One day I visited a modern art gallery called the Lensbach house. It houses the world’s finest collection of art from the “Blue Rider” movement. Championed in Munich by Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, and Germans Franz Marc, August Macke, and Gabriele Münter, the movement focused more on the influence of pure color in eliciting human emotion rather than form itself – the first step toward the formless creations of the Moderns. It was a fantastic exhibition, but right when the museum was closing I had a very interesting conversation with an 63-year-old Armenian museum worker named Levo (Leo, in English). I always love staying at galleries close to closing time, because they are the least busy. This conversation started with Levo telling me I needed to scat because they were closing soon. I think I tried to inject some comedic relief to start a conversation and it went from there. I told him I speak some German and he immediately opened up, telling me about how he was very disappointed with his life in Armenia, and decided to follow his older children to Germany in search of a better life. His son and daughter moved to Germany to start a business, and he came with, living with them for awhile but eventually finding his own place. He said his wife passed 6 years ago, and since then he’s been quite lonely, saying that Germany is fun if you’re young. While his story seemed quite somber, this statement intrigued me. He said that if you’re an older immigrant in Germany, people don’t pay much attention to you. Being young in a new land, like his children were when they came, has loads of opportunities in store, even if small streaks of prejudice exist. But he mentioned principally his lack of job opportunities outside of service, as well as his regional disconnect from his own Armenian diaspora. He said it is hard to integrate, because most Armenian immigrants are much younger than him. Pockets of familiarity exist in Munich, he said, but the biggest road block for his ultimate prosperity was a profound isolation in a society that didn’t, I think, outwardly try to isolate people of his demographic. After a few minutes of conversation his colleague came over and passive-aggressively told us to part, so the conversation ended rather abruptly. But it stuck with me. Levo’s courage in leaving his home country over the age of 50 had seemed to bring him more distress than prosperity, but he persisted. I know on paper his story seems sad, but he presented his short narrative in a really matter-of-fact tone. I don’t think Levo is a sad man, I don’t think he has any regrets. He was at peace with his decision to leave Armenia, but was brutally honest with me about his current state of affairs. This really got me thinking about the nuances of immigration. Many factors played into his situation – the city he chose to settle down in (Munich is quite conservative for a large city), his age, and his particular ethnicity. It got me thinking about older immigrants and the particular struggle their age poses. These are questions I need to think about further, but Levo’s story really opened my eyes to the array of struggles immigrants face.