Film Review: The Swissmakers (Die Schweizermacher)
Posted in conjunction with the course Multicultural Germany in fall semester 2015. Author: Karla Palos The 1978 film Die Schweizermacher (The Swissmakers) is a good cop/bad cop comedy directed by Rolf Lyssy which dramatizes the bureaucratic exchanges between immigration officials and immigrants applying for Swiss citizenship. The film focuses on two officials: Walo Lüönd, who plays […]
German-Chinese Business Communication: An Interview with Anne Schreiter
MGP research apprentice Yiran Wang recently interviewed Anne Schreiter, a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley German Department. Anne received her Ph.D. in Organization Studies and Cultural Theory with a focus on Sociology from the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. Her dissertation examines sense-making mechanisms of managers in the German-Chinese business world. She studied Societal […]
Film Review: “Brudermord” (Fratricide)
As part of the Multicultural Germany undergraduate seminar at UC Berkeley, students reviewed recent German films relating in various ways to topics of migration, multiculturalism, and contemporary German identity. Melissa Carlson reviewed Yilmaz Arslan’s 2005 film “Brudermord”: Fratricide is a drama with moments of extreme violence. The movie follows the story of two young Kurdish refugees who […]
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 2, Socialist Friends – Part 2
This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week two students have written summaries of the past week’s sessions. This is the second post, written by Julia Schroeder: Just last week a Coca-Cola Super Bowl advertisement ignited an ongoing online […]
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 2, Socialist Friends – Part 1
This post is part of a series in which students reflect on their discussions in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” This week two students have written summaries of the past week’s sessions. The first is by Brittany Scott: The first discussion of the week began with an intriguing presentation by fellow classmate Jenelle, who gave […]
Multicultural Germany Class: Week 1, Guest Workers
This post is the first in a series that will give weekly summaries of the discussions taking place in the UC Berkeley undergraduate seminar “Multicultural Germany.” Each week’s discussions will be summarized by a different student in the course; this week’s post is by Sara Sellami: 1955 marks the year West Germany started the guest worker program. […]
Berkeley Student Research Report: Foreign Students in Germany
A research report by UC Berkeley undergraduate student and MGP participant Yiran Wang: As the unemployment rate in Germany has dropped, the number of unoccupied positions in the job market has increased. A recent report shows that nearly 500,000 jobs are open and skilled workers are especially needed in the areas of mechatronics, electronics, manufacturing, […]
Immigrant Students and Foreign Students in Germany
In some urban part of Germany, the proportion of students with migration backgrounds is up to 90 percent. However, few of them will achieve college degree so that they are less confident compared with native German students. The project “Dialog macht Schule” founded by Gründern Hassan Asfour and Siamak Ahmadi aims to change such situation. […]
Reuters: Germany Becoming More Open to Immigrants
Student News Report by Yiran Wang: According to the news agency Reuters, Germans are becoming more inclusive toward immigrants. In past decades, Germany was known for its strict immigration laws and unfriendly attitudes towards immigrants. Due to unemployment in the 1970s oil crisis, the challenges of reunification and other issues, Germany was reluctant to accept more immigrants. As Germany’s […]
“Auslaender sollen unsere alten Leute pflegen” (“Foreigners should tend to our old people”)
The article “Auslaender sollen unsere alten Leute pflegen” (“Foreigners should tend to our old people”) talks about how German nurses are calling for help from abroad. The number of skilled nurses is too low for the current conditions. This is due not only to an aging population, but also because qualified nurses are emigrating. Therefore, […]