Noten und Immigration

Date: Sat, 12 Mar 2016 14:04:02 +0000
From: K eckhard Kuhnosius <ekuhnos@hunter.cuny.edu>
Subject: [AATG-L] Article about school, grades. immigration

This article is culturally interesting. It speaks to themes of immigration and integration as well as the need for help from locals, the role and importance of school, and the German grading system (where an 1.0 Abitur is still considered noteworthy).  Eckhard Kuhn-Osius / Hunter College, CUNY


HIER DEN LINK IM ORIGINAL
http://www.hna.de/kassel/brueder-sawan-sayman-kakkar-machten-6203700.html

Medizinstudenten legten Abschlüsse an Herderschule ab 
Brüder Sawan und Sayman Kakkar machten Abi mit 1,0

12.03.16 - 14:12

Sawan (links) und Sayman Kakkar (rechts) mit ihrem ehemaligen Lehrer an der
Herderschule, Dr. Hans-Otto Rößer. Foto: Hein

Kassel / Fuldabrück. Es ist kaum zu glauben: 2013 hat der heute 20-jährige
Sawan Kakkar an der Herderschule mit einem Schnitt von 1,0 das beste Abitur am
Oberstufengymnasium der vergangenen 20 Jahre abgelegt.

Zwei Jahre später folgte ihm sein Bruder Sayman, heute 18, und legte ebenfalls ein Abitur mit 1,0 hin. Inzwischen studieren beide in Göttingen Medizin.

Dass sie Stipendiaten der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes sind, überrascht da kaum noch. Schulleiter Martin Sauer ist stolz darauf, Sawan und Sayman als Kandidaten erfolgreich vorgeschlagen zu haben.

Wie kommt so ein Ausnahme-Abi im Doppelpack nur zustande? Die Brüder, die sich gut verstehen, schauen sich an und lächeln. Sie hätten eine normale, wenig angespannte Schulzeit gehabt. Die Eltern sorgten Füreinanderdasein und nicht an Karrierepläne.  Das Lernen blieb ihnen einfach leicht, so erzählen sie. -- Es gibt auch ein Fach, in dem die beiden Brüder keine brillanten Noten bekamen: Kunst.

Die Familie der in Kassel geborenen Brüder stammt aus Afghanistan. Sawan kann sich noch erinnern, wie er seine ersten Lebensjahre im Asylantenheim in Vellmar verbracht hat. Als die politisch verfolgte Hindu-Familie einen anerkannten Status hatte, zog sie nach Fuldabrück-Bergshausen. Und da trafen die Brüder auf einen Menschen, dem sie, wie sie heute sagen, viel zu verdanken haben: Eine Nachbarin, eine ältere Dame mit einem großen Bücherschrank, habe zu den Eltern gesagt: „Die Kinder müssen Deutsch lernen. Ich übernehme das.“

Und so haben die Brüder Stunde um Stunde bei der heute 94jährigen Elfriede Schulze verbracht, in Klassikern und Zeitungen lesen geübt und früh Bildung erworben. „Ich erinnere mich öfters an Texte, die wir nicht allzu viel verstanden haben“, sagt Sawan.  Aber profitiert haben die Söhne wohl.

Die Mutter, eine Hausfrau, habe eine geringe Schulbildung, und der Vater war in der afghanischen Hauptstadt Kabul in der Apotheke des Großvaters tätig. Lesen hatte keinen Platz im Leben der Kakkars. Aber dank der Nachbarin trug das Lesen bei den Brüdern Früchte. Lesen – vor allem von Sachbüchern – wurde für sie zur Leidenschaft (passion). Den ersten Vorlesewettbewerb gewann Sayman mit elf.

