> I don’t think that she means it as literally as you are interpreting her. It’s a _feeling_ of not belonging to or probably feeling welcomed to join the culture that surrounds her daily life

I wrote something about a related point in my parallel post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48824800

With this in mind, I think that

> This experience is usually invisible to the people who are part of the in-group, in this case Germans, but if someone lives in a foreign country for an extended period of time and tries to make it their home, I think they understand what that woman was saying.

is not a feeling that is felt as strongly by people from Germany as for people from other countries.

1. As I have hinted in my original post, there simply is not that much of a feeling of "belonging" also for Germans who live in Germany.

2. I wrote in the linked post

"I would really say that a lot of life in Germany is organized around 'if you don't have anybody to do something specific together (and be it because of different interests), you simply do things alone on your own'. There is simply not a feeling of urgency/necessity to socialize if not both sides profit from it."

So, people from Germany are often much more used to the situation that they do things alone on their own, and thus in my opinion indeed have much more internal tolerance to the situation what people from other cultures would call "a feeling of not belonging".

This is exactly why I wrote further above:

"This woman should [...] learn about the laws and rules to survive daily life. Otherwise, she should live her life."

The reason is not knowing the laws and rules can get her into trouble, but living your life on your own (without a sense of "belonging") is something that is easily doable (as I hinted: quite some Germans feel this about their life in Germany) - if you don't "belong" or have few contacts, you can still live.

> I think what she meant that even if you live in Germany/work with German colleagues, basically you will enternally made to be felt that you are not one of them by all but the most liberally minded Germans (and even those are rare even in the big international cities). So your friend group (if you decide to have one, rather than concentrate on family), will consist of other expats/immigrants.

Thanks for your interesting point.

Nevertheless, I think the situation is a little bit different:

Many Germans indeed also have the feeling "that [they] are not one of them", but I would say it is part of the German mentality to worry much less about that than in other countries.

A lot of connections at work are rather "communities of purpose" [English translation of "Zweckgemeinschaft(en)"], i.e. you work together because of a common goal/hobby/... which makes collaborations a really good idea.

I read somewhere that in the USA a lot more of the social life is centered around the work/company than in Germany. So, it is not untypical to get social connections at work, but this is only one way among many. I would even claim that the social connections from work are often not the most important ones.

Immigrants who are used to the US mentality that work is much more important for social connections than in Germany thus feel that "[they] are not one of them", when in reality this is not the case.

I am very certain that typically German colleagues treat immigrants colleagues as they would treat their German work colleagues (as far as possible). The misunderstanding is rather that many people from other cultures want to be treated quite differently.

> So your friend group (if you decide to have one, rather than concentrate on family), will consist of other expats/immigrants.

In my observation the reason for this is rather because many migrants have very different wishes on their surrounding group than what is common in Germany (also and in particular for Germans).

> I can only speculate, but usually when such phrases come up, it's about things like not being part of the in-group - people they know throwing parties and not inviting them, etc.

Concerning "part of the in-group": It is very usual that in Germany, you don't become a "friend" fast (the German translation of "friend", [der] Freund, has a much deeper meaning than the US-American understanding of the English word). Friendship is much deeper and takes much longer to establish, but is also there to stay.

The same is said about Nordic countries.

If you come from a country where you become a friend much faster, but in a much more shallow sense, you will indeed likely be disappointed.

My advice based on my feelings/observations:

- If you do shallow smalltalk (as it is very common in the USA), you signal that you only want a shallow relationship. If you want a deep friendship, better bring something deep to the table.

- In particular referring to the point "people they know throwing parties and not inviting them": I would really say that life in Germany is much more "live your own life" (which is also what I wrote in my post above: "Otherwise, she should live her life."), i.e. you do much more things on your own. For me, for example, a very common evening is filled with learning (which I do on my own).

I would really say that a lot of life in Germany is organized around "if you don't have anybody to do something specific together (and be it because of different interests), you simply do things alone on your own". There is simply not a feeling of urgency/necessity to socialize if not both sides profit from it.

With this in mind, I think that "people they know throwing parties and not inviting them" is not something that you will commonly experience (and people likely would consider this to be unfair), it's rather "people not throwing parties, so you are not invited to a (non-existing :-) ) party".

