It may be that an identity lost can never be regained. But why not try? It would be good for everyone, reminding millions of Americans that they too are the products of an immigrant culture, which not long ago was forced into silence by fear and intolerance.It rubs me the wrong way — and as you can tell from my name, I'm partly German-American (the Pennsylvania Dutch kind) — this idea of instilling German ethnic pride on the "why not?" theory and the generic notion that we're all immigrants.
We're all Americans too, if you want to enthuse about what we "all" are. Kirschbaum groundlessly assumes that consciousness of ethnicity will be a moderating force, reminding us of humble beginnings and oppression and generating magnanimity.
I'm not surprised that NYT omitted a comments section for that op-ed.
IN THE COMMENTS: Smilin' Jack said...
...as you can tell from my name, I'm partly German-American...Well, it's not as if I changed it. It was changed in the early 1800s, probably by people who got exasperated by seeing the sound "house" getting spelled as "house." I'd rather see the name fully anglicized. It seems unbalanced, as it is, but Oldhouse is a very unusual name. There are fewer than 119 Americans with that last name, which is something I looked up here, where I went to confirm by belief that Althouse is much more common than Althaus. In fact, there are 2,437 Americans with the last name Althouse, and only 1,205 with Althaus. As for Ann Althouse, there are 4 of us.
Make that "self-hating German-American", otherwise it would be Althaus.
Posts
140 comments:
We're all Americans too, if you want to enthuse about what we "all" are.
True, but that hasn't stopped anyone else.
I know, I know...everyone is allowed to be proud about who they are except white people.
Unless they're gay of course.
Personally, I am of the get rid of the hyphens crowd, but if we are going to have them, White people should get to use them too.
Not that I am advocating further divisions for us, just the opposite. But I would like to hear why African-American is fine with you but German-American is not???
My last name also begins with Alt. But that's all the German left with the English, Irish and Minorcan additions over the centuries. Drop the hyphens I say.
Not that I am advocating further divisions for us, just the opposite. But I would like to hear why African-American is fine with you but German-American is not???
Maybe because it is advocating further division.
Whatever Happened to German America?,"
We became Americans, moron.
My name is German American, but my family came here prior to the Revolutionary Way, prior to the French and Indian War, actually. What would a German American identity mean to me? Nothing.
I'm of primarily German heritage, and I'm not ashamed of it. From Oktoberfest to the Reformation to the development of mechanized armored warfare we've got a lot going for us as a people!
Tim in Vermont: "Maybe because it is advocating further division"
Your response doesn't answer my question. Why is African-American fine?
Or does it stop with me, hm? Non-european ethnicities can do it but Europeans can't? And the one who decides that is........
Maybe you should look up "further" in the dictionary.
German-American lives matter
Rusty said...
Whatever Happened to German America?,"
We became Americans, moron.
WINNER !!!
We became Americans, moron.
Yes. Assimilation is the moderating force.
This is clearly about the whole press movement to label illegal aliens as simple immigrants.
Fucktards want to re-write the dictionary. It's like 1984 was a manual, not a warning.
Yes. Assimilation is the moderating force.
Americanization is preferable, but a relic of the past when we recognized that our culture was better than others.
What about all the Oktoberfest parties around the country? With accordions and beer and stuff. Doesn't that count?
And Beethoven made his name in Vienna.
Germantown we hardly knew you. The Dutch was an Anglsized word for Deutsche. And strangely the word German is not in the German Lauguage. It comes from no one knows where. Meanwhile the Belgians were a Celti (Roman named) tribe that called themselves the Franks and ended up claiming successor rulership over the Western Roman Empire.
And now we have a Italian/Argentinian Western Roman Empire rising again to rulership world wide under Obama I starting up as we speak in Manhattan after the brief hegemony by the guys from London's escaped Colonies.
I'm of primarily German heritage, and I'm not ashamed of it. From Oktoberfest to the Reformation to the development of mechanized armored warfare we've got a lot going for us as a people!
Chemistry
Internal combustion
Pretzels :)
Protestant work ethic
Christmas Trees
Gluhwein
Schnitzel
I can't think of a more destructive force during my lifetime than what the left has done with ethnicity (actually, militant Islam would be a competitor). You'd think it would be the source of a warm and fuzzy, Home & Hearth pride but they've turned it into a hammer.
The Germans who came here generations ago likely didn't consider themselves very German. They probably thought of themselves as Swabian or Prussian or Bavarian or whatever. Modern Germany as one country stretching from the Holland/French Switzerland border all the way to Denmark and Poland is a pretty recent phenomenon.
Bavarians today, as I understand, think of themselves as much as Bavarian as German.
Jets
Katarina Witt
That ship sailed. Why should white folks not be able to celebrate their heritage as every other group in the country is allowed to?
