The Deutsche Welle reports on some interesting work on culture and security.

First, one story highlights how the new social infrastructure that immigrants find becomes the key to formation of a new identity:

The study is the first of its kind worldwide because it focuses on the current social environments of migrants rather than their backgrounds, said Deputy Family Minister Gerd Hoofe, who presented the report on Tuesday.

While factors such as ethnicity, religion and migration history do play a role for migrants, their current social environments are much more important in term of people’s identity, Hoofe said.

The first of it’s kind worldwide? I find that hard to believe.

Anyway, the point seems to be that where a person comes from can be less influential to the formation of their identity than the place they believe they are going, or able to go…not such a surprise when you think about the impact to our feelings when we go someplace new versus stay where we have been. Marketing in American retail is a good example of how susceptible humans can be to a new identity. Makes me wonder about who has been appointed to handle the social environments, let alone the “welcome to our country, now go home” campaigns, for immigrants to America.

On a very related note, the second story is about how a city’s security (e.g. police) sought to extend a hand to a community of immigrants and bring them together in an effort to reduce crime:

The agreement has also helped police, according to Chief Commissioner Frank Matuszek. The youth in Essen-Katernberg understand that there is no more space beyond the reach of the law.

Matuszek said the cooperation has also helped break down barriers between mosque members and police officers.

“We have learned more about each other in this project and have thus been able to dispel a lot of fears,” he said. “The mosque community was able to see that police officers are only citizens in uniform and are also family fathers with the same concerns.”

Now 10 years old, the Essen project is being copied and adapted by cities across Germany with Czarnyan often holding lectures about his work in large German cities, and Pismek passing on his experiences to other religious leaders.

Nice examples of how to leverage differences to find a more secure and better standard of living. Canada also probably has some useful data on this, given that over 20% of their population is foreign-born.