Why are German Americans so invisible?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They have very strong presence in the mid-west, like Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

This. The entire Midwest is German and Minnesota is Norwegian. Like the whole culture of these places is German—bratwurst and beer, etc.

Remember the Peanuts cartoon? That was set in the Midwest and they were all German. Lucy Van Pelt, Schroeder, Schultz, etc.

Van Pelt is from the Netherlands.

[Anonymous]

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

Oktoberfest — my first summer job at 14 yo. I’m Italian. I was stationed at the sausage kiosk lmao. Good times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Oktoberfest — my first summer job at 14 yo. I’m Italian. I was stationed at the sausage kiosk lmao. Good times.

Oktoberfest is Bavarian and not really universally German.

[Anonymous]

I think you are confusing invisibility with ubiquity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of these conservative troll "give me your opinion" threads lately.

Is FOX news doing some market research for their next propaganda campaign?

I don’t see anything conservative or MAGA in OP. Where are you getting that impression?

I think they are trying to draw the line between Maga + Germans + Nazi white supremacists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They intermarried with all the other ethnic groups and now are generic American mutts. At least in my family! We are german, italian, english, irish, who knows.

Basically this. Plus, people distancing themselves from Germany after Holocaust/WW 2.

There's German culture and then there's Germany. So many German immigrants came to the US before there was even a unified Germany, which emerged in the 1860s under the Prussian hegemony. And many German speakers came to the US via other countries that we don't think of as Germany, such as Switzerland or the Czech Republic.

I have German heritage ancestry and know plenty of people who do, after all, German surnames are very common in the US. Never received the impression people were ashamed of having German heritage and wanted to distance themselves from Germany any more than people of other heritages did to other countries in Europe. Most immigrants coming to the US saw themselves making a clean break and the old world was the old world. Many didn't have great memories of ye olde worlde, where they tended to be poorer and on the wrong side of a severely class divided society.

Dude, just stop. The reality of today and that of the immediate aftermath of world war 1 are two separate things. Your 'never received the impression that people were ashamed of having German heritage' should, at the very least ,be time stamped . Germanic immigrants literally couldn't rush to dump German as their primary language ( which they had chosen to keep speaking as opposed to learning English) fast enough . For decades, there was shame associated with overtly being German thanks to Germany triggering two world wars in the span of roughly four decades .

+1000. And even look at Hollywood today. Half the villains are all German.

No the villains are Russian in Hollywood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Over 40 million Americans are of German ancestry. Yet there's no "German American" lobby, no "German American" vote, no German neighborhoods etc.

I'm from Chicago originally, and the Irish and Poles are much more visible than those of German ancestry.

Because all German cultural and language institutions came under attack during WWI and Prohibition. Books burned, etc. Given the two World Wars, there was a strong incentive to hide any notice of German heritage and now most of the 40 million German descendants barely know about it.

This. There used to be an insurance company called Germania Life in NYC. The company is still in business, and many of you probably have your dental insurance from them, but the name has been changed during WWI. Ditto for various Turn Vereins - the German social halls/athletic clubs - they were all gone then. Here is a bit of NYC German history https://www.brownstoner.com/history/walkabout-turn-turn-turn-verein/

The same goes for teaching German in schools

https://blog.history.in.gov/when-indiana-banned-the-german-language-in-1919/

I'm from Indiana. I learned a lot about this when I was in high school and had to interview people who'd lived during WWI for history class. My mother's family emigrated directly to Indiana (Buck Creek Township/Hancock County) from Germany in the 1830/40s. A few men from their village emigrated first, wrote home and more people followed them. My grandmother, born in 1910, and her siblings attended a German language school. My grandmother and great-grandmother remembered (my grandmother died in 2014) this law being passed and scoffed at it. They said by the time the war broke out, there was so much anti-German sentiment that the schools had already stopped teaching in German. Church services also switched to English except for certain holidays/events and some Christmas carols. They continued to speak German in the home because some elderly family members didn't speach English so well even though some of them were 2nd generation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Oktoberfest — my first summer job at 14 yo. I’m Italian. I was stationed at the sausage kiosk lmao. Good times.

Oktoberfest is Bavarian and not really universally German.

