Integration Under the Shadow of Assimilation: The Case of Turkish Immigrants in Berlin

In 1990s, Germany revoked its long-held political stance of Deutshcland ist kein Einwanderungsland (Germany is not a country of immigration) to finally acknowledge that the so-called guest workers in the country were there to stay. These predominantly Turkish immigrants became subject to the federal government’s policy of assimilation. In time, the political discourse has shifted from assimilation to integration due to negative political connotations of the former. The discourse of integration allows immigrants to preserve their own culture unlike the assimilationist desire to make them culturally indistinguishable from the majority population. However, scholars have argued that the integration policy continues the ideas of assimilation under a more politically correct term. Indeed, the vagueness of this term has allowed policy makers to interpret and act on it in contradictory ways. This paper explores the ways in which integration is perceived and practiced by the Turkish immigrants from the below contrary to the political schemas imposed on them. Based on a three-month fieldwork in Berlin, I contend that while the government officially pursues an integration policy, its assimilationist expectations affect how the Turkish groups perceive integration. Many Turks, who are economically and socially integrated into the German society, maintain a negative view of integration since they perceive it as cultural assimilation. This disrupts the implementation of the policy and creates social conflict. I conclude that immigrant integration should not be based on preconceived ideas at policy-making level but on bottom-up ways in which immigrants try to incorporate themselves into the larger society.