Where I’m coming from
… excellent question. Germany originally, Australia too, now Germany again. Mostly in between, though. I’ve looked at migration, bilingualism and biculturalism professionally as an anthropologist, personally as a migrant in denial, and am still making my mind up about it. Will keep you posted.
wow, ‘migrant in denial’, pray expand? Do you mean ‘I’m here as an anthropologist, not a ‘real’ migrant’?
| Posted 3 years, 8 months ago
A few years ago, I was asked “how do you as a migrant to Australia see this?” I bristled at the suggestion that I was a migrant – yes, I was living in Australia, yes, I was from another country, yes, I paid my taxes in Australia, yes, I had a family there, yes, I held a permanent resident visa and was eligible for citizenship, but I was clearly very different from a – well – hang on – no actually I WAS a migrant. Or rather I had become one without noticing – I came to Australia as a tourist initially, then bridged my way through pretty much every visa category and came out as a migrant. I guess the difference to me was that a migrant (in my embarrasingly biased view) was someone who longed to leave their country and longed to live elsewhere permanently, not someone who just kind of found themselves living in Australia. This, however, is exactly the point of migration these days: it comes in all shapes and sizes and is impossible to categorize…
| Posted 3 years, 8 months ago