Meine Mutti

Meine Mutti
My mother shared with me her own story about a big nightclub in Munich, Germany, called “The Big Apple”. This nightclub was active from 1963 to 1975 and known for blending Southern German beats with American rock music, incorporating the cultural essence of the Swinging Sixties. It was a vibrant cultural scene for US soldiers and Germans to get together and dance. According to her, a lot of Germans, particularly the women, found America captivating. They developed a powerful attraction to Black Americans. Before my mother met my father, she told me of the time a Black American GI played one of his records in the nightclub. He used to be a DJ in NYC before being drafted into the military. She expressed that when he played the record, “Get Up and Get Down” by the Dramatics…that was it; that was the first time Germans crossed over into the Black artists’ soul music. They loved it so much that this developed into an obsession with Black American music. My mom mingled with GIs, and among them were some Black Panthers. The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary political organization for self-defense in the United States from 1966 to 1982. She told us she had fond memories of them and the nightclub and how that music rocked her world. To her, that was the best of times, as the 80s were mine.
Mom recounted an early memory when she flew with me on an airplane to Munich, so I could meet my omi and opa (grandmom and granddad in German) for the first time. I was a year old, and both my grandparents could not fathom what I would look like because they had never seen a mixed-race person. The way my Mom's face brightened up when she said my opa came up to me in the airport, stared at me, and then lifted me up in the air and smiled.
He placed me in his arms and rocked me back and forth, then said, “Meine Gute, Sani ist die schönste Kleine Prinzessin, die ich je gesehen habe.” In English it meant, “My dear, Sani is the most beautiful little princess I have ever seen.”
Both Omi and Opa were absolutely smitten with me and did not want to let me go, concurred my mom. Then, the same feeling for my sister Tammy after she was born. We were their only grandchildren, and Omi loved to brag about us when we were in Germany.
She would say, “Ja, das sind meine Enkelkinder! Vom Amerika.” Omi walked around the city saying this to strangers on the street, “Yes, these are my grandchildren! From America.” She was so excited to tell everyone this.
My sister and I come from interesting parents; both of them were from two different worlds and cultures but fell in love and created us. The service in Vietnam molded my father’s character and led him to an unexpected meeting with my mom while stationed in Germany. This was a new venture in his life of being both Black American and in the military, crossing over into my mom’s German lifestyle. It created a new type of love that might confuse some people who never intermix with different cultures and ethnicities. Some people believed in staying with their own race, while others accepted the combination. We showed the world that you did not have to be just white or just black. Living in the 80s, though, was the perfect time to live because it was definitely the breakthrough period of race, gender, music, and arts, bringing people from all over the world together. The biggest connection of people is music; it was always music. Everyone has his or her own decade of music awakening, but for me it was definitely 80’s freestyle music.