"We're all Americans"? Not according to a shit-ton of groups out there. Our illegal invaders certainly don't feel they are.
A country cannot practice multiculturalism and allow mass immigration. It is a recipe for disaster as the West is learning.
After all, you don't see the immigrants assimilating for shit.
Drill Sgt: "Chemistry
Internal combustion
Pretzels :)
Protestant work ethic
Christmas Trees
Gluhwein
Schnitzel"
But they lack the wonderful oral history of the superior "sun peoples" cultures.
Original Mike: "I can't think of a more destructive force during my lifetime than what the left has done with ethnicity (actually, militant Islam would be a competitor)."
The left has for a long time now aligned itself with militant islam regardless of the version.
They should have seen my old band, the Hot Java Polkateers, playing at the Biergarten in Boca Raton last year. They'd see a German-American culture alive and well! I suspect because it doesn't play out in New York City, it doesn't exist. Plenty of German Americans in upstate New York, eating lots of Weisswurste (white sausages) and brats.
German-American culture, in much of the country, is the culture other immigrant groups strive to assimilate into! It's kind of the default!
...as you can tell from my name, I'm partly German-American...
Make that "self-hating German-American", otherwise it would be Althaus.
Anyway, this is an old idea, mostly promoted by groups with headquarters in Idaho.
If everybody starts using hyphens, perhaps we can decrease the power of the the ones currently using them...
Or have a good old fashioned war.
We are all hyphenated!!
Without Germans, America would never have landed on the moon. Bitches!
Kirschbaum groundlessly assumes that consciousness of ethnicity will be a moderating force
Rather worse than groundlessly I'd say. Consciousness of ethnicity has proven a radicalizing force all over the globe as well as in America. Offhand I can't think of a single instance of moderation, although instances of no impact exist.
I wonder if he understands he is establishing Americans of German descent as inherently different than other ethnicities and since he's presenting the differential trait as positive he's implying German-Americans are better than others.
I further wonder if those normally eager to point out racist beliefs will do so in this case, or if instead they will treat this circumstance similarly to Obama's opposition to gay marriage: something they would normally criticize but don't because they know it's disingenuous political posturing favorable to a position they support.
When my ancestors came here (half of them about a century ago) they were far more into being Americans than being of the Old Country--not that they were ashamed of where they came from (never changed the last name, likely spoke their original language in that first generation, retained a lot of the traditions) but they were far more proud to be a part of America. That's how it should be, and there's something about people who have had to sacrifice for what they have as Americans that usually makes them appreciate it.
Today though it seems so many take their Americanishness for granted, and get far more mileage out of Balkanizing themselves into their separate group--and if your group can be a "victim" all the better. Germans perhaps didn't get to do this for the past century because their home country was on the "bad guys'" side, and the Japanese got a bit of a pass on this because they weren't white and were in internment camps, so victim points get passed around for them.
I have no problem with someone being proud of their ancestry, but if they let that overpower their sense of American identity that can't be a good thing for our culture.
And this "victim" fetish? Drop it, weirdos! No one respects a victim.
Hmmm... Is this pro-Germanic sentiment in any way affiliated with efforts to normalize Bernie Sanders Democratic National Socialist party politics?
And this "victim" fetish? Drop it, weirdos! No one respects a victim.
Colleges do.
What a great opportunity to enter victimhood. Whgat the country did top German-Americans during WWI is a travesty. Teaching German banned. Speaking German banned. Entire communities in the midwest forced to reject their heritage. And they renamed sauerkraut, for god's sake. If it were any other group there would be speeches and marches.
It actually was a very vicious action. It is a testimony to them that the German-American's accepted it.
Dirndls
Jason said...
Bavarians today, as I understand, think of themselves as much as Bavarian as German.
I have some German co-workers. We were discussing the European Union. One mentioned that he was not entirely sold on the EU. The other said he was from Bavaria, so he was still unsure of the whole Germany thing.
averagejoe said...
Hmmm... Is this pro-Germanic sentiment in any way affiliated with efforts to normalize Bernie Sanders Democratic National Socialist party politics?
But, But, Bernie is Jewish :)
And they renamed sauerkraut,
My Milwaukee-born, German-speaking grandmother rolled her eyes when she told me that they were supposed to call it "Liberty cabbage" or something like that.
Does African-American cover the entire north and south American continent?...or just the U.S.?
Do people of African descent living in Brazil call themselves African-Brazilians or just Brazilians?
Do Mexicans identify as Spanish-Mexicans or French-Mexicans to distinguish themselves from the indigenous peoples they displaced, enslaved or vanquished?
In Southern CA we have; China Town, Little Tokyo, Little Siagon...but no Little Berlin...we do have an Alpine Village with an Oktoberfest and a swap meet...but nobody actually lives there...and, a Santa's Village, but I haven't come across any Elf-Americans there...
