#1 – The Forerunner

00:00:00: In the second grade, I always tell this story.

00:00:01: I just stand up and spell on first day of school to class my name.

00:00:06: it was humiliating situation for a second grader.

00:00:11: What if migration isn't something that just happens but is made?

00:00:17: Welcome To Production Site The Podcast About Societal Negotiation of Migration.

00:00:24: We explore how migration is produced through policies institutions and categories.

00:00:31: And we ask, what role does migration research itself play in this process?

00:00:38: Hi my name is Catherine Ramírez.

00:00:41: I'm a professor of Latin American and Latino studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

00:00:48: And I am hosting this episode together with Christoph Rass, Professor of Modern History & Historical Migration Research At The University Of Osnabrück and member of the Collaborative Research Centre "Production of Migration".

00:01:04: Christoph before we let our listeners hear from Czarina Wilpert I want to go back to the beginning.

00:01:10: How did you first come across her work?

00:01:13: Well, for some time now i've been interested in a question that is often overlooked Who were there?

00:01:19: people who built migration research In Germany?

00:01:21: and do not mean The well-known professors I mean the full picture.

00:01:26: when You look at the early days of migrations studies here the nineteen sixties the nineteen seventies you find A surprising diversity of voices.

00:01:34: Not all migration scholars in Germany where actually German.

00:01:38: There were Greek scholars, Spanish scholars and Turkish scholars.

00:01:41: People who had come to Germany themselves And brought their own experience of migration To the research.

00:01:48: This resonates with something I've seen in United States as well.

00:01:52: Every academic field has its official history The canonical names, founding fathers.

00:01:58: But when you dig deeper You find other voices Scholars at beginning who did important work, but never made it into the textbooks.

00:02:07: And often these are women people of color immigrants.

00:02:12: they get pushed aside and eventually disappear from the

00:02:15: record.".

00:02:16: That is exactly what happened in Germany.

00:02:18: These scholars could not all establish themselves And this raises a question that I find fascinating.

00:02:30: What did these scholars, people who themselves had crossed borders think about immigration to Germany at the time when most academics still denied that Germany was even a country of immigration?

00:02:41: So you were looking for these forgotten voices and that search led you to Czarina Wilpert.

00:02:49: Yeah well now let's be clear.

00:02:50: Czarina Wilpert did have a distinguished career.

00:02:54: She made significant contributions to gender studies.

00:02:57: She published important work on migration and diversity over decades, she founded initiative supporting migrant women entrepreneurs in Germany.

00:03:04: that worked earned her recognition awards.

00:03:06: none of this has actually been overlooked.

00:03:09: now What we're interested in is something more specific.

00:03:13: Her often overlooked role, the very birth of German migration research and her remarkable biography.

00:03:21: a Mexican-American scholar hidden in plain sight behind a German married name.

00:03:28: And that is what drew us to her story.

00:03:30: Yes!

00:03:31: She published important work on Turkish immigrants during the nineteen seventies and eighties, On The Second Generation, on Women & Migration.

00:03:39: Her name appeared again-and-again in the literature from their period but for a long time I knew only as a name of a page A German Name Wilpert.

00:03:50: Then you discovered behind this German name was completely different story.

00:03:54: Exactly.

00:03:55: When i looked more closely at her biography I found something very unexpected.

00:04:00: Her maiden name is Huerta, Czarina Huerta.

00:04:03: She was born in Los Angeles In nineteen thirty-eight.

00:04:06: her father Was a Mexican immigrant from Sonora.

00:04:10: So there's a scholar who shaped how Germans understood migration and she herself came From a Mexican American family.

00:04:17: so when you Christoph told me this i have to admit it stopped Me in my tracks because they know that

00:04:23: story

00:04:24: not Wilpert stories specifically but pattern, the Mexican-American spirit experience in the early twentieth century.

00:04:33: My own family came from Sonora.

00:04:35: they migrated to California around the same time as Wilpert's father and like Wilpert I was born and raised in Los Angeles.

