August 5th 2012
Today was a relativity small day for our class, as we meet to tour the Wien ( German for Vienna) Museum at 1pm today and were dismissed only 2 hours later. The museum was full of wonderful artifacts, of witch the medieval arms and amours were by far my personal favorites. Never the less, I'm certain I'll be better able to talk about what I say at the museum at in greater detail as I learn more about the historical context regarding the city, so I decided to take advantage of this relativity short day to catch up on my rest and reflect on what I have already seen in the city. In is in that spirit that I'm choosing to write about a subject which has been constantly present since I came to the city, ethnicity and race relations in Vienna. This has never been the focus of my experiences so far, but I could certainly tell from what I've heard from others and what I've seen for myself that Vienna is not a race blind society, and race is linked to social status, at least in the sense that social standing is not evenly distributed along racial lines. I'm not a sociologist, so I can really only write about my personal opinion and observations, but I believe I gained a number of legitimate insights into the subject.
The first thing I noticed about ethic relations in Vienna was that a unusually large number of people working in service positions are immigrants. On the first day I arrived, I was served by two Turkish immigrants at the airport. One worked at the currency exchange counter, the other drove the cab I took to Kandlgasse. I continued going about my day until I needed help dealing with the electricity in my apartment, where I was fortunate enough to be aided by the Slovak cleaning ladies. It was not until the end of the day when I first saw an actual Austrian working in Austria, and it was when I went to the grocery store. I only found Austrian people working in higher status service positions, where it was important for the business in question to give a positive image. Austrian employees were easy to spot in the cafes and restaurants where other Austrians or tourists would go to enjoy themselves, I even found an all Austrian staff working at the McDonald's, which I found very surprising as fast food restaurants in the US very frequently employ immigrant labor. In sharp contrast to this, all the business that do not appear concerned with service employed Turkish Immigrant labor. I've never seen an Austrian, or even light skinned person, working at one of the many food kiosks outside the U-ban stations. It is clearly apparent to me from simply shopping around that there is a racial hierarchy of employment here in Vienna. High status retail and service jobs appear to be reserved for people who meet an Austrian ideal of light skin and fair features, where as lower paying, dirtier, less pleasant work seems to be delegated to immigrant workers.
As uneven as the job market appears from my perspective, Turkish and Slovak immigrants are by no means at the bottom of Viennese society. There is a race of people, distinct in their appearance and mannerism, which the Viennese refer to as Gypsies. I use ambiguous langue here because I'm not entirely sure who these people are, as they are defined as being wanders, and allegedly lack a homeland and perhaps even a history or social voice, as I could find little information. My investigations suggest they may be a group of people called the Romani that originated come from India, but I have no way of knowing if these roma are the same Gypsies the Viennese despise. In either case, the gypsies are feared here as thieves, and beggars, and are seen to be universally below working class. My professor and classmates echo these sentiments, and from what I have personally witnessed, I cannot argue with them. I have only seen gypsies selling goods at the open air flee market, or begging for money from strangers on the subway or in the middle of the shopping districts. Despite this, I see the gypsies more as victims of prejudice, and I believe there current state as second class citizens results from a lack of infrastructure, resources, and social support. This was perhaps first caused by their wandering, but I believe it is today maintained by a universal social alienation. I believe the gypsies are actively excluded from Viennese society (as well as others) and they know it. I saw a young gypsy boy of about 12 years of age with a bad bleeding cut on his hand while I was walking in town the other day. I would imagine that any normal injured child on a street corner would go for help, and either approach an adult or call someone for help. Instead the boy simply stood their in obvious pain. I believe the boys withdrawal to be evidence of a serve form of social exclusion, which I suspect plays a role in the gypies's current place in Viennese society.
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