These days you can find a multicultural society everywhere and that is the reason why more and more people with different cultures are living together in one state. It makes sense to differentiate between three groups: The first are immigrants who come from foreign countries to live in Germany; the next group are people born in Germany with foreign parents and third group are people with one foreign and one German parent. These people often have problems to find their national belongings.

In our opinion it is very interesting to find out what is forming our identity and what leads us to feel close with the country we are living in. For answering the question we are sure that there are a lot of aspects to consider, such as education, religion, personal view, appearance, language, and of course the behaviour of German people.

Education at home and at school exert influence on our identity because mainly in childhood people learn about behaviour and values. Children who are educated in a tolerant and open way will probably have less problems to feel comfortable in a foreign society.

All over the world and in every society you can find religious conflicts and furthermore religion plays an important part in forming people's identities. Even though today more and more people dissociate from religion and churches stay empty, it will always be very difficult for people with different faith to integrate in another religion.

But apart from outer situations your own behaviour and opinion are very important for living in foreign societies and states. The way you get along with your surroundings and your own behaviour show if you are willing to change some preferences to adapt in foreign life styles. Moreover your appearance plays an important role because already looks and gestures can inform your fellow person what you think about them. In addition to that a lot of people are discriminated against because you see at once that they come from foreign countries.

In our opinion foreign people also need language knowledge to be able to contact people and to integrate in society. People who speak different languages show their interest in other cultures and countries. But for us the most important aspect is the behaviour of native people. If they do not accept foreigners and if there is no respectfulness of others integration and forming of identity will be very difficult.

In the next part we would like to present our own identity and we will show our experience with foreign people:

My name is Mona Al-Ma'arri and my identity is marked by two cultures. My father is from Lebanon and he is a Muslim, but has lived in Germany for 30 years. My mother isn't a foreigner and has lived in Germany since she was born. I also grew up in the German culture but I feel partly Lebanese though because I got to know the culture by my relatives and of course by my father. I am very happy to be marked by these two different cultures but sometimes it's sad not really to know where I am from and hardly nobody can understand this as all of my friends are German.

But all in all it's an advantage for me because I can imagine how other people live, handle their poverty and why they wear religious symbols. Besides nobody can see that I am a foreigner and that is why I did not get to know any racism. These two cultures characterise myself and this is very important for me.

My name is Nils Mokwa and I was born in Germany. My parents are both German and also most of my relatives are German, too. So my identity is marked by one culture and of course I feel German. Also most of my friends were born in Germany and I have not gained a lot of experience with foreign people. But I am open and tolerant towards foreign cultures and in my opinion there should not be differences in our heads because we are all people living together in one world. So far I have never gained any bad experience while travelling to a foreign country and mostly I have been welcomed. I have not experienced that there is such a bad attitude toward the German country although I know that Germany is often associated with its wartime past. All in all I am very happy to have the chance to live in a democratic and highly-developed country where I can realize my dreams.

By showing all these facts you can see that people's identities depend on a lot of different aspects and that there are various cultural differences. For a lot of people it is very difficult to form an identity of their own and create national feelings. We are sure that that in our multi-cultural society people have to get closer but we think that you should still identify yourself with your native country and your national relationship should not be lost.

by Mona Al-Maarri and Nils Mokwa