00:04:44: so when i heard her biography I felt an immediate

00:04:47: connection."

00:04:48: And that is why I reached out.

00:04:51: I remember that conversation we had.

00:04:53: You said something like, what fascinated me was the position she occupied.

00:05:22: She went to Europe and became an outsider, studying outsiders.

00:05:26: She researched Turkish families in Berlin while carrying her own experiences of exclusion—experiences that most German colleagues knew nothing about —that double perspective being both researcher and someone who has felt what it means to be marked as

00:05:44: different.".

00:05:45: That's rare!

00:05:46: And it shapes what you can see.

00:05:49: In an interview we conducted with her, she mentions that non-German researchers in her field were often as she put it a decade ahead.

00:05:57: They could see things the German scholars couldn't precisely because they weren't looking at what was called a "purely German gaze".

00:06:08: She spent her entire career navigating that space between insider and outsider, between American and German.

00:06:16: Between being taken seriously and being

00:06:19: dismissed.".

00:06:20: This is what our collaborative research center also calls the production of migration.

00:06:26: We study how migration is not simply something that happens.

00:06:30: It's made by politics, institutions or categories and scholars play a role in this production, too.

00:06:40: Which raises the question that runs through this entire episode What does it mean to study migration when you yourself have been marked as different?

00:06:50: When do know what feels like to spell your name for classroom full of strangers and you've been excluded from spaces that were supposed be open to you.

00:07:00: Wilbert lived these questions and she turned them into research that challenged how Germany thought about its immigrants.

00:07:10: So we decided to interview her.

00:07:12: in October of twenty-twenty four, We visited Czarina Wilpert and her apartment in Berlin for the first time and we met again last year.

00:07:20: She was eighty six years old and she had stories to tell five decades of stories.

00:07:27: What struck

00:07:27: me most about her was her clarity and her honesty.

00:07:32: She spoke about moments of triumph, and moments of humiliation... ...about doors that opened and doors that were slam

00:07:40: shut.

00:07:40: There is no bitterness but there's also no glossing over the difficulties.

00:07:46: Yeah at one point she said something that stayed with me.

00:07:50: She said I never thought anybody paid attention to me at all.

00:07:54: That sentence broke my heart a little because her work mattered, it still matters.

00:08:00: And this episode is in some ways our attempt to pay attention to her and her work –to listen–and share what we've

00:08:07: heard.".

00:08:08: So the next thirty minutes Czarina Wilpert will tell a story…in their own words.

00:08:14: And afterwards Christoph & I will reflect on what we learned.

00:08:18: This Is The Forrunner.

00:08:29: Wilpert grew up at Los Angeles In the nineteen forties and fifties in the United States of America before the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four.

00:08:39: And actually, my dad was younger third of twelve children while nine were living it.

00:08:47: by the time I got to know them that they all just one died and a couple others died.

00:08:54: so there where nine left?

00:08:56: My Dad was an eight year old when he came into

00:08:59: U.S.,

00:08:59: first of I didn't.

00:09:02: It's a very difficult name, Czarina where to both had to be spelled people.

00:09:07: all the time like in second grade i always tell this story just stand up and spell.

00:09:12: on first day of school two class my name Mr James was a teacher And I don't remember any other teachers that have my whole life from school.

00:09:21: so it Was humiliating situation for a second grader?

00:09:24: And uh...I was only Mexican in the Class later when I went to St Michael's in Los Angeles, then about third grade or fourth?

00:09:33: Or fifth grade.

00:09:34: My friend Juli Dames was the second and we were best friends from throughout school who are only Mexicans on our class until she died—she's my closest friend I mean —we're totally different but yeah.

00:09:48: so there reasons for that.

00:09:50: when i went to Mount Saint Mary's for a while at Mount Saint Mary's College also.

00:09:55: I was working, of course half-time all the time.

00:09:57: Twenty hours a week so it didn't have a lot of time to be on campus...I mean i was studying very hard and working very hard but i'm saying that because i was never invited to join any of the sororities or whatever that other people were invited too.

