I had a conversation with a dear friend, someone who went through the same program as I did. We were catching up, sharing our experiences, and reflecting on some challenges we’ve faced since moving here.
She told me about her partner, a hardworking man who has been in Germany for years. His story reminded me of my daughter’s in many ways. He, too, was separated from his mother and siblings when they moved to Germany, leaving him to grow up with extended family. I can only imagine how difficult that must have been.
Eventually, he got the chance to move to Germany to further his education and reunite with his family. He’s worked hard ever since… earning his degree, learning the language, following the rules, and taking on whatever jobs he could find while applying for better opportunities.
But then she shared something that stuck with me. He’d recently gone for a job interview, one of the countless he’s applied for over the years. He speaks German, fluently in fact. But during the interview, he was told something that crushed him: “Your German is good, but you have an accent.” And just like that, he didn’t get the job.
When she told me this, my heart sank. I couldn’t stop thinking about the weight of that rejection. Here is someone who’s done everything this country has asked of him—learned the language, studied, worked hard, contributed—and yet, his accent, the one thing that ties him to his roots, became the reason he wasn’t chosen.
It made me reflect on my own journey. I’m not fluent in German yet, and I’m not at the level of my friend or her partner. But I couldn’t help imagining what it would feel like to pour years of effort into learning the language and integrating into society, only to be told that it’s not enough because of how I sound. It made me wonder: What more do we have to give? How far do we have to go to be accepted?
Do I lose my identity to fit in? Do I try to erase the voice I was born with, the one shaped by my roots, just to blend into a system that still might not fully accept me?
The feeling is awful. It’s like running a race where the finish line keeps moving further away. You follow every rule, meet every requirement, and yet there’s always something that makes you feel like you don’t belong.
This isn’t just about a job. It’s about how deeply tied our accents are to who we are. An accent tells a story, a story of where we’ve come from, the life we’ve lived, the cultures that shaped us. But in that moment, my friend’s partner wasn’t seen for his qualifications, his hard work, or his potential. He was reduced to how his voice sounded, and that was enough to shut the door on him.
As I sat with this story, it left me with so many questions. What does integration really mean if you’re still told you don’t belong? How do you go through a system that asks you to give up pieces of yourself to fit in? And what happens to the parts of us that we lose along the way?
I don’t have answers. But I do know this feeling… this pain of not being seen for who you are; it is one that so many immigrants carry. It’s heavy. It’s unfair. But despite it all, we find ways to keep going, to hold on to hope and to remind ourselves that our journey, no matter how hard, still has value.
