Quote:
Originally Posted by Docere
A Canadian view, but I think it's also true to say there wasn't a dominant German group in the US the way you had say, Irish Catholics in the Famine years or Jews from Eastern Europe fleeing pogroms in the late 19th and early 20th century that really established these communities. There were urban/rural differences, religious differences, timing of immigration etc.
https://sites.ualberta.ca/~german/Al...ningGerman.htm
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yes, the religious splintering of the germans between their catholic, lutheran, and other protestant factions did minimize their overall cultural impact, which was different than say the irish*, or the italians, or the poles who were monothically catholic.
(*) the potato famine irish who came to define "irish-americanism" in the latter half of the 19th century, not the earlier scots-irish group.
still, the two biggest reasons why there isn't more of german cultural presence in the US today are the two world wars.
Quote:
Melvin G. Holli states, regarding Chicago, that "After the Great War it became clear that no ethnic group was so de-ethnicized in its public expression by a single historic event as German Americans. While Polish Americans, Lithuanian Americans, and other subject nationalities underwent a great consciousness raising, German ethnicity fell into a protracted and permanent slump. The war damaged public expression of German ethnic, linguistic, and cultural institutions almost beyond repair". He states that, after the war, German ethnicity "would never regain its prewar public acclaim, its larger-than-life public presence, with its symbols, rituals, and, above all, its large numbers of people who took pride in their Teutonic ancestry and enjoyed the role of Uncle Sam's favored adopted son".......
"No other North American ethnic group, past or present, has attempted so forcefully to officially conceal their ethnic origins. One must attribute this reaction to the wave of repression that swept the Continent and enveloped anyone with a German past""
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source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans
it may sound kind of weird, but i named my son "Otto" not only because i love the name (and palindromes are always cool), but it was also an attempt to take back at least a tiny little sliver of my family's german heritage; to make it front and center again and not run away and hide from it.
sure, the other half of me is primarily irish american, but america certainly doesn't need any more seans or colins or connors or liams
also, i didn't get my mom's awesome german surname, i got my dad's irish one, so......