Re no comments in the NYT.
The NYT is a despicable rag.
But I suppose, sometimes, its editors are concerned about how far its even more despicable readers will go.
Thomas Sowell nailed it: the Germans were our most successful and most quickly and thoroughly assimilated large immigrant group.
The best observation I've heard is that Germans made good Americans but poor Europeans......It will be another hundred years before Germans can brag about their culture without sounding like neo Nazis. That's unfair, but that's the way it is. Hitler wasn't even German......Funny how outsiders like Napoleon, Hitler, and DeValera become insiders by exaggerating the flaws of the in group.
There's ancestry and there's nativity. Native Americans are natural citizens of America.
Supposedly Elvis Presley, when asked what he was (meaning his ethnicity) would answer "merican."
My father told me that our family was of German extraction once when I was a boy. However, as I got older I realized that our family name was not German sounding so (in the age of the Internet) I used a search engine and found that the name originated in England.
As for my Mother's maiden name, it clearly is English in origin. However beyond that knowledge of my ancestors does not go past a genealogy search one of my Mother's relatives did several decades ago that was able to determine that one of my ancestors served in the Confederate Army.
These days you can go to http://dna.ancestry.com and order a kit where you send a swab of your cheek to a lab and for $99 find out exactly what your "ethnic mix" is.
The point is that I don't care what my ancestors did. I exist now, chances are that after I die my memory will be lost in two generation, at the most. Any good I do will most likely be interred with me, any bad will probably live on.
Basing your identity on your ethnicity is not forward thinking.
Oh, and plenty of people already celebrate their German heritage. Go to bing.com and put in the search term "german american club."
A great many German-Americans came to America in the mid 1800s in no small part to flee Prussian militarism and expansion. The unification of the German nation-state was a project they skipped out on when they came to America.
So they weren't so much German-Americans as German-speaking Americans. Then their children and grandchildren stopped speaking German and they were just Americans. English is a Germanic language, so in a sense the Germanic-speaking heritage has been preserved. German culinary culture is also very much alive in hamburgers and frankfurters.
Tim
Rudeness & for no reason.
IMHO, A's Q deserves an answer.
As whites, Germans can never be oppressed.
And Beethoven made his name in Vienna.
NB: Ludwig Van Beethoven is the Germanized form of Lodewijk van Beethoven (his grandfather.) A Netherlandish name.
I used to think I was German Irish but the DNA evidence indicates that a significant portion of my German ancestors were Jewish and an even larger portion of my Irish ancestry was Anglo Saxon. If your foremothers were in domestic service, they were in full service domestic service.......Nobody ever mistook the Irish for the master race, and that's why they can brag about their heritage. But if you read about the Draft Riots there were substantial reasons for the good citizens to have reservations about the Irish. It's quite possible to be destitute and oppressed and still burn down Negro orphanages. Being poor and oppressed doesn't make you a better person.
amielalune said...
Not that I am advocating further divisions for us, just the opposite. But I would like to hear why African-American is fine with you but German-American is not???
9/23/15, 12:30 PM "
The Silver Shirts and the Bundist's (short for German-American Volksbund) pretty much finished that off in the 1930's.
" Oclarki said...
Without Germans, America would never have landed on the moon. Bitches!
9/23/15, 1:01 PM"
You would be wrong. The Germans got their basic rocketry R & D from the American Robert Goddard. Now if you want to be proud of a German military project that killed thousands of slave workers, tortured many more and was intended to solely terrorize civilians and had an appreciable impact in hastening Germany's loss of the war by all means do so.
There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all … The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic … There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else.
- Theodor Roosevelt
The people of Anglo Saxon, German, and Italian ancestry can take claim to the highest form of patriotism. They took up arms against the home country. (Japanese Americans fought almost exclusively in the European theatre.).
When one is an absolute majority, one can afford to be color blind. Now that we are becoming a genuinely heterogeneous country, it's no surprise that whites are recognizing the need to form the same tribal identifications that everyone else has been using.
It's that simple.
And this 'further' concept is a fool's game. If every possible group is advocating interests based on race, then one must either find a group that advocate's one's own race or accept that one will not be advocated by a group. It's like insisting on carrying a knife to the gun fight because you oppose guns on principle. That's great and all, but...
James Graham said...
Thomas Sowell nailed it: the Germans were our most successful and most quickly and thoroughly assimilated large immigrant group.
I think it was Milton Friedman to said it about the Swedes first in this form:
Swedish Leftist: "In Sweden, because of our enlightened policies, we have no poor people."
Friedman: "That's interesting, In the US, our Swedes have no poverty either..."
The way for everyone to get along is to emphasize what we have in common: We are Americans. Besides, my family went through the melting pot before it fell out of fashion.
William said...
