Sigrid
Today we’re sitting down with Andrea Famel. She comes from a half-and-half family – she was born in Mexico, but her family also has German roots.
Andrea, welcome. Let’s start with the big question: do you feel more Mexican or more German?
Andrea
I honestly can’t say. When I’m in Mexico, I feel absolutely, completely Mexican. And the moment I get on the plane back to Germany, I feel one hundred percent German again.
So I don’t really move through the world as “just Mexican” or “just German”. I’d say I have a liquid identity between both countries.
A family history of migration
Sigrid
A lot of the German community that ended up in Mexico left Europe in a similar way to the migration flows we’re seeing now – many escaped war or difficult conditions. That changes the cultural awareness of a community, but it doesn’t automatically mean they mix with the local culture right away.
Very often they first build their own mini-world, their own clubs, their own schools, without really understanding what is happening around them.
How does that resonate with your own family story?
Andrea
My story is actually very similar to yours.
I was born in Mexico and lived there until I was nineteen. My father was German – but I like to say he was a “made-in-Mexico German.”
It was my great-grandparents who migrated to Mexico at the end of the 19th century. They settled there but stayed very close to the German community: German language, German thinking, German traditions.
My grandparents inherited that way of life and passed it on – the language, the food, the habits. Yes, there is such a thing as German food tradition, even if some people might debate that.
My father grew up in that environment and tried to pass it on to us as well. He was the one in the family who actually married a Mexican woman. The funny bit: my mother also went to a German school in Mexico. Back then they even had cooking classes to teach German cuisine and lifestyle.
So my Mexican mother learned how to cook proper German food extremely well. At home it was totally normal to have falscher Hase, Sauerbraten, and of course endless trays of Christmas cookies. She would start baking around October. Christmas in our house basically started in autumn. We had Lebkuchen that needed weeks to soften properly.
So I grew up between these two worlds:
-German traditions and language at home
-Mexican surroundings and society outside
And yes, Germans in Mexico did integrate over time, but it took more than one generation. At first, they stayed very closed in their own circles. You can still see it today in some regions – for example, the Mennonite communities in the north of Mexico: blonde, blue-eyed, Dutch-German roots, very closed social systems.
That’s also when institutions like the German school and the German sports club in Mexico City were founded. They were ways for Germans to stay among themselves.
And there are subtle hierarchies in that. My grandmother, for example, saw my mother more positively because she was Mexican but “well integrated” into German culture – she spoke the language, cooked German food, understood the codes.
Real mixing – Mexicans and Germans genuinely blending cultures – took several generations. That’s when people like you and me appear:
We grow up thinking:
“I am Mexican, but I also have roots somewhere else. Maybe I’ll go and see what that ‘somewhere else’ feels like.”
That’s exactly the moment I’m in now. I’m a Mexican living in Germany, but with deep German roots.
When I arrived here, I already spoke German. I knew the food. I had a cultural reference point – I didn’t land here as a total stranger. Of course I experienced culture shock, but not in the form of “What is this food?” or “What is this strange language?”
The climate, though? That still shocks me every time.
Always connected to home – is that helping or hurting?
Sigrid
Today we live in a completely different world from our grandparents. We know what’s happening back home in real time.
Memes, reels, jokes, politics – we see it all every day, even while we’re living abroad.
Do you think that being permanently connected to our home country makes it harder to really adapt to life in Germany?
Andrea
That’s a tough one.
There are good sides to it. Consuming content from home – the jokes, the music, the memes – keeps you connected to your roots. It’s comforting to understand the cultural references instantly. I don’t think that’s bad in itself.
It’s a way of staying in touch with where we come from.
But yes, it can also fuel a kind of never-ending homesickness. You’re physically here, but emotionally always half-there.
Right now, I’m actually on a kind of digital detox. I’ve massively reduced my Instagram consumption for about a week, and the effect is huge.
Suddenly I’m not constantly seeing: all the Posadas, all the Día de Muertos content, all the Christmas build-up in Mexico. There’s a part of me thinking:
“Oh my God, am I missing something?”
But on the other hand, I feel more grounded where I actually live. More present in Germany, in my actual everyday life.
So is it good or bad?
I’d say it’s like that German expression: die goldene Mitte – the golden middle.
We need balance:
staying connected to our homeland
but also really arriving and rooting ourselves where we live now
If everything is always “over there”, we never fully arrive “here”.
Speaking the language vs understanding the country
Sigrid
A lot of people we’ve talked to for this podcast say that learning German is one of the key tools for starting to integrate.
But there’s also that experience when you think you speak the language… and then someone speaks slang or dialect and you realise you understood almost nothing.
For me, that moment was watching Fack ju Göhte for the first time. I thought I knew German – then suddenly realised I had no idea what was going on.
Did you have a similar moment?
Andrea
I don’t remember a specific film, but I had a very similar experience in real life.
I went to a German school in Mexico. I learned German from kindergarten all the way to the Abitur. My father was German and he tried to speak German with us at home when we were children.
At some point, my siblings and I basically went on strike and said:
“We’re not going to talk to you anymore if you keep speaking that horrible language.”
So my poor father switched to Spanish so that his own kids would keep talking to him.
By the time I moved to Germany, I arrived fresh from the German school system, absolutely convinced:
“I know how to speak German.”
And then I started working at a car workshop in Stuttgart.
Everyone there spoke Schwäbisch – the local dialect. I sat there thinking:
“Oh my God. What are these people even saying?”
That was the moment I realised:
yes, I speak German
but that doesn’t mean I understand Germany
And that’s a huge difference.
You can know vocabulary and grammar, but not catch the social codes, the humour, the subtext, the way people actually use the language in daily life.
And I don’t think that’s specific to German.
Anytime you move to another country, there’s this second layer:
not just the language
but the nuance of how people live, relate, argue, joke, and love in that language
That’s what really takes time.
Falling in love with German directness
Sigrid
Before we let you go: is there anything about German culture you’ve really taken on as your own?
Andrea
Yes. One thing I think is very important to understand about Germany is the direct language – the directness in general.
Germans live by it.
I’ve been living in Germany for twenty years now. After my first ten years, I moved to Berlin and started working at the Mexican embassy.
That’s where I realised just how much I had absorbed German directness.
I love it.
But Mexicans? They do not love it.
For them, it was a weird cultural shock in reverse. They were expecting me, as a Mexican, to be soft, polite, always circling around the point.
Instead they got someone who was: clear, direct, structured and asking: “Why are we doing this if it leads nowhere?”
Me being Mexican, I was not expected to sound like that – and yet, I did.
So yes, that’s something you really have to get used to here:
Things can be very direct – and that’s not meant as rude.
Personally, I think it’s a great thing to learn from German culture. It saves time. It cuts out a lot of unnecessary politeness layers.
So I’d say: Up with German directness.
Sigrid
Andrea, thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your story and your very fluid identity between Mexico and Germany.
Andrea
Thank you for letting my voice be heard.