Um am Landkreisgymnasium hohe Noten zu bekommen habe nicht zuletzt auch an guten Lehrern gelegen, so die Kakkars. Allen voran Dr. Hans-Otto Rößer. Als Lehrer für Ethik, Politik und Wirtschaft habe er die Brüder gefördert und motiviert. „Ich brauche Lehrer, die mich ansprechen“, sagt Sawan. Auch Sayman schätzt an Rößer die zugewandte Art. „Als mich Dr. Rößer zum ersten Mal hinterfragte: Warum machen Sie das so? und mich zum Reflektieren brachte, dachte ich: Hier bin ich richtig. Bei diesem Lehrer lerne ich was.“
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Parisian boy doesn't have to move after all - -

Here's an exchange of value.  Do you agree?

HERE, FROM MSNBC

German in Brazil? Pomerade, where residents are 90% German

Photo Essay: The Most German City in Brazil

AuthorMark Minkjan

SummaryPhotographer Erik van der Weijde captured the architecture of the Brazilian town Pomerode, where 90 percent of the population speaks German and culture is entrenched with German tradition.

ThemesArchitected Stuff

ContentPhotography

Date2 October 2015

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In 1861, the town Pomerode was founded in the northeast of Santa Catarina by Pomeranian Germans (who originate from the North of Germany). Out of the roughly 25,000 inhabitants, some 90 percent still speak German (and even more curiously, with a distinct 19th century Pommersch accent).

The southernmost part of Brazil has been host to successive waves of German immigration since the 19th century, with the most significant period occurring between 1848 and 1939, and a record influx immediately after the First World War. As a result, in the state of Santa Catarina about 50 percent of all immigrants were Germans and Austrians.

This not only affected the ethnic makeup of the population but also gave rise to an eclectic culture characterised by a peculiar attachment to traditional German influences. It is a culture that has also left an indelible mark on the region’s architecture. The buildings, characterised by exposed brick within a frame of exposed wood, recall German rural settings from around 1900, but are housing people of Brazilian nationality in the 21st century. And rather than being set in an alpine landscape, they are embedded in the Brazilian subtropics.

The German government has recently acknowledged the cultural significance of this far-flung outpost of German life, resulting in a renaissance of Pomeranian cultural events and related tourism.

But over the years Brazilian Germans have emphasised the connection much more enthusiastically, adopting any and every stereotypical German custom. Ironically, the traditions promoted there, including dancing and clothing, are heavily influenced by Southern German Bavarian culture, despite the fact that the customs were not familiar to the original North German immigrants. And in contrast to European Germans’ more muted engagement with the darker elements of their history, the Brazilian Germans have been found to be much more open about the Nazi legacy. Indeed, last year, the city made the global news after a large swastika was spotted on the bottom of a private swimming pool.

Architecturally speaking, older houses are being carefully preserved and property developers are encouraged to build in supposedly authentic German styles. PhotographerErik van der Weijde set out to capture the architectural oddities of Pomerode, consisting of enxiamel structures (Brazilian for “half-timbering”, or “Fachwerk” in German).

The series is in line with other work by Van der Weijde, which is often influenced by German history, architecture and contemporary Brazil. His project on the German Brazilian city is covered in his recently published book Pomerode.

All images are courtesy of Erik van der Weijde

Germany Helps House Refugees as they Wait for Asylum

As refugees flood in....

In this photo taken on Thursday, July 30, 2015, Syrian refugee Leila, no last name given, poses in an emergency shelter in Berlin where she waits with her family for her pending registration as asylum seekers. The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing - both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe’s richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe’s 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year - more than double the number in the same period of 2014. (AP Photo/Olga Syrova) 

Associated PressAug. 29, 2015 | 5:44 a.m. EDT+ More

  By OLGA SYROVA, Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Twenty-three-year-old Leila, her husband and two small children spent their first week in Germany in a temporary shelter, an austere but desperately needed haven after a traumatic flight from Syria that began when her husband was told to fight for the government.

Among an expected 800,000 asylum seekers flowing into Germany this year — some four times last year's count — she and her family shared a small room built in a converted covered tennis court in downtown Berlin during their first week in the country in August, furnished with three Ikea bunk beds, a small table and a small closet. They received three meals a day in a common room for the 300 refugees in the facility, and bathrooms were shared.

