I’m from Germany and after noticing that many American personalities have German backgrounds I recently looked up that apparently German is the biggest ethnic group in America and that like 12% of all Americans have German ancestry so basically more than 1 out of every 10 people.
I knew that there are some people in America with German ancestry but I never thought it’s that many. I always thought that there were other way more common ethnic groups such as UK, Irish or something Asian/African and thought Germans are a minority. I never thought that Germans are so prevalent in America though and that they’re actually the biggest ethnic group. I wonder if that is a topic in American conversation cause I assume many Americans are curious about their ancestry and many might even have had contact to family members that are directly from Germany. And I wonder if they identify as American or German or both? (For example I always hear “African-American” being used but I’m not sure that I heard “European-American” that often)
There is a lot of German ancestry throughout the country for sure. There’s a section of Philadelphia called Germantown because of the significant number of German immigrants that settled there. There’s also the Amish and Mennonites you may have heard of that are prevalent in PA and Ohio. The Midwest US’ culture of beer brewing was largely a product of all the German immigration. I think nearly half of people in Wisconsin have German ancestry if I recall correctly. What’s crazy too is, in the 20th century there were American towns that spoke German as the primary language. WWI mostly put an end to that though because there was a good amount of xenophobia that came out of the war.
As for American interest in their German ancestry, it definitely exists. There’s a German American club near my hometown. There are Oktoberfests regularly held throughout the country as well. My neighbors wear lederhosen for it, even. I assume our celebrations are poor facsimiles of what goes down in Bavaria, but it’s still a blast to drink beer and eat German food in the fall regardless. Americans overall like to look into their family heritage and there’s definitely a good amount of pride around it for most.
One final thing I will say about the German immigrants is, they were overwhelmingly slavery abolitionists and really helped drag the country out of the shameful institution. German and Irish immigrants made up a huge part of the Union Army. Immigrants are a good thing; people would really benefit to learn that.
There was a period was German was the second most used language. Much of American culture was influenced by German immigrants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans?wprov=sfla1
They do. There was a big wave of emigration from Germany after the conservative clampdown of 1848, which included religious minorities such as Mennonites and those with progressive and radical views. (The latter bolstered sentiment for the abolition of slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.)
They even had a dialect of German in Texas (Texasdeutsch), which was spoken in various communities until WW2. Some linguists from a German university travelled to Texas about 20 years ago to interview the handful of (then elderly) speakers and study the dialect.
I grew up in a former German community/colony that still has a lot of German speakers and still celebrates Octoberfest and Maifest. I’m part German but also part Scottish, part Spanish, part Sioux, and part Cherokee. I know some German and a lot of Spanish, but I wouldn’t consider myself German-American or Hispanic or something (even if I guess I technically am?) Ethnically? I’m just “white” (unless I get a lot of Sun exposure, then people will walk right up to me and ask “Are you ethnic?” Like, what the fuck??)
“African-American” came about because a lot of Black people didn’t know where their families originated, because their ancestors were kidnapped from their homes and stripped of their language, culture, and religion. “European-American” doesn’t really make sense in the same context, because generally speaking we all know the exact countries our ancestors came from. Whiteness, itself, is intended as a social construct to unite all the disparate European identities into a white USAmerican identity, so they’d stop having loyalties to their ancestral lands and so they’d recognize themselves as part of a privileged racial cast. It’s a whole thing.
Africans and their descendants were also traded like property, so many lost contact with their families. They weren’t allowed to talk about their heritage, so the next generation had no idea. If anyone here hasn’t seen Roots, give it a watch. It’s was hard for me, but I needed to see it. There’s a lot of tragedy, but even in that, there’s impressive resilience.
“European-American” doesn’t really make sense in the same context, because generally speaking we all know the exact countries our ancestors came from. Whiteness, itself, is intended as a social construct to unite all the disparate European identities into a white USAmerican identity, so they’d stop having loyalties to their ancestral lands and so they’d recognize themselves as part of a privileged racial cast. It’s a whole thing.
Thank youuuu! I wish there was a European ancestry movement to get White people to stop thinking they’ve been the “default American” since George Washington. Some people act like they own the country because they’re White and have the White accent, yet their ancestry got here two generations ago. Plus, this dichotomous model of ancestry and culture based on skin-tone is lacking. I want more cool cultures.
I read this a while a ago. Shows a snapshot of most significant country of origin for immigrants in each state in 1900, 1950 and 2000. You can see how widespread German immigrants were in 1900 and 1950…