The people of Anglo Saxon, German, and Italian ancestry can take claim to the highest form of patriotism. They took up arms against the home country. (Japanese Americans fought almost exclusively in the European theatre.).
Theater choice was not offered to the Nisei
Trying to get in on that Japanese internment victimhood action?
I have a lot of German ancestry too, but the problem is the 'cuisine' sucks and the language is difficult, so I don't see any real likelihood of me going off on a quest to rediscover my German heritage.
We are all immigrants from somewhere. But the first ones here to fight and win are stiil holding title against the United Nations illegitimate authoriity claim pushing World government Empire as if it has a title.
As I remember it the British Monarchy took in Deutsche immigrant labor too. they named a succeassor Queen Mary and her foreign husband William of Orange who had a reputation as a stubborn Reformation leader that fought the Spanish Army that was bringing a Counter reformation and an Inquisition to the Netherlands.
William's descendant included the dense King George III that made starting our Revolution pretty easy when he hired German mercernaries from Hess. The British Kings for a century after the Glorious Revolution days barely bothered speaking English at all. They were Deutsche rent a kings brought in by Parlement with a Visa issued to fight off the murderous Catholics.
William's Scottish bordere soldiers fought the main battle in Ireland defeating the Jacobin Catholic Armies. Those fighters then left Ireland and came to western frontier Pennsylvania and next migrated south into the Appalachian mountain valleys, where they bragged about their ancestors fight for King Billy at the Battle of the Boyne. So they came to be called the Hill Billies
"I have a lot of German ancestry too, but the problem is the 'cuisine' sucks and the language is difficult, so I don't see any real likelihood of me going off on a quest to rediscover my German heritage."
That's odd, because some of us beer-lovers enjoy rediscovering German heritage (whether we're German or not) at least a few nights a week.
My grandmother was born and raised in a small Midwestern city, in a section called Germantown. She spoke with a German accent until she died at age 87.
My take on this ethnic pride stuff is that it is as foolish to be proud of one's ancestry as to be ashamed of it. You didn't earn it, or even choose it, anymore than the color of your eyes.
It may be interesting to examine, but should be of no real import to anyone.
Fostering and promoting ethnic identification and pride is good for some groups and bad for other groups. The Left gets to decide which groups will benefit, and the nature of that benefit is a bit ill-defined, but it's a pure coincidence that the divisions the Left promote happen to benefit the Left politically.
All cultures are equally good, but some are more equally good than others. "American" culture is built on slavery, sexism, and swinish greed, so it's the worst. It's all very simple.
I also have a lot of German ancestry, and seldom eat at the rather good German restaurant near home, but I wouldn't say the cuisine sucks. I'd say the vegetables suck. I love all the meat dishes, especially all the different sausages. I love all the desserts, especially the cream puffs. I just hate German vegetables, all of them without exception. Green beans with spaetzle? Ugh. Cabbage made into sauerkraut, or left unmolested? Ugh. I like potatoes cooked just about any other way, but: boiled potatoes? Ugh. I would enjoy eating a mixed-sausage platter with a cream puff or two for dessert, but that's really unhealthy, so I just don't go.
"My take on this ethnic pride stuff is that it is as foolish to be proud of one's ancestry as to be ashamed of it."
Many of the Pennsylvania Dutch were Tories who sided with Britain during the Revolutionary War. William Penn gave them freedom to practice their religion. They didn't identify much with Yankee congregationalists, Episcopalians, or baptist slave owners.
Somehow people don't brag about that part of their Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry.
WW I saw a lot of German-based street-signs renamed nation-wide. In New Orleans, the finest hotel at that time, the Grunwald, was quickly renamed the "Roosevelt" after T.R.
"Ruth Westheimer, Albert Einstein and ... Henry Kissinger"
They were German Jews. And particularly smart ones.
I don't agree with Sowell that our Germans were the easiest to be assimilated. Of the masses of immigrants, that must have been the Irish who, speaking English, had no barriers to taking jobs as cops, firefighters and even mayors.
I have noticed over the years, however, that the average educated German, like Ruth Westheimer, Albert Einstein and even war criminal Henry Kissinger speaks/spoke much better English than the average Amerikan, who can't speak a word of German apart from 'Bratwurst.'
The German also won't say, "If I was there, I would have ..." or use the "singular 'they'." Besides showing full mastery of the subjunctive mood, he will also distinguish active/passive, transitive/intransitive in his English, spoken and, especially, written.
An Amerikan who wishes to master English would do well to study German.
Nonsense. All white people are "Anglos." Every "Latino" knows that.
I have a lot of German ancestry too, but the problem is the 'cuisine' sucks and the language is difficult, so I don't see any real likelihood of me going off on a quest to rediscover my German heritage.
Not a huge beer drinker here, but I'll take German cuisine over, say, British cuisine.