The setup was basic by European standards, but for Leila, who cannot forget the bodies littering the streets of the Syrian city of Aleppo, it was a fresh start.

"We were so afraid, before we came here," said Leila, who requested that her last name not be used for fear of retribution against her family still in Syria. "Now we feel comfortable because we are treated well ... We feel safe here."

The surge in migrants and refugees to Europe from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and elsewhere this year has sent countries scrambling to come up with housing — both temporary for those awaiting the outcome of asylum applications, and permanent for those allowed to stay. German authorities say they have 45,000 spots in temporary facilities for new asylum applicants — excluding tent settlements that have been hastily erected — but they need as many as 150,000.

Many European countries face similar problems, but none greater than Germany. Europe's richest economy attracted 43 percent of Europe's 400,000 asylum applications in the first half of the year — more than double the number in the same period of 2014.

The converted tennis court where Leila and her family are being housed was supposed to be closed in May, but it has been kept open to help deal with the flood of newcomers. Funded by the city, it is run by the Berlin City Mission, a Christian nonprofit organization, and staffed largely by volunteers.

Elsewhere in Berlin, portable shipping containers have been converted into small stacks of apartments to accommodate 2,400 refugees around the capital. At one in container village in southwestern Berlin, which is just opening, colorfully painted containers offer comfortable space for 300 refugees. It boasts single rooms with shared kitchens and bathrooms on each floor, as well as small flats for families, and even accommodation for the disabled.

In government and non-governmental projects around the country, former military barracks are being converted to housing, disused nursing homes are being refurbished and even small tent cities are being erected. Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has already doubled the financial assistance available to local authorities to 1 billion euros ($112 billion) and has called a meeting with state leaders in September to discuss the refugee situation further.

Some Germans have taken matters into their own hands. Last year, Berlin resident Jonas Kakoschke decided with his roommate to house a refugee in her place while she was spending six months abroad.

Kakoschke helped the refugee, a Mali-born man from Senegal, learn the language, get his paperwork done and eventually find his own apartment. Now, with the online project "Refugees Welcome" that Kakosche and his roommate founded together, they help find private placements for more new arrivals, by matching ages, language skills and other criteria.

"Many refugees say they don't have direct contact with local population and our project helps them with that," Kakoschke said.

Through July, they say they have placed 64 refugees across Germany and 34 in Austria in private apartments. There's also been reports of people across Germany who have taken in refugees on their own, but it is not clear exactly how many.

New York City und Kleindeutschland

Peter Minuit aus Wesel, in Nordrhein Westfalen

 auf Deutsch:



auf Englisch:




1840:  20,000 German in NYC
1860:  200,000 in Kleindeutschland
1880:  400,000  (1/4 of all in NYC)

America’s largest ethnic group has assimilated so well that people barely notice it

German-Americans

The silent minority

 

Feb 7th 2015 | KOHLER, WISCONSIN | From the print edition

   ON A snow-covered bluff overlooking the Sheboygan river stands the Waelderhaus, a faithful reproduction of an Austrian chalet. It was built by the Kohler family of Wisconsin in the 1920s as a tribute to the homeland of their father, John Michael Kohler, who had immigrated to America in 1854 at the age of ten.

John Michael moved to Sheboygan, married the daughter of another German immigrant, who owned the local foundry, and took over his father-in-law’s business. He transformed it from a maker of ploughshares into a plumbing business. Today Kohler is the biggest maker of loos and baths in America. Herbert Kohler, the boss (and grandson of the founder), has done so well selling tubs that he has been able to pursue his other passion—golf—on a grand scale. The Kohler Company owns Whistling Straits, the course that will host the Ryder Cup in 2020.

German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group. (Note:  the Census divided Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc.)  In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock.  

Yet despite their numbers, they are barely visible. Everyone knows that Michael Dukakis is Greek-American, the Kennedy clan hail from Ireland and Mario Cuomo was an Italian-American. Fewer notice that John Boehner, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and Rand Paul, a senator from Kentucky with presidential ambitions, are of German origin.