Thanks, good to know. Wish there was a like button. Enjoyed reading poster’s ancestries. In keeping with my spirit of food, I hope someone can help. There was a small family owned German bakery in Queens NY (Storks). My family and I are still pining over the loss. They were famous for many things, but mostly the decadent chocolate dipped cookies— hundreds of varieties. My family has searched near and far to find anything like it. I’ve scoured German bakeries in NY and elsewhere. We’re starting to question if this bakery was an anomaly. Describe an authentic German bakery please. Where can I find one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Oktoberfest — my first summer job at 14 yo. I’m Italian. I was stationed at the sausage kiosk lmao. Good times.

Oktoberfest is Bavarian and not really universally German.

Thanks, good to know. Wish there was a like button. Enjoyed reading poster’s ancestries. In keeping with my spirit of food, I hope someone can help. There was a small family owned German bakery in Queens NY (Storks). My family and I are still pining over the loss. They were famous for many things, but mostly the decadent chocolate dipped cookies— hundreds of varieties. My family has searched near and far to find anything like it. I’ve scoured German bakeries in NY and elsewhere. We’re starting to question if this bakery was an anomaly. Describe an authentic German bakery please. Where can I find one?

My German mother always liked Heidelberg bakery in northern VA when we lived there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Oktoberfest — my first summer job at 14 yo. I’m Italian. I was stationed at the sausage kiosk lmao. Good times.

Oktoberfest is Bavarian and not really universally German.

Thanks, good to know. Wish there was a like button. Enjoyed reading poster’s ancestries. In keeping with my spirit of food, I hope someone can help. There was a small family owned German bakery in Queens NY (Storks). My family and I are still pining over the loss. They were famous for many things, but mostly the decadent chocolate dipped cookies— hundreds of varieties. My family has searched near and far to find anything like it. I’ve scoured German bakeries in NY and elsewhere. We’re starting to question if this bakery was an anomaly. Describe an authentic German bakery please. Where can I find one?

Someone once brought a stollen from a bakery in NYC to an office party here in D.C. Maybe 30 years ago. This stollen was very rich with butter, and it had marzipan. It was amazing. I wonder if it's from the same bakery?

[Anonymous]

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?

Yes!!! He was quite a Sauerkraut when he lost to Biden

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They intermarried with all the other ethnic groups and now are generic American mutts. At least in my family! We are german, italian, english, irish, who knows.

Basically this. Plus, people distancing themselves from Germany after Holocaust/WW 2.

There's German culture and then there's Germany. So many German immigrants came to the US before there was even a unified Germany, which emerged in the 1860s under the Prussian hegemony. And many German speakers came to the US via other countries that we don't think of as Germany, such as Switzerland or the Czech Republic.

I have German heritage ancestry and know plenty of people who do, after all, German surnames are very common in the US. Never received the impression people were ashamed of having German heritage and wanted to distance themselves from Germany any more than people of other heritages did to other countries in Europe. Most immigrants coming to the US saw themselves making a clean break and the old world was the old world. Many didn't have great memories of ye olde worlde, where they tended to be poorer and on the wrong side of a severely class divided society.

Dude, just stop. The reality of today and that of the immediate aftermath of world war 1 are two separate things. Your 'never received the impression that people were ashamed of having German heritage' should, at the very least ,be time stamped . Germanic immigrants literally couldn't rush to dump German as their primary language ( which they had chosen to keep speaking as opposed to learning English) fast enough . For decades, there was shame associated with overtly being German thanks to Germany triggering two world wars in the span of roughly four decades .

Maybe recent immigrants and those who were still speaking German and being overtly “German”.

My ancestors were here a few generations before WWI. They were originally from an independent, southern state/kingdom that had more ties, including religion, to France and Austria than Prussia.

By 1910, they had married people of French and English descent. They were very involved in local community that wasn’t a German enclave. Eligible men joined WWI (and later WWII). I doubt they felt much “shame”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you are confusing invisibility with ubiquity.

This. German Americans aren't "invisible," they are everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you are confusing invisibility with ubiquity.

This. German Americans aren't "invisible," they are everywhere.

+1

[Anonymous]

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