Ugh....just boil everything, eh? Good menu.
It is kind of funny that people with Spanish speaking heritage are supposed to be a group, a community, or a voting bloc, while say....people with a heritage of German or French are all just white people.
In N.O. Kolbs restaurant was THE ABSOLUTE uber German restaurant in New Orleans (on St Charles near Canal St, founded in 1899) until a lack of parking killed it in mid 80s when people quit using public transport (bus & streetcar) to the degree they had heretofore. (My fraternity alumni club used to have our monthly luncheons there in the 70& 80s)
"Not a huge beer drinker here, but I'll take German cuisine over, say, British cuisine."
But the British also do excellent beer (even if oddly they serve it too warm for our American tastes).
The only country I can think of that does excellent beer and good food is Belgium.
In fact, there are 2,437 Americans with the last name Althouse, and only 1,205 With Althouse.
But how many are named Althouse?
There is, of course, the issue of lederhosen . . .
"Many of the Pennsylvania Dutch were Tories who sided with Britain during the Revolutionary War."
To be fair, I'm pretty sure all the Pennsylvania Dutch have been fully assimilated by now and are big revolutionaries.
Ha! MadMan!
Some German dishes are memorable if not exquisite. Like:
Weisswurst and Bier for breakfast. Apfelkuchen and Kaffee at the bakery across from the Glockenspiel. Gulashsuppe and Glühwein after a long, cold motorcycle ride in the countryside. All the Käse and Wurst, the Käsespatzen, Schwarzbrot, the Tartar and Wild (game) that you seldom see on an Amerikan menu.
Thomas Sowell has also said that the core American culture is Anglo-German, because the German influence has been so deeply embedded in our culture for so long that it is impossible to separate it out. He claims that most of the ways that American culture differs from English are due to the German influence.
And for the most part, descendants of German(ic) immigrants are so intermarried that there are few fully German Americans now. (When we are asked our kids' ethnicity, my wife and I answer with "German/Jamaican/Norwegian/Jewish", which isn't the half of it.)
German-speakers never were more than 10% of Americans; Pennsylvania topped the list at 1/3.
If you think there's any chance that we're going to assimilate the Spanish-speaking, you're nuts. As such, it's the practical and moral stance for German-American, Anglo-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans et. al. to protect, preserve, and advance their own interests along ethnic and cultural lines.
"In fact, there are 2,437 Americans with the last name Althouse, and only 1,205 With Althouse."
Either I'm having a stroke or that's not written right.
"If you think there's any chance that we're going to assimilate the Spanish-speaking, you're nuts."
That's pretty much what they said about the Irish, then the Italians and Jews, then the Asians...
What specifically is it about the Spanish-speakers that makes them unassimilable? Or is it that they are assimilable, but the country itself is now different and cannot assimilate others?
In studying my ancestry I noticed an interesting occurrence around the early 1900's. My grand parents on both sides are an interesting mix. In both cases women with very clean English ancestry married men with almost pure German ancestry(one's father is from Alsace but it was very German at the time). No indication that there were any problems with this. The men were both university educated and doing well professionally but still this seems it might be a point in time where the Germans were considered integrated enough that that acceptable spouses. Note that one was a member of the social circle in Brooklyn.
Well, again, flip it. How do we eradicate the Hispanic, Black and Muslim cultures? Maybe this fellow could tell us how.
There seems to be some statistical confusion? Are you meaning to say that there are more Althouse's than Althaus's? Something's wrong.
Charlie Currie said...Do people of African descent living in Brazil call themselves African-Brazilians...?
Oh, you bet. "Afro-Brazilian" gets 2.6M Google hits. Brazilians of all races and mixes are very aware of their particular backgrounds. And there many cultural elements in Brazil of very obvious African origin: the Candomblé religion, for instance; also many genres of music and dance. Brazil is 7% black and 43% mulatto, so it is far more "African" than the U.S.
Do Mexicans identify as Spanish-Mexicans or French-Mexicans to distinguish themselves from the indigenous peoples they displaced, enslaved or vanquished?
Oh, you bet. The distinction between Indios and criollos is alive and well. (Criollo = "descendant of Spanish or other European colonists.) Nearly all upper-class Mexicans are criollos.
What specifically is it about the Spanish-speakers that makes them unassimilable? Or is it that they are assimilable, but the country itself is now different and cannot assimilate others?
1. The massive number of them that make them a much larger group in a single go than any other group that has come before.
2. The concentration that exacerbates the above.
3. That there is no intention of stopping even more from coming, creating a perpetual cycle of non-assimilated who make a larger community that has no need to exist with the rest of the country.
4. The fact that we are now a culture that denigrates itself. People want to assimilate into a confident, strong culture. Who wants to assimilate into a culture that can't quit talking about how terrible it is and how much better and more noble the foreigner's original culture is.
