In the research project it will be analysed which impacts the
origin and religion of their parents have on the processes of identity
constructions among second generation Malayalees in Germany. In this
ethnographic study the focus will be put on the way the members of the second
generation relate to questions of ethnic and religious identities, what
importance they give to the “traditions” pursued by their parents and the role
these play in their lives. The Christian religion of their parents and the
Christian infrastructure established in Germany will be investigated for their
influence on the second generation without, however, going into the Christian
practices and theological matters in any detail. The particular context in which
second generation Malayalees have been brought up in Germany will also be
compared with other Indians of the second generation who did not grow up in a
similarly established religious and ethnic infrastructure.
The term Malayalees describes people from the South Indian state Kerala who
speak Malayalam. A large proportion of the population in Kerala is Christian,
tracing its roots back to Saint Thomas in the first centuries AD. There are
several Christian churches in Kerala which are more or less linked to the Roman
Catholic Church. When in the 1960s and 1970s there was a scarcity of health
personnel in Germany, Catholic hospitals and homes for the elderly used their
worldwide network to recruit nurses from the Philippines, Korea and also from
Kerala. As the recruitment took place through the church and given a long
history of nurse emigration from Kerala, families agreed to send their teenage
daughters to Germany. Most travelled in small groups and were looked after in
Germany by Catholic institutions. After they had worked several years in Germany
and were well established there, many had an arranged marriage in India. Their
husbands were mostly graduates and postgraduates. Those who followed their wives
to Germany, however, faced a shift in gender roles. Their wives knew the country
and language, had a valued occupation and status in Germany. The husbands for
the first years were not eligible for a work permit and thus were restricted to
the family and community sphere. They looked after the children, who were soon
born, and established an ethnic infrastructure. They founded sports and theatre
groups, societies and Malayalam schools, published magazines and organised
seminars. Indian priests joined the community and offered Malayalam services.
The children were thus brought up within a Malayalee community with exposure to
Malayalee “traditions” and regular church services. This differentiates them
especially from other Indians of the second generation. Besides annual Durga
Puja celebrations few Hindu rituals are performed in Germany. Indian languages
are hardly taught, few ethnic “traditions” pursued.
The starting point for this research project are some hypotheses about the
particularities of the Malayalees in Germany. The first of these is that the
Malayalees come closest of all Indian ethnic groups in Germany, only similar to
the Sikhs, to forming an ethnic community, encouraging a regional ethnic
identity and providing the infrastructure to live this. The Christianity brought
along from Kerala plays a major part in this identity construction and
differentiates them also from other Christians in Germany. The members of the
second generation although living in a primarily “German” environment have
accordingly been brought up within a Malayalee context, familiar with Malayalee
ways of doing things. These have on the one hand formed their images of not only
Kerala but also India (which for many of them is the same as Kerala). On the
other hand the parents thus provided them an ethic codex within which to act or
to which to react. They laid foundations for feelings of belonging and othering,
both within the Malayalee context and in the host society. Issues which are of
particular importance in this context are the fields of education, family and
the choice of a partner. On the first glance the Malayalee parents’ wish for a
good education of their children, preferably a degree in medicine, seems to be
not particularly determined by their origin. It, however, gains an ethnic
dimension in several ways. Firstly, almost all members of the second generation
see it as the norm among Indians in Germany to study medicine. Asked about their
field of study most will answer referring to this stereotype. Secondly, many
parents argue for medicine highlighting the internationality of this profession
and thus the possibility of pursuing it also in India as well as it being a
safeguard in case one has to flee from racism in Germany. The fields of family
and partnership are generally seen even stronger linked to the origin and
religion of the parents. The first and second generation Malayalees claim to
have a closer family sense than “Germans”, the second generation accept more
interference from their parents than they consider “German” youths to do, more
stay at home while studying. The question of partnership is a particularly
critical one among Malayalees. Most presume that the parents want their children
to marry a spouse from the same ethnic group and despise premarital sexual
relations. In these fields the members of the second generation have a lot of
expectations about what their parents expect, and react to these. The research
project aims to analyse these processes.
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