So while I will never be German, I feel more at home here in many ways than I do in the United States. When you live in a culture that fits your values, you can feel at home. At least that is my experience as a professional American woman.

— Cleo Godsey, Munich

‘My black father was almost killed by fascists’

Image SchwarzRund and her father, Miguel Perez, in Bremen, Germany, where SchwarzRund grew up and where Mr. Perez works in the auto industry today. Credit... SchwarzRund

I was born in the Dominican Republic to a white German mom and a Dominican dad and have dual citizenship. For me being German means being Afro-German, black German.

German identity is complex. It is a construct that is discussed a lot, but becomes less and less clear when you try to find shared roots, culture and traditions (compare north and south — Bavaria vs. East Frisia, for example) . The more you research, the clearer it becomes: Germanness is about whiteness, as it’s the racist assumption of a shared white experience and supremacy.

It’s not about episodes of violence here, but rather daily violence. In 1990 my black father was almost killed by fascists. My school years in the 2000s were marked by the N-word, racism and black friends who were suicidal because of the German school system. Today, we are surviving while the left in the United States thinks that Germany is a paradise for migrants.

— SchwarzRund, Berlin

‘I’ve had to stand up to close family members’

Image Katja Saldanha and her husband, Joshua Saldanha, in Hamburg, Germany. Credit... Katja Saldanha

I am a native of Chemnitz and lived abroad for 22 years. I returned to Germany in 2017 to live in the Saxon city of Leipzig with my husband, who was born in India and raised in Dubai.