The Language I Cannot Hold

“Why don’t you just learn German?”

as if it were that simple.

I’ve taken five German courses. Entire terms of sitting in classrooms, repeating words until my tongue felt foreign in my own mouth. I’ve tried. And still, the question returns like a slap: Why don’t you…?

It sounds innocent, but it isn’t. It’s an answer that tells me, You are the problem. Not the systems. Not the gatekeeping. Not the unspoken truth that there are people here — people with less schooling, less English, less of everything — who have jobs, careers, doors open to them.

It makes me angry. Because I live in Zürich, one of the most international places in the world. English is everywhere. Integration looks different for everyone. And still, the refrain is the same: learn German.

And maybe it is my privilege speaking. I know the power of language. But I’m tired of the assumption that it is the only key. Because I have turned that key, and the lock still will not open.

Sometimes I wonder if the question is heavier because of my skin. If it is not about the language at all, but about a quiet insistence that I prove myself more, try harder, be grateful, integrate deeper. Would they say it to me if I were white? I don’t know. But I think in colour, because I live in colour.

The truth is: it’s not that I don’t want to belong. It’s that I already gave so much of myself in the trying, and still, it wasn’t enough.

And maybe that’s the part that stings the most — that belonging here sometimes feels less like a choice and more like a performance.

But here’s what I’m learning: belonging is not something handed down by others. It’s something I get to define. Even in the cracks of language. Even in the silence after the question. My voice — in English, in half-formed German, in the in-between — is still mine. And maybe that is enough to begin with.