A few weeks ago I was talking to my friend Johnny about the German-Vietnamese podcast "Rice and Shine" to which I had listened the day before. In the podcast the two hostesses were talking about the racist encounters they are experiencing in their everyday life being of Vietnamese descent and living in Germany. Johnny, coming from a Vietnamese-Chinese family and being born in Germany, told me about similar experiences.
Being exposed to racism and hateful comments started as early as in kindergarten. Even though Johnny grew up in Hamburg, one of the biggest and most diverse cities in Germany, he was nearly the only non-white child in his kindergarten. Having been really sheltered in his family for the early years of his life, it was the first time that he was surrounded by people that looked “differently” and spoke another language. While Johnny was upset, because he could not understand why everybody was suddenly different from him, the kindergarten teachers were plainly overwhelmed with a child that did not speak German (at the beginning). The other children were mimicking almond shaped eyes when talking to him or shouting “Hier kommt der Chinese!” (Here comes the Chinese), not based on Johnny actually being partly Chinese, but plainly because he was Asian. Those comments made him feel left out and different from the others, but even worse was the boy that made him afraid to go to kindergarten. That boy was bigger and older, because he only joined the kindergarten for afternoon care after primary school and he bullied Johnny with racist insults like Schlitzauge (Chinky). This only stopped when Johnny's father intervened.
The situation did not get much better in primary school, even though Johnny spoke German by then. Not only did the racist comments from his class mates continue, but also the teachers were treating him differently. Especially his classroom teacher, who should have been the one giving him more support, treated him badly to the point, that he pretended to be sick in order to not have to go to school. Additionally his grades seem to be much worse in retrospective than they should have been according to his performance. This and his biased classroom teacher led to the recommendation that Johnny should go to the special needs school after primary school. Germany has a three-fold schooling system in which children are divided into different kinds of secondary schools after four years of primary school (so usually at the age of 9 or 10) based on the recommendation of their classroom teacher. The secondary schools vary in length (9, 10 or 12-13 years) and difficulty and determine for example if graduates will be allowed to attend university.
Johnny ended up going to a comprehensive school, which combines the different school forms. This school was much more diverse than any of his previous schools, so things finally got better. But even here the different ethnicities tended to divide themselves and especially the Asian group got picked on by the other groups a lot. For example they were called small, Asian geeks and teacher's pets.
The older Johnny got the less did he encounter racist hate speech, but up until today it happens that people make racist comments towards him. This includes racist insults like Schlitzauge, but also statements like “Go back to your country!” and “Stop stealing our jobs!”. Or most recently the hairdresser making small talk, while cutting his hair and asking “You were born here, right? You speak German relatively well.” This question seems ridiculous when taking into account that Johnny is about to graduate from his Master's program at university in order to become a high school teacher.
He said that even though these experiences hurt him at the time and made him feel left out as kid, it also inspired him to become a teacher. To prove that he actually was not a case for the special needs school. To prevent that other kids have to go through the same bad treatment by teachers that he experienced. To show that in Germany all doors are open to you and that teachers should be the ones showing that to their students instead of keeping them down. After all we are all equal, we are all humans and everybody should be able to see the human in front of them even if they look different.