00:10:10: So i don't know why But maybe just cuz i wasn't around?

00:10:13: I'd have no idea..but i had the feeling That i was not included as um fact.

00:10:18: The first one semester....i think i told you about that already was trying to live on campus.

00:10:27: But the room we got, three of us were put in a room and there wasn't only black girl, Hawaiian girl and me from that same room.

00:10:35: We didn't have rooms for desks so had go study where others would have desks at least And they weren't not three people beds to each other, so I didn't find that very attractive.

00:10:48: So this one moved out and the last time just when my dad was looking for a housing he couldn't buy property in Inglewood.

00:10:55: we had to be an LA

00:10:56: county.".

00:10:57: And so we were in LA County –that's where you could buy little house because Ingle would did not have them in Mexicans.

00:11:03: Spelling your name being put into certain room sensing invisible boundaries.

00:11:09: these experiences shaped Wilpert perspective on migration on exclusion, on herself.

00:11:21: Wilpert had not planned to come to

00:11:23: Germany.".

00:11:24: I was around eighteen...I turned nineteen.

00:11:28: the summer i met my future husband in Chicago and we were both active.

00:11:35: that's how we met together there in a catholic reauthorization which was based on european youth organizations.

00:11:43: He came from one in Germany, he had a full-bite scholarship and was studying at University of Eugene, Oregon every evening that summer.

00:11:54: I was there for about six weeks.

00:11:56: He picked me up to work when we go to the park and eat this food together.

00:12:00: so thats how i got to know Bernhard Wilpert pretty well And...we fell in love.

00:12:07: The long story short is..I worked then afterwards When I finished college for about half a year, or year at the National Office in Chicago.

00:12:16: And then The International office and Paris... There's lot of things that happen between going into details.

00:12:23: That invited me to work in Paris!

00:12:25: Well God wanted I come to Germany and learn German actually thought they should do that but i decided to go to Paris because what is gonna happen in Germany?

00:12:33: Gonna have find job..I already had a job here in Paris.

00:12:36: so And I'm not sure if this has a future to it.

00:12:39: Who knows what's gonna happen when i get stuck in Germany learning German for nothing?

00:12:43: So, I ended up going to Paris and lived two years in Paris which was the most wonderful thing that could ever happened to me.

00:12:48: And then fluent French...I mean probably a bit dusty now but its just like a third language to me!

00:12:55: Finally after being there about a year ago I heard he didn't come to Germany.

00:12:59: Notice how he didnt respond anymore.

00:13:02: Then he came His second, the second year I think oh by chance.

00:13:07: I was invited.

00:13:09: Oh one of the other women working at that international office happened to come.

00:13:13: i didn't know That from tubing him where he studied and she invited me a christmas time To Come.

00:13:19: Two years in Paris fluent In French.

00:13:22: that would prove decisive later.

00:13:25: Sometimes it's The detours that shape careers.

00:13:30: In nineteen seventy-seven, an unusual opportunity arose at the newly founded Science Center Berlin.

00:13:40: I began probably one could say in nineteen seventy seven when i was hired to work at this science center, Wissenschaft Zentrum Berlin.

00:13:51: a Turkish anthropologist who had just graduated, actually with her doctoral degree from Oxford University.

00:14:01: And she was hired to... With a lot of money because the Science Center was first year at the Science Centre which is very important in Berlin, but it was founding year and Karl Deutsch, professor at Harvard University.

00:14:19: he was supposed come for five years And so the money for five years was available.

00:14:29: She hired me as her assistant because arriving from Oxford, she spoke Turkish and English but did not speak German.

00:14:37: So I was a number one assistant and we hired of course German early academics too who were interested.

00:14:43: We had even The Opportunity which made it very good basis for my later dissertation.

00:14:51: So we had access to graduate students, our students at different German universities happened to be Turkish who were studying in Germany.

00:14:58: We were able to train them as interviewers and so we have a tremendous data collection of different issues.

