“Well, do they want to be integrated?”

Integration. In Germany, these four syllables comprise a loaded term regarding immigration, citizenship, language, ‘foreigners’ and ‘Muslims’ – ‘Them’ over ‘there.’

I was introducing myself to someone recently and they asked about my experiences in Germany. I began explaining my previous research on Islamic Religious Instruction in German public schools and my additional research on the role of religious organizations in the integration process of immigrant children and youth. I then shared that I was now working with an after-school program for underprivileged and immigrant children and youth.

And then came the dreaded question. “Well, do they want to be integrated?”

Perhaps it wasn’t even the question itself, but the tone and emphasis with which the question was asked. Perhaps, I over-think and over-analyze the language that people use in asking such questions. Perhaps I was caught off guard because the conversation was being held in English at a doctor’s office with someone who is herself a ‘foreigner’ here in Germany. Perhaps it was instead because I had simply not slept enough the night before.

Regardless, as the dreaded question was posed, I felt a wall of emotions welling up inside of me: defense, frustration, and even anger.

I wanted to lash out: “Do you want to be integrated? Have you become fully German? Or is it different for you because you are white and hold a passport from a ‘developed’ country?”

The problem with the question itself was mainly two-fold:
From a grammatical perspective, it was the ‘to be integrated’ part that tripped me up. Such framing of the question implies not only passivity (‘to be educated,’ ‘to be taught,’ ‘to be fed,’ etc.) but also one-sidedness…that ‘they’ need to be made like ‘us’ and that ‘we’ need to impose this process upon ‘them’ in a top-down approach. Such an approach speaks to assimilation and acculturation, but certainly NOT to integration!

From a sociological perspective, it was the ‘they,’ the othering, which made me shudder. Who was she, and who am I to define ‘them’ – to define the ‘other’ – ‘those people’ who need ‘to be integrated’?

Clearly, I kept my mouth shut. I repressed my instinctive response and rather than answering her question, I did not answer the question. Instead I simply explained the work that I am doing at the Kindertreff, the programs that we offer and the fact that we work to build a better reality, a better neighborhood, and a sense of hope with ALL children who wish to come.

If I hadn’t been caught so off guard and had been in a different setting, I might have launched into a discussion on the true definition and meaning of integration; that in the scholarly field of immigration and migration, integration is widely understood as a two-sided process, in which not only the migrant, but also the state and population of the migrant’s “country of residence”, must work to understand the culture, tradition, language and, even religion, of the ‘others.’ According to Christian Pfeiffer, author of the Pfeiffer Studie, integration can be explained as a four step process: 1) Cultural/cognitive integration (speaking German), 2) structural integration (School completion diploma), 3) Social integration (being friends with Germans), and 4) Integrative Integration (an identity as a German). As a two-sided process, such a model of integration requires the migrant to actively work towards such integration, while the state and its native residents must supply the systematic institutions and support of the migrant’s cultural, linguistic, religious, and traditional integration.

Regrettably, I hadn’t gone to the doctor’s office prepared for such a conversation.

Still, even days later, I don’t have a good, anger-free response to this one simple question: “Well, do they want to be integrated?". But perhaps such questions simply can’t be answered. Instead, perhaps it is more helpful to answer the question’s underlying biases and framework. This question begets the questions:
How is the language we use defined by the society in which we live and grow-up and the situations that we encounter?

How can we continue to use this language even when it is loaded with historical and contextual baggage and current derogation, with which we might not actually associate the words that we wish to use?

And how can we stop ourselves from classifying and outing ‘the other’, ‘the foreigner’ or ‘those other people’ and instead join them, stand in solidarity with them, and become one with them?