Latin American Gastarbeiter

jocay

Banned
Following the Second World War, there was labor shortages in Germany and other countries in northern Europe, co-existing with high unemployment in southern Europe. The first wave of guest workers came from countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece but there was pressure from Turkey and the United States to allow its citizens to come in as guest workers. There was some initial opposition from Theodor Blank who cited that there were already enough workers and there would be cultural issues. Eventually pressure from Washington forced the Germans to allow Turkish guest-workers.

What if instead Theodor Blank offered to accept Latin American guest workers or Washington, out of a desire to create goodwill in Latin America, pressured Germany to accept Latin Americans? What would be the legacy of a sizeable Latin American diaspora in Germany? Larger than the IOTL presence of Brazilians and Mexicans.
 

Deleted member 67076

Latin America would be far more developed due to remittance flows and increased trade with Europe during a time of already large economic growth. For small countries like Ecuador and Dominican Republic this is a godsend.

I'd expect to see the Latin American Diaspora in Europe be huge and pretty well integrated given the ideology of cultural and often literal blanquimiento at the time. Mexico and Brazil in particular were experiencing huge population booms.

This might spur some more immigration into Latin America as well if cost of living is still cheap while living standards are high enough so quality of life remains the same.
 
Following the Second World War, there was labor shortages in Germany and other countries in northern Europe, co-existing with high unemployment in southern Europe. The first wave of guest workers came from countries such as Italy, Spain and Greece but there was pressure from Turkey and the United States to allow its citizens to come in as guest workers. There was some initial opposition from Theodor Blank who cited that there were already enough workers and there would be cultural issues. Eventually pressure from Washington forced the Germans to allow Turkish guest-workers.

What if instead Theodor Blank offered to accept Latin American guest workers or Washington, out of a desire to create goodwill in Latin America, pressured Germany to accept Latin Americans? What would be the legacy of a sizeable Latin American diaspora in Germany? Larger than the IOTL presence of Brazilians and Mexicans.

Well I think you should look at what happened to Greeks, Italians and Spaniards who moved to Germany, in general they integrated, mostly because most of them or their children married German partners and of course because in case of the Catholics, because they used the same places of religious worship[1]. We will likely see some Latin American dishes becoming popular and integrated into German cuisine with some mixed dish replacing the döner. So main legacy would be a lot of darker Germans, more Latin American surnames, some different dishes, closer connection to Latin America (and more German investment there) and likely continued immigration from Latin America. The other legacy would be fewer Turkish Germans, which would have it own effect, both on Germany and Turkey, as it would result in less German investment in Turkey, likely less tourism in Turkey and a general poorer Turkish state.

[1] I suspect that if Germany had a significant Muslim community before the Turkish immigration waves, a lot of Turks and Kurds would have become part of that community.
 
So main legacy would be a lot of darker Germans,
A lot of latin are in the fair/clear spectrum among mestizos and there a lot of german descendants in the americas too.

THe issue is population, turkey have several more numbers a lot of people in the south american countries and a cheaper trip
 
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