Companies founded by German-Americans tend to play down their roots, too: think of Pfizer, Boeing, Steinway, Levi Strauss or Heinz.  Buried somewhere on their websites may be a brief note that “Steinway & Sons was founded in 1853 by German immigrant Henry Engelhard Steinway in a Manhattan loft on Varick Street”. But firms that play up their Germanic history—as Kohler does, in a short film shown at the Wälderhaus—are rare.   (Correction:  Steinway is indeed proud of its German roots, per its web page...rsb)

German immigrants have flavoured American culture like cinnamon in an Apfelkuchen. They imported Christmas trees and Easter bunnies and gave America a taste for pretzels, hot dogs, bratwursts and sauerkraut. They built big Lutheran churches wherever they went. Germans in Wisconsin launched America’s first kindergarten and set up Turnvereine, or gymnastics clubs, in Milwaukee, Cincinnati and other cities.

(Note:  There were several distinct  waves of German immigrations.  This article spells out only one.  See also the Library of Congress article above.  -- rsb)

After a failed revolution in Germany in 1848, disillusioned revolutionaries decamped to America and spread progressive ideas. “Germanism, socialism and beer makes Milwaukee different,” says John Gurda, a historian. Milwaukee is the only big American city that had Socialist mayors for several decades, of whom two, Emil Seidel and Frank Zeidler, were of German stock. ...

During the first world war, parts of America grew hysterically anti-German. Some Germans were spat at in the street. The teaching of their language was banned in schools. Sauerkraut was renamed “liberty cabbage”. German books were burned, dachshunds kicked and German-Americans forced to buy war bonds to prove their patriotism. When New Ulm, a predominantly German town in Minnesota, refused to let its young men join the draft, the National Guard was sent in. After the war, German-Americans hunkered down. Many stopped speaking German and anglicised their names.
The second world war saw less anti-German hysteria, although some 10,000 German-Americans were interned as enemy aliens. President Franklin Roosevelt conspicuously appointed military commanders with names like Eisenhower and Nimitz to fight the Axis powers. But the Holocaust gave German-Americans yet another reason to hide their origins.

Today German-Americans are quietly successful. Their median household income, at $61,500, is 18% above the national norm. They are more likely to have college degrees than other Americans, and less likely to be unemployed. A whopping 97% of them speak only English at home.
They have assimilated and prospered without any political help specially tailored for their ethnic group. “The Greeks and the Irish have a far stronger support network and lobby groups than we do,” says Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador in America. There was no German-American congressional caucus until 2010, though there were caucuses for potatoes, bicycles and Albanian affairs. The German caucus has quickly grown to about 100 members, who lobby for trade and investment as well as the preservation of their common cultural heritage.

Five years ago a small German-American Heritage Museum opened in Washington, DC. “Germany has never been as popular as it is today,” says Petra Schürmann, the museum’s director. German fests and Oktoberfests have sprung up all over the country, and they are not only about brats and beer, but also about tracing genealogy and displaying traditional dress and craftsmanship. Stuff made by Germans sells. And Americans travel to Germany in droves: the young to hip Berlin and older folks to pretty Heidelberg.

On February 9th Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, will meet Barack Obama in the White House. They will discuss the war in Ukraine, transatlantic trade, the wobbling euro zone and the upcoming G7 summit in Bavaria. Unlike Indian-Americans, who went wild when their new prime minister visited America, German-Americans will barely notice.  (Note:  Is that so?  This German-American is paying close attention.  Stay tuned! --rsb) 

Timeline picture credits: Alamy; Getty Images; Ronald Grant Archive

USA and its German Ancestry

Consulting the Library of Congress reveals this wealth of information:

GERMAN IMMIGRANTS TO THE USA

The Germans in America

Chronology

1608 - Several Germans were among the settlers at Jamestown.


1626 - Peter Minuit, a German, came to New Amsterdam to serve as the governor of the Dutch colony, New Netherlands. Later he governed the Swedish colony in Delaware.

