With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany in March 2020 (see COVID-19 pandemic, 2020), there has been an increased shift from traditional offline cultural and political activities to the online world.
Many young people are using this opportunity to make their voices heard and try out different formats. These include numerous podcasts, YouTube channels, and digital events such as discussions, interviews, workshops, conferences, and even multi-day festivals.
During this period, the media presence of the children and grandchildren of migrants also increases. They come from the fields of journalism, culture, and political activism. Some of them see themselves as the voices of the last three generations and want to give a voice to what previous generations were unable to say because they lacked the language or access to education and the public sphere.
Others want to understand more about the migration and upbringing of their parents and grandparents, who migrated to East and West Germany as guest workers (see recruitment agreement between the FRG and Turkey, 1955) or contract workers (see labor agreement between the GDR and Eastern European countries, 1971; see Labor Agreement between the GDR and non-European countries, 1976) to East and West Germany. The topics are diverse: experiences of migration and racism, inherited trauma, resistance, empowerment, integration debates, the concept of home, (queer) identity and belonging, gender, East-West affiliations, power and inequality, culture of remembrance, solidarity, historical and collective resistance.
Often, it is a matter of bringing these issues to the fore, creating a space for people who share these experiences, or bringing different communities into dialogue with each other, identifying commonalities and differences, showing solidarity with one another, and joining forces in a common struggle against the power structures of mainstream society. More and more voices are also being heard that speak from an Eastern perspective (see Neue Generation Ost, 2020), whether because they have migrated to East Germany, were born or grew up in East Germany, or have migrated from countries that are labeled as Russian-speaking, Eastern European, post-Soviet, or post-Eastern.
Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, there were different approaches to bringing these issues to the fore (see Further Resources).
