Gastarbeiter

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Gastarbeiter is German for "guest worker" (or "guest workers" - the plural is the same as the singular). It refers to people who had moved to Germany mainly in the 1960s and 70s, seeking work as part of a formal guest worker programme (Gastarbeiterprogramm). On a smaller scale, the Netherlands had a parallel scheme, called the gastarbeider programme.

[edit] Historical background

Due to a labour shortage during the Wirtschaftswunder in the 1950s and 1960s, the German government invited people, mostly from Balkan countries (especially ex-Yugoslavia), Greece, Portugal,and Turkey) and Italy, to work in Germany. This was done by inter-governmental contracts with the migrants' countries of origin. As Gastarbeiter, they were expected to work in Germany for a limited period then return to their country of origin. Most of them actually intended to earn some money in Germany and leave as wealthy people, by the standards of their country of origin. The relevant laws dictated Gastarbeiter had to extend their working visas (and residency, Aufenthaltserlaubnis "residence permit") each year.

In reality, the Gastarbeiter idea turned out differently. For a variety of reasons, many of the newcomers chose not to return to their native countries and brought their families to Germany. Children born to Gastarbeiter couples gained a special visa; "Aufenthaltsberechtigung" ("Right to reside"), but educational, religious and social discrimination continued.

They started to settle down and began to form new ethnic minority communities. The government and others in society ignored the integration for a long time. Some of the factors contributing to this creation of second class citizenry was that Germany's birth laws (as most European countries) do not allow a person to automatically naturalize, but they remain citizens of the nationality of their parents (even if they have never resided in that country and can neither speak the native language or identify with its culture in any way).

Law changes in 2000 have addressed some of these fundamental problems, allowing 2nd or 3nd generation immigrants now to integrate via citizenship.

[edit] Nowadays

Today, the term Gastarbeiter is no longer accurate, as the former guest worker communities, in so far as they have not returned to their countries of origins, have become permanent residents and are in no meaningful sense "guests". In political discourse, the term has also become loaded, having been used sometimes by right-wing extremists in conjunction with the demand to expel foreigners and their children. As a historical term, however, referring to the guest-worker programme and situation of the 1960s, it is neutral and remains the most correct designation. In literary theory, some German migrant writers (e.g. Rafik Schami) use the terminology of "guest" and "host" provocatively.

The term "Gastarbeiter" lives on in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian/Slovene languages, generally meaning "expatriate" (mostly referring to 2nd generation from former Yugoslavia born or living abroad). The phonetic spelling is "gastarbajter". In Belgrade's colloquial lingo it is commonly shortened to "gastos.".

In modern Russia, the term Gastarbeiter (Гастарбайтер) is used to denote workers from former Soviet republics coming to Russia (mainly Moscow and Saint-Petersburg) to search for work. These workers come primarily from Central Asian republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.