I’m an Alien in Deutschland

The book presents a study of – legal, illegal, and incarcerated – African immigrants in Germany. Participants responded to a selection of scales from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2), the Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ) by Schwartz, and a measure of acculturative stress. Acculturative stress and German racism emerged as strong predictors of poor mental health, with problems becoming worse over the years of stay in Germany. Particularly among ‘economic refugees’ a precarious job situation and family fragmentation added grossly to acculturative stress. As John W. Berry, the nestor of acculturation research puts it in his epilogue: «What can only help is an increase in basic hospitality: Making African immigrants welcome in their new home is needed, not a bulwark Europe.»