In "Arrival City," Saunders observes how three different European communities deal with recently arrived refugees. In Les Pyramides, an enclave outside Paris, France, the immigrant population (largely of West African origin) is experiencing social unrest. Starting in 2005, many of the young men living in Les Pyramides as French-born children of immigrants began rioting over their inability to integrate into French society. Saunders argues that this unrest stems from the fact that Les Pyramides is too isolated from the greater French community, making it difficult for the immigrants living there to transition from the rural lifestyles which they were accustomed to in Africa to the urban lifestyles required in Paris. In the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg, Turkish immigrants struggle not because of special isolation, as with Les Pyramides, but citizenship. Because Germany has always recognized Turkish immigrants as temporary working migrants, and most Turks in Germany thus struggle to become naturalized citizens. As a result, many Turkish inhabitants in Kreuzberg are unable to start businesses or integrate into German society. Much of the Turkish population in Berlin is also more conservative and “rural” than their counterparts living in Turkey. Parla, Spain, is the only space explored in this piece which openly identifies itself as an arrival city for immigrants. Most of the inhabitants of Parla are Moroccan immigrants, but as a result of Spanish amnesty programs, most (even if they arrived undocumented) have been granted Spanish citizenship. Saunders argues that Spain’s granting of citizenship to African immigrants has allowed for these populations to far more easily integrate into Spanish society as they “aren’t hampered by ambiguous national status” (257).
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AuthorStudent at the University of Washington, Sophie Aanerud, will be studying abroad in Berlin, Germany. Here are some of her thoughts . . . Archives
August 2017
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