00:15:05: And since Asia was cultural anthropologist she has the insight into history and anthropology issue of Turkey interview, data gathering et cetera.

00:15:24: So that coming together gave us tremendous resources to have a total view and then working there five years at the end I was able...I worked on The Second Generation from the beginning.

00:15:36: i was able turn into really systematic studies of young people in that stage In the seventies in Berlin.

00:15:45: so it's amazing.

00:15:47: It is an accent we're blessed.

00:15:50: It was certainly an opportunity to do that, but it was naturally interesting too because of my background being conscious already.

00:16:01: Although I hadn't done any research beforehand and Mexican Americans in the

00:16:07: U.S.,

00:16:09: to make comparisons and think about the fact that US is an immigration country, in Germany it's not a country of immigration.

00:16:18: And still there isn't any kind of immigration which is the problem or issue for all issues with whatever groups whether they're refugees are happening in this case as guest workers.

00:16:36: So it was obviously interesting for me to have that opportunity, and nobody else seemed like working on these issues.

00:16:45: I got my master's degree because i had only a bachelor.

00:16:48: when I arrived at the TU in Professor Mackensen outside of the University and some other research things were asked to work on...I can't remember exactly why or what but anyway.

00:17:00: So he was very interested in my work and I mean, you thought that was a good issue.

00:17:05: But he was more demographic into regional planning.

00:17:08: so when we finally got the opportunity to get these data working with Dr Kudat which is exciting actually it's obviously an interesting area because nobody was working on at time And there i had access to the anthropological and historical approach, what you need in addition to be able to do systematic data analysis etc.

00:17:36: It was like a

00:17:37: gift."

00:17:38: Nobody else was working on it!

00:17:40: A field that barely existed.

00:17:42: Wilpert had to help create it with her double perspective as a researcher and someone who knew would have felt liked-to-be different.

00:17:51: years later she said I identified Wilpert made a name for herself, but not everyone welcomed her.

00:18:02: I

00:18:03: was just seen as young American girl so to speak in that sense even though i'm married and have two children at the time But...I was seen by my colleagues because didn't had any position on university actually At this point basic research, but they weren't known yet.

00:18:26: That was the first year of The Founding at the Science Center—first five years —of The Foundings and the Science Centre.

00:18:32: so I wasn't taken seriously by colleagues in fact different times.

00:18:37: when i finally got opportunities

00:18:41: then a door opened

00:18:44: within a short amount of time work that was being done at the Science Centre to come to an exciting meeting near Nice in the south of France, where twelve countries were invited to do work on these issues of international migration by The European Science Foundation.

00:19:10: And when I was invited there... ...I was introduced to a man who promoted my future.

00:19:18: afterwards that I met Henri Tajfel, which may not be a name to you.

00:19:24: But he was a social psychologist who worked on identity issues and I was familiar with his

00:19:31: research.".

00:19:32: And when he was introduced me...I didn't know that he was the person who was organizing this conference but I said immediately oh your Henri Tajfal!

00:19:47: This Henri Tajfel was the coordinator of this project, and it was his idea for those twelve countries which is too much.

00:19:56: And he went to European Science Foundation wanting to bring twelve countries together.

00:20:00: do all study these issues but... He was the Coordinator.

00:20:05: by end-of-the week we had a weak meeting with about twenty five academics on all over Europe there in Nice by the end of that week they were looking where are you going from here etc..and asked me be his assistant.

00:20:20: So that opened the door.

00:20:22: Unfortunately, we managed to organize something together and by then I mean a couple of conferences at the local level – thematic ones before he died but within about four months he died of cancer.

00:20:36: so now The decision had come from European science on what do We Do?

00:20:41: And they decided That i should do coordination.

00:20:44: They would give me a board Of three professors famous French professor at the time.

00:20:50: Julian Pitt-Rivers from Great Britain, and there was a third one whose name I can't think of right now but it'll come later.

00:20:57: any case supposedly they were advising me.

00:21:00: actually i saw them a couple times because we did have meetings...I organized all the meetings.