5. The Germans, Italians, Irish et. al. didn't assimilate. They fundamentally changed the culture of the United States. That the jump from English to English-German to English-German-Irish is less immediately noticeable than say, English-Zulu would have been, does not make it any less real, or that it won't be more noticeable with a different culture. The Germans, Irish... did not come here because they valued and desired to maintain and become part of the ideals of "The Rights of Englishmen". They came because it was a better economic life, and they changed the culture.
Coming as they are in larger numbers, and with a greater discrepancy between the cultures, it will be much more noticeable. But it's not a trait I am ascribing uniquely to Hispanics.
One thing that happened to German-Americans was Woodrow Wilson (D-The Constitution Sucks), the fellow who pushed through the Sedition Act of 1918 that transformed all those accusations into jail sentences and the general air of hysteria. Oddly, his name is never mentioned in the piece.
Wilbur: My take on this ethnic pride stuff is that it is as foolish to be proud of one's ancestry as to be ashamed of it. You didn't earn it, or even choose it, anymore than the color of your eyes.
People are proud and ashamed of lots of things they didn't earn or choose. And "pride" and "shame" hardly begin to cover the affiliative emotions of normal human beings.
It may be interesting to examine, but should be of no real import to anyone.
Yeah, it's not like tribalism has every been anything but a negligible factor in human history.
My take on this ethnic pride stuff is that it is as foolish to be proud of one's ancestry as to be ashamed of it. You didn't earn it, or even choose it, anymore than the color of your eyes.
And yet, people who say this never tell Native Americans or Blacks to shut up because how can anyone today possibly take any responsibility for their ancestors. Or for that matter, whining about how your ancestors or race were treated at their lowest is as foolish as being proud of them at their highest.
I'm sure not that I've pointed out the discrepancy, this will change.
"it's not like tribalism has every been anything but a negligible factor"
Right, it is now, again, anything but, so better get your own.
Of course, in these postmodern times where we can choose our ethnicity as well as gender, that still leaves the choice of tribe. German-American or Euro-American or Caucasian-American or LawProf-American? What Raza is La Raza?
I was raised to be proud of my German ancestry, but informed by my proud parents that it must be a private pride, and the US had attempted to bury references to its German heritage, and was still very upset over those wars. German Shepherds became "Police Dogs", hamburgers became Salisbury Steaks, etc. Next up: Volkswagon. Please, change that name! I always hated that name. It sounds so socialist, even National Socialist, actually. Just call them all Audis. Perfect time to do it!
Name counter link gives incomplete information. My son and grandson share my name and the app indicates I am the only one in the country with this name. I am also aware of a number of relatives which share my name.
"What specifically is it about the Spanish-speakers that makes them unassimilable? "
- They aren't unassimilable. They are assimilating as fast as anyone has, ever. Spanish speakers lose their language(s) and adopt English within a generation. Young second generation kids in California almost always speak Spanish badly if at all. Hispanics intermarry with whites nearly as frequently as Asians. Spanish language media in the US appeals mainly to first generation immigrants and is ideologically and intellectually insubstantial. It is meant for uneducated people.
- They aren't really a "community". There are almost no ethnic organizations of any substance. Compared to blacks and Jews, Hispanics, even in Mexican dominated Southern California, have almost no organized politics nor do they have cultural institutions.
- "The fact that we are now a culture that denigrates itself. " - This is true. The blame is not the Hispanics, but the white schoolteachers who mis-educate them. Luckily the students don't pay much attention.
- "They came because it was a better economic life, and they changed the culture." - A big difference here, the Germans and Jews and Italians vs the Hispanics AND the Irish, is that the first group brought a host of things TO the culture - technologies, scholarship, language, music, art, cultural assets of all kinds. The Irish and the modern Hispanics brought and bring just their individual selves, essentially blank slates. Not even music really.
German-American culture is still strong in SW Indiana. Even into the 1920s, kids were arriving at first grade having never learned English at home. Bratwurst is thick on the ground here, as is homemade sauerkraut, German potatoes, German-wine from grape varieties that originally came over from Germany, beer, etc.
I think if the writer bother to leave NYC he'd find that the German is very strong in that vast middle farm country NYC loves to look down on.
Eric Kirschbaum should just anglicize his name to Cherrytree. He could them claim Native American ancestry, and take an affirmative action job teaching law at Harvard.
WooHoo!! Win-Win!!
n.n said...
There's ancestry and there's nativity. Native Americans are natural citizens of America.
Not all "first americans" were first. Not all stayed. There is a good indication that polynesians were here first and later, left. The tribe that first met the pilgrims were strangers to the area themselves. You don't honestly think the Inuit preferred to live in the arctic do you?
Remember trolls, Hitler was Austrian.
Blogger Wilbur said...
