Facade portrait: John Foulks
John Foulks
* 1976 in the USA
Immigration to Bremerhaven: 2018
On August 16, 1910, Anton Oravecz emigrates from the then Austro-Hungarian Empire, present-day Slovakia, via Bremerhaven to America. Near Philadelphia, he finds a job in a steel mill. More than a hundred years later, his great-great-granddaughter is born in the city from which his ship departed. His grandson, John Foulks, is born in 1976 in a village in New Jersey near Delaware. At 17, he decides to spend a year as an exchange student in Germany: ‘Germany was more or less a coincidence. A friend of mine who had gone there raved about it. So I applied for Germany and got accepted.’ Initially, he lives with a host family in Thuringia for a month. He then transfers to a school in St. Peter-Ording, learns German, and forms many friendships. The daughter of the new host family, whose room he occupies, is at that time living in the USA. He will later become friends with her. Her social circle also includes John Foulks’s future wife, whom he initially only meets briefly during the exchange year. Back in the USA, he enrolls in the program ‘German Culture and Society’ and works as a German teacher at a high school. He then completes a master’s degree in ‘Germanic Linguistics.’ In 2005, he comes to Kiel with a doctoral project. He eventually abandons the doctorate but remains in Kiel and works there as an English teacher.
“Today I am reminded of those privileges that one has as an American. It was really simple; you just need to know the bureaucratic steps. Legally, there are no obstacles in your way. When I think about my life, I mostly think about how easy that was. And when you see today how many people have to fear for their lives, wander the world for their children, cross the Mediterranean, get abducted, depend on smugglers… And for me, it was so easy. Is that fair? Obviously not. That makes me angry.”
John Foulks in the milk bar in Bremerhaven, 2018.
At a celebration for the daughter of his former host family, he meets many of his acquaintances from his exchange year again – including his future wife. Together, they move back to the USA in 2013, where his wife has been offered a doctoral scholarship.
“It’s exciting to go back home. I can feel this excitement, and I was happy. It was a new adventure. But it was a shock – after eight years in Germany. It was a culture shock. I experienced a culture shock in my own country.”
In the USA, John Foulks decides to start a new career and studies law. After graduating, he works for a year at a court. In 2018, his now-doctoral wife receives a job offer from Bremerhaven. For both of them, it’s clear: they are going back to Germany. Shortly thereafter, their daughter is born, who grows up bilingually in Bremerhaven.