00:21:04: so i had a full-time job of coordinating for five years and editing these volumes that we produced..we did three volumes ...and they were very interesting.

00:21:14: I had the advantage which no one else in Germany had.

00:21:18: Oh, that wanted to say two things to them...I spoke fluent French because i lived two years in Paris.

00:21:23: so this was very important because the french were a very important partners in the project as well and i had to cooperate with him because actually Michele Oriol and Nice is the one who had the idea but he wasn't given the responsibility.

00:21:38: I wouldn't have been slipping into that position.

00:21:46: But then came resistance from Germany,

00:21:49: Professor Korte German professor who was the.

00:21:54: he was very important for Hartmut Esser Who is THE researcher in this area of Germany.

00:22:00: He intervened to European Science Foundation and said we do not accept The Germans Do NOT want This woman To be named For this.

00:22:07: And they replied and said, well we're funding the project.

00:22:10: Actually you have no saying in who does this?

00:22:13: We've decided that she wanted her so we've decided to do it period!

00:22:20: So that was a first beginning.

00:22:22: I definitely had an enemy.

00:22:24: Professor Korte...I don't know if i ever met him face-to-face but he certainly didn't like me..and I had difficulty with that.

00:22:31: Hartmut Esser is a bit nicer.

00:22:33: He stayed as member of The Project although did totally different kinds of research.

00:22:39: He was supposed to do his own book because he had a different approach, cognitive more cognitive blah-blah psychological approach than sociological approach.

00:22:49: and we got along okay.

00:22:51: but this Korte...

00:22:53: How did that make her feel?

00:22:56: Angry.

00:22:59: I wasn't humiliated, I was angry but that meant of course with them.

00:23:03: getting funding from German organizations might have difficulties because he was an advisor to the government at that time in Germany so He would be important person not to have as enemy.

00:23:15: Angry Not Humiliated.

00:23:18: She refused To Be Defined As A Victim.

00:23:21: Academic fields are not neutral spaces.

00:23:24: They're permeated by power struggles and

00:23:26: exclusions.".

00:23:32: Wilpert never became a professor, but that was her choice.

00:23:36: I doubt if i was recognized to the extent one might think I should be considering how early I began because most of my things...I have published a lot in German at the mean time…but I had published main things from beginning English first of all and I was responsible for European coordination so that Germans were, should I say more provincial?

00:24:02: And the university's more respect toward mother tongue people who are doing research.

00:24:09: It wasn't a professor.

00:24:11: That was never a professor actually recognized as a professor at advanced school or social work in Berlin But that did not come to a position because they cut the funding, but it's another issue.

00:24:27: Anyway I was not interested in being a professor actually.

00:24:30: I enjoyed doing research and didn't want to be

00:24:33: teacher.".

00:24:34: What was her most important research contribution?

00:24:39: When i began going into historical issues of Germany... Not accepting idea there is country immigration.

00:24:47: based on this and documenting the historical positions was exciting.

00:24:55: I really was disgusted by their stereotypes about Turkish people, they had no idea because i worked with the Turkish people in this field work.

00:25:07: I got to know them and there were so multi-dimensional and it was just unbelievable!

00:25:12: And that is what's similar of course The research in the US more than anything else, and of course my own experience has been a Mexican-American too.

00:25:22: You know, the stereotypes about Mexican Americans were actually dreadful as well lazy and whatever.

00:25:28: so really unbelievable things.

00:25:30: not capable developing their ideas or whatever.

00:25:35: Today In the

00:25:36: U.S.,

00:25:36: we're witnessing mass deportations.

00:25:39: Wilpert's comment

00:25:41: Trumpism...the interesting thing is that Germany since it's not a country of immigration, there was no... In the

00:25:50: U.S.,

00:25:51: as an immigrant kind.

00:25:52: you would think that what have been easier to just what I thought it was actually in comparison and i thought was easier but didn't realize people were recognized un-documented therefore had no chance become citizens.

