Uncovering ‘Invisibility’: Identities and Experiences of Exclusion among Highly Educated Germans of Polish Descent
Uncovering ‘Invisibility’: Identities and Experiences of Exclusion among Highly Educated Germans of Polish Descent

Summary/Abstract: Despite representing the second-largest immigrant group in Germany, Polish immigrants and theirdescendants are understudied and have often been described as ‘invisible’ as they have a reputation of‘becoming German’ quickly and unproblematically. Challenging this notion and considering theprevalence of anti-Eastern European racism in the German context, this study analyses interviews with 22highly educated Germans of Polish descent, focusing on how interviewees talked about being Germanand/or Polish and their experiences of stigmatisation and discrimination, in both their childhood andteenage years and as adults. In so doing, the study contributes to the literature on how the ethnic andnational identities of white descendants of immigrants are related to experiences of exclusion. Specifically,some interviewees (Type 1) said that they felt only German (and not Polish) and denied experiencingstigmatisation or discrimination in their present lives. Other interviewees (Type 2) embraced a symbolicPolish ethnicity while framing exclusionary experiences as a thing of the past. Type 3 interviewees reporteda process of re-ethnicisation, arguably enabled by the absence of exclusionary experiences in their presentlives. Finally, there were interviewees (Type 4) who reported embracing their Polish identity, which led toexperiences of stigmatisation in certain contexts.

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