1683 - Thirteen families of German Mennonites seeking religious freedom arrived in Pennsylvania; led by Franz Pastorius, they purchased 43,000 acres of land and founded Germantown, six miles north of Philadelphia.

An elderly Amish couple, c. 1940. Prints and Photographs Division

The Conestoga wagon was first designed and built by German settlers in Pennsylvania. Prints and Photographs Division LC-USZ62-24396.

1700s - The settling of the British colonies by small German-speaking religious groups continued. The groups included Swiss Mennonites, Baptist Dunkers, Schwenkfelders, Moravians, Amish, and Waldensians; most German immigrants belonged to the main Lutheran and Reformed churches. The central colonies received the greatest part of this immigration, especially Pennsylvania. As many as half of these immigrants came as redemptioners, that is, they agreed to work in America for four to seven years in exchange for free passage across the Atlantic. German settlers designed and built the Conestoga wagon, which was used in the opening of the American Frontier.

1731 - Protestants were expelled from Salzburg, Austria, in this year. They subsequently founded Ebenezer, Georgia.

Two German 18th-century maps of Ebenezer, Georgia. Prints and Photographs Division

The title page to the music manuscript Paradisisches Wunder- Spiel... (Ephrata, Pennsylvania, 1754) is a fine example of the intricate German Fraktur script used at the Ephrata, Pennsylvania religious community. Music Division

1732 - The first German-language newspaper, Philadelphische Zeitung, was published in the United States. German publishing flourished in Philadelphia and in smaller communities such as Ephrata, Pennsylvania.

1733 - John Peter Zenger, who came to America as an indentured servant from the Palatinate region of Germany, founded a newspaper, The New-York Weekly Journal; two years later he was acquitted in a landmark trial involving freedom of the press.

An early edition of the Philadelphische Zeitung. The lead story is about a peace treaty between Persia and the Turkish Empire. Serial and Government Publications Division

Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, founded by Moravians in 1741, is shown here in an illustration from the late 18th century. Prints and Photographs Division

1741 - Moravians founded Bethlehem and Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

1742 - Christopher Saur, a German printer in Philadelphia, printed the first Bible in America.

1778 - General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, a Prussian officer, became inspector general of the Continental Army.

1783 - As many as 5,000 of the Hessian soldiers hired by Britain to fight in the Revolutionary War remained in America after the end of hostilities.

John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) Prints and Photographs Division

1784 - John Jacob Astor (1763-1848) left his village of Waldorf in Germany and arrived in the United States in 1784 with $25 and seven flutes. He amassed a fortune from real estate dealings and the fur trade, and at his death was by far the richest man in the country, worth an estimated $20 million.

1790 - By this date as many as 100,000 Germans may have immigrated to America; they and their descendants made up an estimated 8.6 percent of the population of the United States; in Pennsylvania they accounted for 33 percent of the population; in Maryland for 12 percent.

1804 - A Protestant group from Wuerttemberg, named Rappists after their leader George Rapp, founded Harmony, Pennsylvania, a utopian community.

1814 - The Rappists purchased 30,000 acres of land in Indiana and founded a new settlement, New Harmony. In 1825 they returned to Pennsylvania and founded Economy, 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Other towns founded by religious groups in this period included Zoar, Ohio, Amana, Iowa, and St. Nazianz, Wisconsin.

Thomas Nast (1840-1902) came to America as a child and became famous as a political cartoonist, especially for his drawings during the 1870s of the notoriously corrupt New York politician William Marcy "Boss" Tweed. Prints and Photographs Division

This Nast drawing of Santa Claus is seen even today during the Christmas season. Prints and Photographs Division

1821 - The Germanic custom of having a specially decorated tree at Christmas time was introduced to America by Pennsylvania Dutch in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Later in the century, the Pennsylvania Dutch version of St. Nicholas, Sinterklaas, evolved into America's Santa Claus, popularized by a German immigrant and influential political cartoonist, Thomas Nast. The Easter bunny and Easter eggs were also brought to this country by German immigrants.