00:26:09: so I'm less aware about this at the time when doing my research wasn't conscious because The US is a country of immigration.

00:26:18: If you're born there, you have a right to citizenship and that was not the case here.

00:26:23: You could be born here but you were coming from Germany which definitely wasn't a country for emigration although it was for Germans who came from Eastern Europe and had lived six centuries in other parts of Eastern Europe as German speakers and come, they had a right.

00:26:43: So it was definitely an ethnicized citizenship here—was possible.

00:26:48: Ethnicide Citizenship Germany is not a country of immigration —is NOT a neutral description.

00:26:55: It's the political decision that determines who belongs and doesn't.

00:27:04: Does research influence policy?

00:27:06: Wilpert is skeptical but she didn't stop at analysis.

00:27:11: I doubt that my work has an influence on policy, but that brings us to three other issues which maybe I should mention.

00:27:28: Hate crimes are going on and we need some help.

00:27:44: And I said, I'm sorry!

00:27:45: We're all in doing research.

00:27:47: We do not have any programs to offer

00:27:49: you.".

00:27:50: That moment became a turning point.

00:27:53: Wilpert found diversity training in Berlin though she has criticisms of the umbrella organization The program itself become her legacy.

00:28:03: The World of Difference Program is a Diversity Sense Zero.

00:28:08: I left it a few years ago because we have such a group of trainers, mixed with all backgrounds.

00:28:15: All colors who work with the police and educators or students.

00:28:22: It's persevered going into schools.

00:28:27: That is one organization that I'm very proud.

00:28:30: They said they had to get an organization in Berlin which does something like this.

00:28:34: We founded the initiative for self-employment And that exists today.

00:28:39: I only retired from it last year when i reached somehow the ripe old age of eighty five or something, eighty six because this has been funded primarily from European Social Fund and City of Berlin for over thirty years.

00:28:56: so we have a permanent funding for training women at an organization that trains women who are interested and command semi-employed.

00:29:05: And our philosophy is immigrant women for immigrant women, so there are docenton

00:29:10: etc.,

00:29:11: everyone who's involved in teaching the structure.

00:29:14: they're also from immigrant backgrounds and their

00:29:17: professionals.".

00:29:18: So that was another thing I set up as a result of my work orientation.

00:29:26: Immigrant Women For Immigant Women Over Thirty Years.

00:29:31: Reflexive research also means taking action.

00:29:37: What are today's most pressing questions regarding immigration?

00:29:42: The lie about it because the policy, official policy of a government whether its here in Germany or other European countries and perhaps US too I'm not up to date exactly right now is that we have two many refugees.

00:30:00: uh... We don't need them send them back, the borders have to be strengthened etc.

00:30:06: And the dilemma is actually we need very seriously these people for work and it's not even... Many of them are very talented.

00:30:16: they bring something.

00:30:17: They have to adapted.

00:30:18: The German system is educational systems a bit different but they come with great potential.

00:30:24: If one knows anything about immigrants their'e the only thing he want do was successful And therefore, one should develop programs that this deficit to match them.

00:30:37: The deficit we have in skilled people—skilled workers because it's a tremendous deficit on Germany and most of Europe —and still the argument is We don't need them too many.

00:30:46: It's a political argument for getting elected Because they think population doesn't want to have foreigners there More foreigners.

00:30:55: But it is wrong argument... ...And it absolutely destroys the opportunity for their development, and that seems to be universal.

00:31:05: What gives her hope?

00:31:07: The hope is that a younger generation is coming.

00:31:10: we are having a younger generations which are popping up at said.

00:31:14: I'm going run for representative in future.

00:31:18: i am running for senator so you're seeing new faces saying We have to participate and change things.

00:31:49: Well,

00:31:54: there's this moment I keep coming back to.

00:31:56: Near the end of our conversation she said I never thought anybody paid attention to me at all, and i've been thinking about that sentence ever since.

00:32:04: Here is someone who worked for fifty years on migration research ,who published, organized conferences or build organizations.