My grandmother was born and raised in a small Midwestern city, in a section called Germantown. She spoke with a German accent until she died at age 87.
My grandmother and grandfather on my fathers side grew up in the Pilsen district of Chicago. Neither learned english until they went to kidergarden.
My great-grandfather walked away from (yes, a deserter from the Prussian Army) the Franco-Prussian war. He never revealed how he managed to get to Canada. He became a homesteader in Buffalo county Nebraska.
The Fisher (originally Fischer) family is still working that land.
"The Foreign Minister of Germany once said to me "your country does not dare do anything against Germany, because we have in your country 500,000 German reservists who will rise in arms against your government if you dare to make a move against Germany." Well, I told him that that might be so, but that we had 500,001 lamp posts in this country, and that that was where the reservists would be hanging the day after they tried to rise. And if there are any German-Americans here who are so ungrateful for all the benefits they have received that they are still for the Kaiser, there is only one thing to do with them. And that is to hog-tie them, give them back the wooden shoes and the rags they landed in, and ship them back to the Fatherland."
James W. Gerard, ambassador to Germany, 1914-1917
Villanova figures in Thomas Berger's "Who Is Teddy Villanova?"
I think if the writer bothered to leave NYC he'd find that the German is very strong in that vast middle farm country NYC loves to look down on.
So very very true.
I'm reminded that the NYTimes once mistook summer sausage for bratwurst.
My FIL grew up speaking german.
Althouse does project a very clear dislike/disdain for anything German (except her car of course :). See for example this quote:
Ann Althouse said...
"People are probably getting tired of the "I visited Germany & I thought of Hitler" meme."
A reason never to go to Germany, in my way of thinking about it. I've never wanted to go and I never will go. And I have German ancestry... people who got out before the 19th century. And I'm staying out.
12/12/10, 11:26 AM
That sounds like bigotry to me, though it was probably inculcated over a lifetime for who knows what reason(s). With an attitude like that, it's easy to see why other commenters accuse her of self-loathing.
The "all (even modern day) Germans are still responsible for Hitler meme closely parallels the "I hate the South because they're all bigots" meme which we find in a America. It's as childish as the "I hate all gays because they spread AIDs" meme on the other side. Without reconciliation and forgiveness there is only lingering and festering resentment.
My DNA says I am German first, and Northern Italian second. This even though my name is Anglo-Irish and my earliest American ancestor came from Ireland in 1788. I have recently learned that there have been German communities in Ireland since the 1600s. They are called Palatine Irish. I may be kin to them.
It might be useful to motivate a lazy kid to live up to the standards of his or her ancestors, but otherwise ethnic pride is pointless and disruptive.
BTW, there is plenty of German-American culture in the hill country of Texas, around New Braunfels.
Madashell,
My great-grandfather left Germany to avoid the draft in 1885; settled in Wisconsin originally, then North Dakota. His wife never learned English; my older uncles and aunts learned German before English, although by the time my mother was born they pretty much just spoke English at home.
Oh, I loathe Russia, and if you checked me with it I'd have reason. Maybe they had reason too. Maybe my family didn't flee for a failed bet on grand politics but because some Cossacks cut off Uncle Barney's little finger as he was pulling people over his fence out of the pogrom. Or because the Bolsheviks wouldn't let my Aunt Filia go to the gifted school anymore.
(You'd have loved it, Coupe. They knew how to deal with our kind.)
Likewise because of some random burgomeister or Jaeger harassment. Or doomed romance or who knows what, good people left or fled the German Confederation with a bad taste in their mouths. I suppose you'd have to have it taste pretty foul. Look at Cook, he stays.
That's something. People often response to sentiment such as America love it or leave it Express variously, as shall I save for thinking. For thinking for thinking. And you shouldn't feel that way. However, as with tit-for-tat strategies, the ugly truth is that America is full of people who were the defense of people who didn't love it and who left it. That's the idea if they don't like where they are they go somewhere else out they got here if they don't like it here they can go somewhere else too. I would help them. There is a lot of that in the world. If somebody wants to mess around in the power of resetting refugees that could be popcorn time as well.
Sierra, Buckley, that's what it's like reading your s***. Anyway I have something in mind but don't hate the ex Germans. You have a good deal here. Anybody who wants to go back to Germany can do so. Good night and I hope everybody had an easy fast. And those of you deserve it should be inscribed and sealed in the book of life. The rest of you and I suppose you wouldn't care
no. Atonement means in my mind striving to do better. But Israel was attacked on Yom Kippur. That was no nice. A terrible world we live in..
A happy and a sweet New Year to all
Rich Rostrom said...
Oh, you bet. "Afro-Brazilian" gets 2.6M Google hits.
Sigh. It's actually 380 results.
Carol said...
And Beethoven made his name in Vienna.
Beethoven composing himself.