1829 - Gottfried Duden published in Germany his idyllic account of the several years he spent as a settler in Missouri; so popular that it appeared in three editions, the book caused numerous Germans to leave for the New World.

John Nepomucene Neumann (1811-60) Prints and Photographs Division

1836 - John Nepomucene Neumann (1811-60) arrived in the US in 1836 from his native Bohemia to work as a priest in the country's German-speaking Roman Catholic communities. He founded the first American diocesan school system, and in 1852 became Bishop of Philadelphia. In 1977 he was canonized as a saint by Pope Paul VI.

1837 - The German Philadelphia Settlement Society was founded and purchased 12,000 acres of land in Gasconade County, Missouri; two years later the society's town of Hermann was incorporated with 450 inhabitants.

1844 - Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels sailed to America with three ships and 150 families to settle in Texas; the following year, New Braunfels, Texas, was established.

1847 - The Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church was founded by German immigrants to combat what they saw as the liberalization of Lutheranism in America.

In addition to being a man of action, Carl Schurz (1829-1906) was also an able writer of biographies: his own and one of Henry Clay, a politician he much admired. Prints and Photographs Division

1848-49 - The failure of the revolutions of 1848 to establish democracy caused thousands to leave Germany to settle in America; the most famous of these refugees was Carl Schurz. He later served as a Union general in the Civil War, a US senator from Missouri, and secretary of the interior under President Rutherford B. Hayes.

1850s - Nearly one million Germans immigrated to America in this decade, one of the peak periods of German immigration; in 1854 alone, 215,000 Germans arrived in this country.

1856 - Margaretha Meyer Schurz, a German immigrant and wife of Carl Schurz, established the first kindergarten in America at Watertown, Wisconsin.

Adolphus Busch (1839-1913) Prints and Photographs Division

1857 - Adolphus Busch (1839-1913) left the Rhineland and settled in St. Louis, Missouri. Four years later, he married the daughter of a prosperous brewer. In addition to children, this union resulted in the founding of what was soon to become an industry giant with holdings across the country: the Anheuser-Busch Brewing Association.

1860 - An estimated 1.3 million German-born immigrants resided in the United States; 200 German-language magazines and newspapers were published in this country; in St. Louis alone, there were seven German-language newspapers.

1872 - The century-old privileges granted to German farmers settled in Russia were revoked by the Tsarist government, causing thousands of the farmers to emigrate. By 1920, there were well over 100,000 of these so-called Volga and Black Sea Germans in the US, with the greatest numbers in the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Colorado. Black Sea Germans soon became known for their skill as wheat farmers. In 1990 an estimated one million descendants of these Russian Germans lived in America.

German immigrants boarding a ship for America in the late 19th century. Prints and Photographs Division

1880s - In this decade, the decade of heaviest German immigration, nearly 1.5 million Germans left their country to settle in the United States; about 250,000, the greatest number ever, arrived in 1882.

1890 - An estimated 2.8 million German-born immigrants lived in the US. A majority of the German-born living in the US were located in the "German triangle," whose three points were Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.

Front page of the July 18, 1886 Sunday edition of the  N.Y. Staats-Zeitung. Serials and Government Publications Division

1894 - About 800 German-language journals were being printed in the US, the greatest number ever. A typical newspaper was the New York Staats Zeitung.
 
1910 - In this year, an estimated 2.3 million German-born immigrants lived in the US. With declining immigration and increasing assimilation, the number of German-language publications fell to about 550.

United States--Proportion of Natives of Germany to Total Population, 1914 Geography and Map Division

1920 - Roughly 1.7 million German-born immigrants lived in the US; the number of German-language publications fell to about 230.

1933 - The coming to power of Adolf Hitler in Germany caused a significant immigration of leading German scientists, writers, musicians, scholars, and other artists and intellectuals to the United States to escape persecution. Among them were such notables as Albert Einstein, Bruno Walter, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Hans Bethe, Thomas Mann, Marlene Dietrich, Kurt Weil, Billy Wilder, Hannah Arendt, and Hans Morgenthau. By the end of World War II, there were some 130,000 of these German and Austrian refugees living in America.

