Why are German Americans so invisible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very amusing, when we dedicate a month every year to Oktoberfest events.

Agree! OP is some MAGA nut trying to be aggrieved over a non-fact.

Isn’t Trump German?

His mother was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US.

Trump's father side was German and Nazi party people.

Stop, his grandfather emigrated to the US in 1905. Some people can't have a single conversation without vilifying Trump.

[Anonymous]

West of DC, Lovettsville (in Loudoun County) was settled by German immigrants in the early 1800s and still has a small sign when you enter it that reads "The German Settlement." There's a very historic Lutheran church that ties to the German heritage.The main road that connects Lovettsville to Purcellville is Berlin Turnpike. Every fall it has a large, multi-day Oktoberfest, highly recommend if you enjoy Oktoberfests!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very amusing, when we dedicate a month every year to Oktoberfest events.

Agree! OP is some MAGA nut trying to be aggrieved over a non-fact.

Isn’t Trump German?

His mother was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US.

Trump's father side was German and Nazi party people.

Stop, his grandfather emigrated to the US in 1905. Some people can't have a single conversation without vilifying Trump.

+1
Cannot stand the guy but even if his family was somehow affiliated with the nazi’s that is not HIM. I see this guilt by association comment about what someone’s family did/does far too often on here.

[Anonymous]

Where do you live, OP, such that German Americans are invisible to you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is very amusing, when we dedicate a month every year to Oktoberfest events.

Agree! OP is some MAGA nut trying to be aggrieved over a non-fact.

Isn’t Trump German?

His mother was born in Scotland and immigrated to the US.

Trump's father side was German and Nazi party people.

Stop, his grandfather emigrated to the US in 1905. Some people can't have a single conversation without vilifying Trump.

+1
Cannot stand the guy but even if his family was somehow affiliated with the nazi’s that is not HIM. I see this guilt by association comment about what someone’s family did/does far too often on here.

Ivana Trump related in her autobiography that Trump kept one book by the bedside - a collection of Adolf Hitler’s speeches. Now think about the demagoguery he has employed over the last 7 years and reconsider your suggestion that he doesn’t share his father's KKK/Hitler sympathies, which he learned at the knee of the man he spent his life trying to impress. You’re willfully blind if you don’t see it.

[Anonymous]

Where I grew up, there is a Germantown and a German American club where you can drink beer and learn traditional German dances.

[Anonymous]

https://germanna.org/about/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Where I grew up, there is a Germantown and a German American club where you can drink beer and learn traditional German dances.

Indianapolis? We have a couple where I grew up. There's also the Atheneum which used to be Das Deutsche Haus before WW2. They have several "German" events during the year, including Octoberfest.

https://indianapolisgak.com/
https://indyliederkranz.org/

[Anonymous]

There's a German international school in Boston

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of descendants of Germans in WI, TX, and PA. I think not bringing attention to their ethnicity has to do with WW2. Whole towns continued to speak German UNTIL WW2. They needed to “prove” that they were American and stopped speaking German. Easy enough for them since they are white. American descendants of Japanese immigrants weren’t so lucky and were rounded up and imprisoned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My great-grandfather stowed away on a boat in 1889 to avoid mandatory conscription in Germany. He and his friend (cousin?) were discovered and made to work aboard, then told that they would need to jump ship in NY Harbor in order to avoid US immigration. So he arrived here as a draft-dodging illegal immigrant stowaway. He made his way to the Lower East Side and found a German speaking policeman who helped him. Soon after he took a train to Nebraska with the promise of land to farm and he married there (another German immigrant who had come as a child) and they had 14 children, my grandfather was their eldest son.
I never knew my great-grandfather but my dad and grandfather had many stories about him. The family moved to SW Kansas to a community full of German families and settled there. Most people didn’t speak any English. When WW1 started everyone suddenly stopped speaking German and started learning English, mostly from their children who attended school. My dad was born in 1924 and lived through the Great Depression and the Dustbowl on a small Kansas farm. By the time he can remember his family only spoke English except for his grandparents who slipped back to their mother tongue as they aged.
The family had zero contact with their German relatives from about 1917 to 1984 when my dad took our family to the town he knew they had come from and we found them using church records. It was pretty amazing to see my dad meeting German cousins who looked so much like him. Apparently their grandfather, my dad’s grandfather’s brother, had to serve 2 extra years in the army because of his brother’s draft dodging.
Our Catholic German family actually aided a Jewish family during WW2 and none of the men were forced to serve in the army which makes our connection with them feel easier, especially for me as my husband is the son of a Holocaust survivor.

The last part could be a movie. Maybe your husband and his family are descendants of the Jewish family that your family had saved? Talk about coming full circle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why was Eisenhower's election not historic but JFK's was? Eisenhower was actually the first non-WASP president.

Why does no one in this thread know what WASPs are, and what Saxons are?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's a German international school in Boston

There’s one in Bethesda
https://giswashington.org/homepage.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of descendants of Germans in WI, TX, and PA. I think not bringing attention to their ethnicity has to do with WW2. Whole towns continued to speak German UNTIL WW2. They needed to “prove” that they were American and stopped speaking German. Easy enough for them since they are white. American descendants of Japanese immigrants weren’t so lucky and were rounded up and imprisoned.

Very German from Wisconsin. You are right - not that I was around during WWII. This whole thread is a pretty ridiculous premise - to everyone I say I am seen and have a Merry Christmas!!!! (A very German heavy influenced holiday)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are a lot of descendants of Germans in WI, TX, and PA. I think not bringing attention to their ethnicity has to do with WW2. Whole towns continued to speak German UNTIL WW2. They needed to “prove” that they were American and stopped speaking German. Easy enough for them since they are white. American descendants of Japanese immigrants weren’t so lucky and were rounded up and imprisoned.

There were German and Italian people interred during the War.