00:32:12: yet she carries the sense of not having

00:32:14: seen.".

00:32:15: That moment hit my too because it's not false modesty It reflects something real about how the field treated her.

00:32:23: She was productive, she was rigorous and still she remained on the margins of

00:32:28: recognition.".

00:32:29: Yeah!

00:32:29: And what stuck with me was her tone when she said it.

00:32:33: there was no bitterness just a kind of quiet surprise that we were there in our living room asking these questions.

00:32:40: For me one of the most powerful moments is when she described standing up In second grade to spell her name for a classroom of strangers, and that image of the seven-year old girl singled out made visible in way she didn't choose.

00:32:57: And then she says it was very humiliating situation.

00:33:00: first second grader listening to her I thought that experience never fully left.

00:33:05: here is shaped how she moved through world including her academic World

00:33:10: and its shape which you could see.

00:33:12: That's what i keep returning too.

00:33:14: so this brings me something been sitting with since our interview.

00:33:19: Listening to Wilpert forced me ask, what am I not seeing in my own field?

00:33:24: Whose voices have I taken for

00:33:25: granted?".

00:33:26: In the US we have our own patterns of inclusion and exclusion.

00:33:32: Who gets to be an expert whose knowledge counts will start.

00:33:36: story made those patterns more visible To Me.

00:33:40: I've been asking myself similar questions.

00:33:42: as a German historian working on migration i operate within certain assumptions about how the field developed.

00:33:50: We have our canonical figures, or founding texts but Wilbert reminded me how much has been left out of that

00:33:56: story.".

00:33:57: So what do you make of it?

00:33:58: I think it challenges me directly!

00:34:01: i'm a German researcher with a german gaze.

00:34:03: whether i want it or not...I grew up in this society and was trained into this academic system.

00:34:08: there are things..i cannot see.

00:34:10: ..or ...that i only see with effort because they're too familiar.

00:34:15: Wilbert saw differently Her Mexican-American background, her experience of exclusion in the United States.

00:34:21: Her position as an outsider and Germany.

00:34:23: All this gave her a perspective that most German colleagues simply did not

00:34:28: have."

00:34:29: And couldn't have!

00:34:30: That's not criticism for them it is structural observation.

00:34:34: The question was what do we with that recognition?

00:34:38: For me it reinforces why comparative work matters.

00:34:43: In our collaboration on integration concepts in Germany and the US.

00:34:48: We've tried to make visible what each country takes for

00:34:51: granted."

00:34:52: Wilpert was doing something similar decades earlier, bringing an American lens

00:35:14: gatekeeping function.

00:35:16: Who belongs in the field?

00:35:17: Whose voice is

00:35:19: legitimate?".

00:35:20: And she persisted anyway, not by fighting loudly but doing her

00:35:25: work."

00:35:26: This is why I want to bring this framework we use on our collaborative research center in Osnabrück.

00:35:32: Wilpert's career illustrates something that we take very seriously – that migration does not exist as a fact waiting for it to be discovered!

00:35:39: It was shaped by bureaucracies, but the category scholars choose to use.

00:35:45: Every piece of research is also an act of

00:35:47: construction.".

00:35:49: Wilbert was constructing knowledge and at the same time she was being constructed as an outsider.

00:35:55: And her career is a striking example that process!

00:35:59: She was part producing knowledge about Turkish migration to Germany in the nineteen seventies and eighties.

00:36:08: But at the same time, she herself was being produced as an outsider.

00:36:13: As someone whose expertise was always a little bit

00:36:16: suspect."

00:36:18: That is to double-blind!

00:36:19: She was producing migration research while being subjected some of these dynamics that she studied.

00:36:27: And this connects something central in my own work on assimilation.

00:36:31: Assimilation is often framed with something migrants do – they adapt and integrate or become part.

00:36:38: But I argue that assimilation is equally something the receiving society does.

00:36:43: It's a process of sorting or ranking, deciding who belongs and doesn't.

00:36:49: Wilpert experienced this sort first-hand.

