My fellow Fulbrighter, Michelle, leaves tomorrow for Essen, after having spent the past few months in Berlin working on her project. So tonight, she threw a little "farewell party" so we could all celebrate.
Funny though, 'cause we'll see her in about two weeks for the Berlin Fulbright Conference. Nevertheless, it is really rather sad that one of my Berlin buddies is moving already.
Since she's leaving tomorrow, we had to help finish all of her remaining food items. So here's the feast we had tonight:
I was really quite full, but Michelle gave me some food to take home too. Woo! Now I have food for tomorrow...I'm running low on food. Time for my weekly grocery shopping on Tuesday.
Since I haven't blogged since Wednesday, here's a snapshot of what I've done since then. I met with my other faculty advisor on Thursday, and the most exciting news that came out of that meeting is that we're going to try and write an article together (in German) on what I've found through my research. I hadn't seen her since November, but apparently since then she's already had two more articles published. So I'm excited to work on that with her. Now if only I could get this official permission from the Berlin Senate to do interviews...still waiting.
I also visited a school on Friday through the Embassy's Meet US program and spoke on "Immigration, Integration, and Multiculturalism in the United States." Since the students study mainly British English, they also talked mainly about Great Britain (and Germany, of course) when it came to this theme of migration. The teacher asked me to come and speak from an American's perspective, so I provided some historical context and then shared my personal experiences.
At one point, I asked the students whether they felt the US or Germany was a more tolerant society in relation to the theme of immigration. Not all the students spoke, but one of them who did felt quite strongly that Germany was much more tolerant. In my personal view, I disagree with her, but I did not share my thoughts until I'd heard from all the students who wanted to speak. Several of the students, particularly those with migration backgrounds, disagreed with that first student's opinion and thought it was likely better in the US, even though only one student had ever been to the US (and to a small town of 300 in Minnesota no less).
I also had them read an article on the Dream Act, and the questions they asked were fascinating. After having learned from my brief historical overview that one can become a US citizen simply by being born on US soil, one girl asked why then isn't the US allowing illegal immigrants to pursue education and jobs if they arrived in the US as young children? In her view, it was hypocritical for the US not to give those students (the roughly 1.2 million undocumented students across the country) the same chances as others who might've been born on US soil.
I told her that I agreed with her perspective, and I sincerely hope that legislation like the Dream Act will pass sooner rather than later. Since I had given them a run down of the legislative evolution in the US (including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the National Origins Act), I also made sure to leave them with a final, more positive thought. I told them it's important to also be able to take the long-view of things. Certainly, it's frustrating and sometimes downright unfair that more tolerant legislation isn't passed more quickly; but if the United States' young history is any example (particularly in recent months), things can and will get better.
I suppose I'm an optimistic idealist to some degree, but I'd like to think of myself as more of an idealistic pragmatist. It was really an awesome experience having these discussions with that class of 11th graders, and again I was very impressed that they were able to discuss it all in English. I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to explain all that history in German. :)
Anyway, one final piece to share, as promised a few blog posts ago: my Scholarship Junkies article on studying abroad will be featured tomorrow on BetterGrads' College 101 blog. This version is considerably shorter, but I think it still does the job—if not a better job than my longer version.
Till next time,
Sam
Funny though, 'cause we'll see her in about two weeks for the Berlin Fulbright Conference. Nevertheless, it is really rather sad that one of my Berlin buddies is moving already.
Since she's leaving tomorrow, we had to help finish all of her remaining food items. So here's the feast we had tonight:
I was really quite full, but Michelle gave me some food to take home too. Woo! Now I have food for tomorrow...I'm running low on food. Time for my weekly grocery shopping on Tuesday.
Since I haven't blogged since Wednesday, here's a snapshot of what I've done since then. I met with my other faculty advisor on Thursday, and the most exciting news that came out of that meeting is that we're going to try and write an article together (in German) on what I've found through my research. I hadn't seen her since November, but apparently since then she's already had two more articles published. So I'm excited to work on that with her. Now if only I could get this official permission from the Berlin Senate to do interviews...still waiting.
I also visited a school on Friday through the Embassy's Meet US program and spoke on "Immigration, Integration, and Multiculturalism in the United States." Since the students study mainly British English, they also talked mainly about Great Britain (and Germany, of course) when it came to this theme of migration. The teacher asked me to come and speak from an American's perspective, so I provided some historical context and then shared my personal experiences.
At one point, I asked the students whether they felt the US or Germany was a more tolerant society in relation to the theme of immigration. Not all the students spoke, but one of them who did felt quite strongly that Germany was much more tolerant. In my personal view, I disagree with her, but I did not share my thoughts until I'd heard from all the students who wanted to speak. Several of the students, particularly those with migration backgrounds, disagreed with that first student's opinion and thought it was likely better in the US, even though only one student had ever been to the US (and to a small town of 300 in Minnesota no less).
I also had them read an article on the Dream Act, and the questions they asked were fascinating. After having learned from my brief historical overview that one can become a US citizen simply by being born on US soil, one girl asked why then isn't the US allowing illegal immigrants to pursue education and jobs if they arrived in the US as young children? In her view, it was hypocritical for the US not to give those students (the roughly 1.2 million undocumented students across the country) the same chances as others who might've been born on US soil.
I told her that I agreed with her perspective, and I sincerely hope that legislation like the Dream Act will pass sooner rather than later. Since I had given them a run down of the legislative evolution in the US (including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the National Origins Act), I also made sure to leave them with a final, more positive thought. I told them it's important to also be able to take the long-view of things. Certainly, it's frustrating and sometimes downright unfair that more tolerant legislation isn't passed more quickly; but if the United States' young history is any example (particularly in recent months), things can and will get better.
I suppose I'm an optimistic idealist to some degree, but I'd like to think of myself as more of an idealistic pragmatist. It was really an awesome experience having these discussions with that class of 11th graders, and again I was very impressed that they were able to discuss it all in English. I'm pretty sure I would not have been able to explain all that history in German. :)
Anyway, one final piece to share, as promised a few blog posts ago: my Scholarship Junkies article on studying abroad will be featured tomorrow on BetterGrads' College 101 blog. This version is considerably shorter, but I think it still does the job—if not a better job than my longer version.
Till next time,
Sam
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