Please, ask me where I am from

To all those who had to experience migration as teenagers

‘Where are you from’, or in German ‘Woher kommst du’, is a question that will probably be next after the question of your name. Or maybe it was already asked before that.
The person who asks is not concerned with your home address or place of birth. It is usually your ethnic origin that is meant. And that’s a good thing!

In this post, I do not want to talk about the difficulties of the people who are confronted with the question. Nor to judge those asking the question. I want to address something else, something bigger.
I came to Germany when I was almost 13 years old and I still haven’t been able to integrate. I tried, I tried hard, I failed. But that’s not what my post is about either.

A normally developed teenager at the age of 13 can accomplish quite a few things independently of the parents. But if the teenager needs help, it should be offered to him/her.
In my case, it was my parents who were dependent on my help. And me, I was also dependent on my help. At least as far as language matters were concerned. I approached humanity with my concerns and those of my parents and tried both to bring my parents further and to survive in the new world that is ruled by adults.

So that people would not look at me in surprise and take me seriously, I defined myself right at the beginning and at the same time warned the other person with the words ‘I’m sorry, I don’t speak German so well’ or sometimes ‘I’ve been in Germany for a short time’. Such an introduction to the conversation gave me the feeling of a protective shield.
This shield was supposed to protect me from the impression of a girl with a speech disorder or one who grew up isolated from the natives. And even more, it should protect me from creating an image of a clumsy child who was not able to learn German FAST. Because in my home country I had the reputation of an achiever, it was important for me to keep it. To my parents, too. That is why the emphasis on ‘the short period since migration’ was so important.
I was a migrant, which in my eyes was fully justified and allowed to make linguistic mistakes. The title of immigrant gave me the right to have more time to form my sentences and to insert pauses.

My language was massively different from that of the people born here. Most of them are probably not even aware of how quickly and precisely they formulate their sentences. What influence the precise and clear sentence structure has on the conviction in pronunciation. No mumbling, no slurring. There one may set the speech volume in a higher range.
After getting mostly no response to my introduction, I explained my concern with painstaking effort and received high praise from my parents, for whom I acted as a mediator.

The unpleasant thing about it all was that the more I compared myself with the native children and young teenagers (consciously and unconsciously), the more I had to realize that we had massive differences in language, behavior and values.
I tried with great effort and at the same time refused (unconsciously, of course) to understand and adopt the new mentality of the people born here. But something pulled me into my old grids and the old forms of behavior. Because I was only praised by my parents for the usual and familiar behavior and way of thinking, which made me feel confirmed.
My language remained unchanged with the entry into the conversation ‘I don’t speak German so well’ , the implicit request not to judge me too harshly.
Although my language changed after some time, my vocabulary, as well as the number of books read in German grew, but my self-esteem declined, and with it the tone of conviction, together with the accompanying clarity of sentence construction and volume. The mumbling and slurring became more frequent and the voice more tremulous.

At some point, the time since my migration no longer played a role and could no longer justify the special flow of the language. There was nothing more to justify, there was nothing wrong with the language. The knowledge of the language was there, as well as the excitement, nervousness, and recognition of the diversity of one’s own self acquired through practice, which I felt throughout the age of puberty when speaking a foreign language.
The thesis of Pavlov’s classical conditioning was confirmed in my own body and I became part of science.

The relief after my introduction used in childhood now replaces the question of my origin.

Please ask me where I come from. And I like to tell you that the reason why I think differently, act differently, laugh at different jokes, and interpret differently is my migration background.

So, Ask me, ask me where I’m from, and don’t judge too harshly.