For my academic event, I attended the event called, hosted by my fellow International Affairs Scholar and past TA Kate Greer, Dinner + All Things Deutschland held at the German House on January 31st at 7:00 pm. This event relates to International Affairs because it revolved around the history, culture, food,  and current political climate of the foreign country Germany in Europe. Kate also took time to highlight the opportunities to study abroad and intern in Germany that Ohio State and Columbus has to offer in her presentation. I learned so much from her presentation and enjoyed how she presented factual, sometimes complex information in a way we can all understand without getting bored. She kept our attention really well.

One of the main things I learned from her presentation was about the history of Germany. I never knew about its troubling history, especially the events leading to the Nazi party gaining power in Germany. Since I’m not yet accustomed to keeping up with other countries’ politics, I did not know anything about Germany’s current political climate and the party system. I enjoyed hearing about that. The most impactful thing I gained from this event was a new, less judgmental perception of Germany. Without really realizing it, I had a negative perception of Germany that I projected unfairly over its government and its people after first learning of the Holocaust and other horrendous events that Germany caused during World War 2. Learning how Germany has tried to rectify what happened during World War 2 and take the necessary steps to make sure nothing like it ever happens again made me face my unfair generalizations and assumptions head on and acknowledge that they were wrong and I was wrong for having them for so long. During this realization, I said a silent apology to Germany and promised myself that I would never judge a country at it’s present state so harshly by it’s gruesome past.

Unfortunately, I am not able to pinpoint anything specifically that relates to my coursework from this event. Instead, I can pinpoint a strange parallel I noticed between generalizing and judging an entire country and its people to doing the same thing to human beings. Just as it is unfair to perceive an entire people or culture today as one characteristic based on past actions so many years ago, it is unfair to do the same for countries with human beings in them. People change. People can grow, evolve, and improve and usually do, but I never associated that principle with an entire country before. But it makes sense to me now.

After the event, I was left with two questions. Fortunately, I stuck around with some friends and had the opportunity to ask and get them answered. I asked Kate and her friends about the concept of American cities having sister cities in Germany and other countries in general. I asked if the acknowledgement of being a sister city is reciprocated on both sides, and the answer was yes. I also asked about the process of finding your sister city and how that worked. I learned that there are official national organizations in a lot of countries that create this relationship.

I attended the IA Scholar movie night showing of “Human Flow” which took place at 8:30pm in the Smith side basement area of Smith-Steeb Hall this past Monday, November 12th. This event relates to the topic of International Affairs because the movie explored the refugee crisis in different areas of the world.  The movie showed the audience firsthand what refugees of different cultures lives are like in various locations around the world. The movie crew followed communities of refugees, lived with them, weathered storms and struggles with them, and sat with them and asked them to share. Refugees would share what was on their mind at the very moment and what they personally have gone through to “attempt” to seek asylum. Some would speak of what they were leaving behind –  their ancestors’ land, other family members, tyranny, pillage, rape, and war – in order to start a new life. The risk of death on the trek to what they believe to be a place of freedom and human dignity is a lesser risk than then their almost imminent death in their homeland. The underlying theme of everyone’s testimonies is their want to be seen as human beings and to be treated as such. Something they weren’t expecting in Europe was the amount of opposition they faced. It wasn’t something I was expecting either.

Being surrounded by domestic news about our own refugee crisis in our current administration and the injustices of that, I somehow thought it couldn’t get worse or just as bad as we have in America. I was wrong. In a lot of European countries, they have borders. They have wired fences for the sole reason of keeping refugees out. There was a fact displayed sometime during the documentary that really struck me. There were only 11 countries in the world with borders and walls when the Berlin Wall fell in 1991. Now that number has risen to 40 countries which baffles me. The xenophobic attitude seems to be spreading like a disease which makes no sense to me in America’s case because America is the great country it is because of immigrants. In the film, there was also a great, thought-provoking quote that President John F. Kennedy wrote in his book, A Nation of Immigrants that I loved. Kennedy wrote, “Another way of indicating the importance of immigration to America is to point out that every American who ever lived, with the exception of one group, was either an immigrant himself or a descendant of immigrants.” I’m so happy this film introduced me to this quote because it succinctly puts into words my exact feelings towards immigration.

This film also relates to the discussions about immigration along the US-Mexico border held in my Spanish classes. We talk about the attitude the current administration has about immigration and the affect it is having on Hispanic families and the perspective of American families of what to think of immigrants. We’ve talked about Trump’s order to separate kids from their families putting them into detention camps and what this implies about what America is becoming. Overall, this film opened my eyes and made me more aware of the current world I live in and how I can help to make my corner of the world a little better.