Minorities in the US and Germany

“When different cultures and races around the world clash, there will always be some issues”.

In the U.S. there are many different ethnic minorities. The three biggest groups are the Native Americans, the African Americans and the Hispanics. Each one of these groups has been treated very badly in the past and still today in different ways. The Native Americans have been slaughtered and robbed of their land (since they were the first human beings in the U.S.). The African Americans on the other hand were brought to the U.S., against their will, as slaves. The Hispanics, however, chose to come to the States, because they lived in very bad conditions in their home countries (mostly Mexicans) and they had no other prospective in life so they tried to cross the border illegally, in order to have a better life.

There are many undocumented Hispanic workers, especially in the south of the U.S.. They are cheap workers, for instance, in the garden or the household. On TV I saw a report on Mexican immigrants who come to the states illegally to work for white Americans. They never complain about the little money they get because they are afraid that somebody will deport them. Sometimes they don’t even get paid for their work. I also saw a white American lady talking about going to the store and get some groceries and also three Mexicans to help her with some work in the garden and to clean her car. This was very shocking to me that this lady talked about the Mexicans as if they were some kind of objects.

Hispanics nowadays are treated worse than Native Americans and African Americans. There are still many issues the other ethnic minorities have today but this would stretch my blog out into infinity.

In Germany there are only two big minority groups; the Turks and the Russians. They came to Germany as guest workers. Companies were looking for cheap laborers, mostly Turkish, Russian or even Polish men. After some time they brought their entire families to Germany or some of them moved back to their home countries. Those Turkish and Russian families are already in their second or third generation. Their children grew up with two languages but do not speak either one (German/Turkish or Russian) perfectly. They have their own German slang and they are viewed as uneducated. Those children have big problems assimilating to the German culture and can neither identify with the culture of their parents home countries.

This situation of the Turkish and Russian people in Germany can be compared to the situation of the Hispanics, Native Americans and African Americans in the U.S.. It is quite similar and this phenomenon occurs in many other places around the world too. To my mind these problems that occur when people from different races and cultures meet will always continue to exist until all races have mingled and there will be no distinction between colors anymore.