1940 - An estimated 1.2 million German-born immigrants lived in the US.

1948 - The Displaced Persons Act made general provisions for the immigration of displaced persons in Eastern Europe, including ethnic Germans, to the US.

1950s - Between 1951 and 1960, 580,000 Germans immigrated to the US.

1960s - Between 1961 and 1970, 210,000 Germans immigrated to the US.

Recent edition of the California Staats-Zeitung Serial and Government Publications Division

1970s - Between 1971 and 1980, 65,000 Germans immigrated to the US.

1983 - The US and Germany celebrated the German-American Tricentennial, marking the 300th anniversary of German immigration to Pennsylvania.

1987 - German-American Day was established by Congressional resolution and presidential proclamation.

1990 - According to the Bureau of the Census, 58 million Americans claimed to be solely or partially of German descent. German Americans were highly assimilated....  Some German language newspapers continued to be published in the US, for example the California Staats-Zeitung.

Germany is the 2nd top migration destination of choice -- after US

• 
  68 percent of migrants in Germany are in active employment, says the OECD (Photo: Paolo Margari)
  
  EUOBSERVER 
  
  

01.12.14 @ 18:11   By Nikolaj Nielsen

BRUSSELS - More migrants are heading to Germany than any other wealthy country except the US, according to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
An OECD report out Monday (1 December) says Germany recorded a double-digit increase in the number of migrants in 2013 and its fourth consecutive annual rise.

Some 450,000 people migrated to Germany last year. Of those, around three quarters come from other EU member states. Germany is also in pole position in terms of accepting the most Syrian refugees with 110,000 asylum claims, followed by the United States, France, Sweden, and Turkey.

...The OECD report is a cross comparative analysis of immigration trends in the 34 nations that make up the Paris-based club.  It found migration flows are once again on the rise after the slowdown associated with the global financial crisis. But at the same time, it noted a 40 percent drop in the number of non-EU migrants arriving in the EU between 2007 and 2012.  Most of the EU-based labour migration declines were registered in Italy, Portugal, and Spain.

“As a result, legal permanent migration flows from third countries into Europe are now for the first time lower than similar flows to the United States,” OECD secretary-general Angel Gurria told reporters. He said gender and education levels of migrants are rapidly changing when compared to previous studies. Most now tend to be women, well-educated, and over-qualified for the jobs they land in the hosting nations.

“Migrants are an asset, not a liability. Migrants are a resource, not a problem,” he said. Around 115 million migrants live in OECD nations. One in 10 is from China and one in five from Asia.

Gurria said the overall fiscal impact of immigration in most of the countries is positive, noting that more migrants are needed to meet labour demands.

...Speaking alongside Gurria, European migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said the Brussels-executive is working on launching a new migration policy initiative.  The number of arrivals in the UK has progressively decreased over the years. ... The issue ... has become politically toxic in some countries. “We need to change the narrative of migration, we need to show its positive impacts,” he said. “In the case of the UK, I believe it is net positive.”

Hier zum Thema kommt ein Udo Lindenberg Lied "Er wollte nach Deutschland", das Sebastian Krumbiegel uns hier vorspielt  (More on this theme is the Lindenberg song: "Er wanted to get to Germany," as performed by lead singer of the a cappella band from Leipzig, Die Prinzen, Sebastian Krumbiegel) :



Jetzt weiß ich, was für ein begabter Klavierspieler der Krumbiegel ist (wenn hier auch vielleicht etwas zu laut, aber ich möchte nicht kritisieren!).  Er singt auch mit den Prinzen aus Leipzig, und besucht uns hier in den USA durch das Goethe-Institut.

Germany rises in popularity for immigrants - The Local

Germany rises in popularity for immigrants - The Local


Danke, Rudiger.  GANZ interessant!