. They are part of the reason Germany now plays
such a
prominent part in the rebuilding of the country. Some of the new
ministers
in Afghanistan speak excellent German.

Greetings