Stories From California

German - a Fun Language to Learn

"My favorite German words are‚ 'Rücksichtnahme' und 'Glückseligkeit'"

“German is easy to learn and a beautiful language” - WHAT?

Usually I hear exactly the opposite when talking about my mother tongue. But Cristina Cuevas-Wolf loves my language! And she speaks it so perfectly--she makes it sound friendly and even fun!

You can meet Cristina at the Wende Museum in Culver City, California. She is the Manager of Research and Projects at this unique museum and archive with a collection of more than 100 thousand objects from the time of the Cold War, mostly from East Germany and the Soviet Union. The daughter of Mexican immigrants discovered her love for German art, philosophy and words while starting her studies at UCLA. Curiosity and thirst for education led Cristina to Berlin where she had a few really unique experiences: living for eight months in a high-rise of the Eastern suburb of Marzahn, crossing the border every day to go to her German class in the Western part of town, collecting rubber stamps and curious looks at every crossing, taking bike rides in the city and its surroundings and witnessing a really big moment in history. Cristina was in Berlin preparing her PhD when the wall came down on November 9th,1989. The smart and charming art historian sees it as a blessing that she can link her knowledge and experience from that time with her work at the Wende Museum today: “To be a witness of this moment in history and being able to research everything that happened leading up to it is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Not to take advantage of that would be a real shame.”

www.wendemuseum.org

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