What it’s like to be German and American

I am the daughter of a U.S. solider. That’s why I left my home country Germany to move to the United States for the first time when I was eight years old.

To say where I grew up is complicated. I vividly remember my childhood in Germany, and from my teenage years on I spent my time in the United States. I am really proud of who I am and that I am both German and American (my mom being German and my dad being American).

If you see a sign that says ‘ Beer Garden’ you’re probably in Germany

The story is sort of cliché, actually. My dad was stationed in Germany when he met my mom in Hanau, and when I was eight years old we moved to the United States. Even though I was so young, I do remember frustrating changes to my lifestyle before we moved.

For one, my mom started reading my story books in English instead of my first language, German. I refused to learn English despite my dad’s efforts to teach me, so I did not understand a thing. If you’re going to read me something I can’t understand you may as well just let me go to sleep in silence, I thought.

This applied to movies, too. One day my mom brought home Finding Nemo in English and I was so excited, only to find out it was not in German and I couldn’t understand anything.

I only became motivated to learn English after being transferred into an elementary school in Georgia. My dad told me that if I learned the language and did well in school I would get the puppy I wanted. I learned English within months, and got my puppy.

My mom, the woman who tortured me into learning English

Being an immigrant in the United States isn’t bad. Being racially mixed – my mom being white and my dad being black – caused the biggest problems. No matter where I lived someone would manage to make me an outcast. White friends said I was “too black” to be in their clique and my black friends said I “act and speak like a white person.”

Some things though were actually kind of comical. When I was in fifth grade we were stationed in Wiesbaden, Germany and I went to a school on the U.S. base. Since all the kids at my school were from military families they were American. One day walking in from recess, all my classmates raised their hands in a Nazi salute – I’m a Nazi, how clever. When I lived in the States there were also people who called me a Nazi and when I lived in Germany some people called me a nigger. Shit happens.

Till this day my friends are petty

Overall, I feel that I am so blessed to have moved to the United States. Life here is totally different than in Germany. Back there, my friends and I used to watch American TV shows, fascinated by the yellow school buses and how cool we thought high school was in America.

Next thing I knew, I was the one stepping onto the yellow school bus and into a completely different world. There are things about Germany that I like better but at the same time I’ve become so accustomed to the American lifestyle that I am not sure I could move back to Germany permanently. I don’t have just one identity anymore. Both the United States and Germany have shaped me into the person I am today, and I’m grateful that I know two ways of life, two cultures and two languages.

Me and my dad

I’ve grown to love my second language so much I’ve become an English major, although I still learn simple words now at the age of 20 that somehow had been skipped over when I was little.

Regardless, I have never been ashamed of who I am, even if I still mispronounce words I learned incorrectly (I recently found out I have been pronouncing the word ‘debt’ wrong all my life – I sounded out the “b” this whole time when it’s supposed to be silent). I am German and American, and that has played a major role in who I am today.

We got dual-citizenship two years ago. You can’t deport us anymore.