Word Up: der Migrationshintergrund

Migrationshintergrund m immigrant heritage.  A person with at least one parent who is not of German heritage has a Migrationshintergrund

 I think it says a lot about German culture and value systems that there is a word to describe the cultural identity of a child for whom one parent is a first-generation German, and it's not just straight up "German."
Strange but true, Germans are really at home with casual racism.  People with Migrationshintergrund are painted with a broad brush in one direction: backward.  A number of Germans I have met - highly-educated, liberal, organic-food-growing and caftan-wearing Germans - seem to have gleaned all of their knowledge of  Turks or Egyptians or South Asians from colourized National Geographic photo editorials circa 1960.  Having read the accompanying descriptions of natives, habits and habitats, penned by whatever minor noble made the trek through the Sahara or Siam, they then stored up this information for future cross-cultural encounters and deemed themselves culturally sensitive.  On a tour of one of Germany's many castles, our tour guide tried to bond with a woman who looked vaguely Southeast Asian over Bollywood movies.  Yesterday my German teacher asked one of the Turkish students at what age Turkish women are expected to marry.  She's a biochemist, by the way, and she said 35.  That was not the answer the teacher was looking for.
When we first started watching TV here in Germany, there were ads for a day of international programming that one of the TV channels dubbed Tolerance Day.  Maybe it was a translation thing (marketing departments, put away your German-English dictionaries!), but to me shelling out cash for an ad campaign about tolerance is like patting yourself on the back for supporting "separate but equal" education or popping the champagne cork for universal male suffrage.  Diversity is not just agreeing to acknowledge that other cultural groups exist within your country, for better or for worse, especially when most people quietly err on the side of worse.  
But, please, Germany, stop assuming that all immigrants were living on the set of Aladdin before they showed up in your sparkling metropolises.  Germans, of all people, should be able to recognize that there are extremes within any culture, although maybe they know only too well how the zeal of the few can hypnotize the many.  Sure, without stereotypes, people seem a lot less orderly, but Germans should think about how nice their vacations to the US would be if waitresses stopped asking if their lederhosen is in the wash.

Image via disneybilder.com