00:36:53: Her story makes visible to me as very specific about German academic history.

00:36:58: Germany struggled for decades to accept there was an immigration country And that denial not only political It was also present in how the academy organized itself.

00:37:09: Scholars who could have helped Germany understand what was happening, people like Wilbert—like The Greek and Spanish and Turkish scholars she worked with were too often pushed aside.

00:37:24: are

00:37:35: incomplete and we're still living with those gaps.

00:37:38: And this is why the work of recovering these stories matters, not as nostalgia but a way to understand what was AND was NOT thinkable at certain moments.

00:37:51: I want be honest about the limits on what you've done.

00:37:54: We met with Study in a Valpar a few times.

00:37:57: We read her publications, we discussed her work between ourselves.

00:38:01: We prepared carefully and still there's so much we didn't ask... There is still so much that we don't

00:38:06: know.".

00:38:06: I agree Catherine.

00:38:08: even with all their preparation an interview it not a complete picture.

00:38:13: It captures certain moments, certain memories the ones she choose to share with us.

00:38:18: And i'm aware That we came here with our own questions shaped by our own projects!

00:38:24: We were looking for certain things And that means we have missed others.

00:38:29: Well, one thing I wish we'd explored more is her experience as a mother and scholar.

00:38:34: She mentioned to children briefly but didn't really ask how she navigated it.

00:38:39: What did this mean?

00:38:40: To build research career in foreign country while raising family?

00:38:45: That's the story many women at academia know But rarely told in detail.

00:38:50: For me another question remains open How many other Czarina Wilpert are there?

00:38:55: She surely is not the only one.

00:38:57: There are other scholars, perhaps still living perps-not whose contributions have been forgotten.

00:39:03: Her story makes me want to look more systematically at the margins of the field.

00:39:07: Who else was there?

00:39:08: What did they write?

00:39:10: what happened to them?

00:39:12: and we should be clear We're not going answer those questions today.

00:39:15: this podcast is a beginning Not a conclusion!

00:39:18: What I take from this encounter as a sense of responsibility.

00:39:22: Czarina Wilpert trusted us with her story.

00:39:25: She opened her home to us, she answered our questions with honesty and patience.

00:39:29: That is not something to be taken lightly.

00:39:32: I feel the same And i think part of honoring that trust Is being careful about what we claim.

00:39:37: We're not here To turn her into a symbol or lesson.

00:39:41: She's person With complex life And deserves to be met on their own terms

00:39:46: At the time.

00:39:47: Her story does illuminate Something larger.

00:39:50: It shows how migration research Like any field by who's allowed to participate?

00:39:56: The production of knowledge is also a production of inclusion and exclusion.

00:40:01: That is the core insight of reflexive migration research, and Wilpert's career embodies

00:40:06: it.".

00:40:07: For me meeting her also reinforced why I believe in the kind work we're trying together across the Atlantic or across disciplines.

00:40:15: Migration isn't a German topic.

00:40:19: It's a human topic and understanding.

00:40:21: it requires multiple perspectives, including perspectives that have been marginalized.

00:40:28: Wilperts said something else.

00:40:29: to stay with me she said the hope is that younger generation is coming.

00:40:34: She sees young people in their migration background entering politics demanding voice And I think this same as true for scholarship.

00:40:42: The field changing.

00:40:43: new voices are emerging.

00:40:45: Our task is to make sure that what Wilpert's generation built and they were prevented from building, are not forgotten.

00:40:53: I think this a good note for the end on – The hope of younger generations coming!

00:40:58: And the responsibility pass-on.

00:41:00: we have learned.

00:41:01: This has been the Forerunner an episode of the Production Site podcast by The Collaborative Research Centre, in the show notes and at producingmigration.org.

00:41:37: Production site is produced by the Collaborative Research Centre production of migration, at Osnabrück University funded by The German Research Foundation In collaboration with Podcastfabrik Bielefeld.

00:41:50: New episodes are available wherever you get your podcasts Until next time And until then What's being produced

00:41:59: right now?