That's an interesting question. Personally, I'd say the north of Germany has more in common with Danish and Dutch people than with Bavarians (who in turn have more in common with the Austrians than with us).

There has always been some concept of a process by which people can become American and join in that culture through assimilation and integration.

I've had ancestors in North America since 1650, including a vice president and a union admiral, but I also have friends whose parents arrived from Somalia or Vietnam in the eighties and nineties who grew up in largely the same cultural soup I did, speak with the same accent, have the same humor, drink the same beer and eat the same food. Some have served in the US military. In my eyes, they're just as American as I am.

The word you’re looking for is ethnogenisis: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnogenesis. There is no “American” ethnicity, though “white people” might come close to being considered a synthetic ethnicity resulting from the immigration restriction and birth rate boom from 1921-1965.

But even that is too broad. It might be more accurate to get even more granular. For example, you might identify someone like Tim Walz as belonging to a synthetic Scandinavian-Midwestern ethnicity: although he has no actual Scandinavian ancestry, he grew up in Minnesota in what’s a recognizably distinct ethnocultural subgroup.

A far more useful analogy might be that “American” is a college football team.

Native Americans would be a ethnicity but the US was taken over my European settlers.

Europe the Germanic people have existed way before , a country is not tied to the ethnicity.

There are shared values in the US, but not many. Love of the US, and 'freedom' is about all, for the later we don't agree in what freedom means.

There are many different distinct cultures in the US. Cowboys from north Dakota and Texas are both cowboys but have little cultural connection, and the hill billies Tennessee are very different from each.

no, that's not true. The nation of Germany might not have existed, but the ethnic groups who would later define Germany very much did.

But a much older culture.

Yes on paper but no

In the end Prussia ate Germany

Immigration isn't a binary decision for a state. Its a complex set of policy decisions. What is the state of the local economy? What skills do the new immigrants have? How much experience does the local population have with the incoming culture? What is the culture of the incoming migrants? All of these and many other things comes into play when evaluating or deciding upon immigration policies. For example, taking in Catholics from northern Mexico is nothing like taking in people from the tribals of Pakistan. Most European (quite naive) immigration policies from 10 years ago seemed so poorly thought out that they were doomed to fail. The swing the other way seems guaranteed based upon how bad those previous policies were.

PS The US does it well in general but there were periods of madness recently. The political discourse of many still shows extreme madness is still possible.

PPS The very wealthy are normally the main beneficiaries of immigration and undocumented immigration just creates an underclass with few to no legal protections.

> The whole immigrants who don't integrate seems to be a constant issue in every developed country across the globe

I can't speak for the other countries, but in the US it's almost entirely an agenda being pushed. When I hear people say this, it's not because of any experience they've had, but just a repetition of talking points. Virtually none of them had a negative story to tell. I've heard far, far worse stories in some European countries.

Immigration is a hot topic in every society. You can hear people in Arizona kvetching about the Californians that move there.

> European society loves to

The idea that there is a single European society is laughable to anyone who has visited more than one European country.

>In reality, what they are is just better at hiding their racism and xenophobia.

It's not xenofobia, it's just a rigid caste system with little to no upward mobility for immigrants, setup for the economic benefit of the locals at the expense of most immigrants. Sweden and others for example has no inheritance taxes so locals inheriting property and assets get a massive leg up at advancing in society with little effort, over even the hardest working immigrants making the system feel unfair and rigged against you if you're a high earning immigrant paying high taxes. Something less of an issue for immigrants in the US.

Xenofobia implies discrimination based on skin color or ethnicity, but that's not the case here, as white european immigrants also fall under this trap because they don't have the citizenship, language, bureaucratic system knowledge, connections, inheritance to get the chill lives the locals do, and get stuck in less desirable jobs with little to no upward mobility even if they learn the language. I'm EU native living and working in another EU country and feel this regularly across all society along with the other immigrants I know here.

> The majority of US immigrants are skilled.

Maybe in SV tech companies, but most illegals to US are not skilled, but they're tolerated as long as they don't break any major laws because they do the tough and dirty jobs for low pay the natives don't want to do otherwise they risk deportation.

The difference is EU doesn't do deportations and instead showers illegals with welfare, meaning they're not forced to integrate and become self sufficient ASAP like in US, and it's easier to stay a perpetual victim in need of state assistance.