Since Germany is one of major countries in Europe that provides a place for refugees, the older generation, especially, can be hostile to the refugees since they view these people as taking advantage of the German system. Location also plays a role in determining attitudes, and since we were in a small town which was in the former East, there was a lot of racism towards refugees. During my German lessons, we had a young married couple from the Middle East who attended the class; however, my German teacher revealed her own prejudices when she made it clear to the young man in front of the class that she expected him to do his own homework and not his wife. From my perspective, my teacher seemed harsh, and I felt that she was prejudiced against this man. However, on the days the young couple were not there, our teacher informed us she struggled to teach refugee men since, from her experience over multiple summer courses and semesters, she found them to be lazy and un-motivated to learn German, and typically their wives would do their homework for them.
My classmates and I discussed our own experiences of how we were treated in Germany based on color and accent. The students from Brazil and Ecuador said they had times when they asked simple questions in the grocery store of where an item was and they were not even acknowledged. I found this extremely discouraging to learn since Wes and I had no such problem, blending in with the German people so they would assume we were also German.
It was healthy to discuss these differences since I know this was frustrating to hear and witness for our friends from other countries.