Jason said...
They should have seen my old band, the Hot Java Polkateers,
I sometimes watch "The Big Joe Polka Show" on RFDTV. They also have the "Mollie B Polka Party" but it's not as good.
Alex said...
Remember trolls, Hitler was Austrian.
Ich befolge, mein Kommandant!
I once fucked a German Girl who called anal sex "annexing."
I'm not sure if it was a great German misunderstanding or a Great American understanding.
I am Laslo.
(Japanese Americans fought almost exclusively in the European theatre.
As stated earlier, they had no choice, the U.S. Army refused to assign them to the Pacific.
Also, the 442nd, a Nisei unit, is one of the most decorated units in the army. The Japanese Americans fought with honor, courage and distinction.
Austrians are just southeastern Germans. Those who immigrated here became Americans, just like the Germans, with or without annexing.
>they had no choice.
I knew one Nisei who hitch hiked across the country from California when the war started and joined up on the East Coast. Knew another from the Intermountain West who was in the 442nd and found himself with a lot of Hawaiians, some of whom went barefoot rather than wear boots.
Rusty:
I was not referring to America the continent, or land, but rather to America, as in United States of America, a legal entity and jurisdiction, where native Americans are natural born citizens.
This avoids racial, ethnic, and identity politics, and focuses on assimilation under a social contract with a common cause. We never lose our ancestry and heritage, but we form a new race of people under a constitutional covenant with certain rights and responsibilities.
All my ancestors--all of them and my mom did the genealogy although she says there may have been an Irishman in the 1800s but nobody would claim him--came over before the Revolution. I think you're all welcome to be here. What a great fuckin' country! Can't we all get along and do something wonderful? Yes, I think we can. Maybe... without the hyphens anyway.
As you know, I do worry sometimes though.
Meade said...
To be fair, I'm pretty sure all the Pennsylvania Dutch have been fully assimilated by now and are big revolutionaries.
The people who gave me my family name were Pennsylvania Dutch. They came from a town called Egenhausen, near the Alsace, in the 1750s. I used to think I should get a bunch of monkeys, shave them, tattoo them, and teach them to smoke cigarettes and drink beer (it can't be abuse if that's what I do to myself, right?). Anyhow, I thought I could take my army of tattooed, smoking and beer drinking monkeys back to Egenhausen and take over the place.
I guess that counts as revolutionary.
"The Foreign Minister of Germany once said to me "your country does not dare do anything against Germany, because we have in your country 500,000 German reservists who will rise in arms against your government if you dare to make a move against Germany."
Lol. The problem was that a lot of Germans came to the USA to get away from Kaiser Wilhelm, the Prussians, and their class bound, militaristic society. An exception, was H.L. Mencken who thrilled every German victory, reported on the War from the German side, and was turned very anti-American after the USA declared war on his beloved Fatherland.
The Germans who came here generations ago likely didn't consider themselves very German. They probably thought of themselves as Swabian or Prussian or Bavarian or whatever. Modern Germany as one country stretching from the Holland/French Switzerland border all the way to Denmark and Poland is a pretty recent phenomenon.
Well, in general, "German" historically was a linguistic-cultural identity, not political. Which actually got stronger among recent immigrants to America, since the polity you were from was irrelevant, while the fact that you were part of a group with common cultural traditions and language was. The regional differences that loomed so large back in Europe were tiny differences on this side (as can be seen in the case of my German-speaking ancestors who immigrated from homes in the Kingdom of Hungary identifying themselves as "German-American", not "Hungarian-American").
There's never been much of German identity because along with other Northern Europeans their's not much difference between them and your average American. You can throw in the fact that most Germans came here before Germany was even a country, and those that did, didn't particularly like the "Germany" they left behind. And unlike, the Irish the didn't come here with some weird chip on the shoulder, and clannish dislike of anyone not like themselves.
That's why "Germans" like Spaatz, Eisenhower, Eichelberger, Nimitz, Eaker, and Krueger fought against the Axis in WW2.
Maternal family came from Germany in the great immigration of the 1850's
Through Ellis Island, where some clerk say the family name Rüppel, couldn't figure out what that mark was over the "u", so typed up Rippel.
I am in Germany right now, in the Rhine Valley in Pfalz-Palatine in the little town of Langenlonschweim. I learned a few years ago that my paternal ancestors were from a nearby town Schweppenhausen. My grandfather Johann Peter came to North America in 1709-10 as part of the Palatine Migration of those years. It was a latter day refugee crisis, with 10,000 refugees arriving in Rotterdam with the expectation of going on to London and then America through the good offices of Queen Anne of England.
Johann Peter, age 29, died at the end of the voyage in 1710 as they neared New York. He left his young wife Christina, a son Balthus (age 9) and two daughters aged 4 and 6. Christina found a way to keep the family together, and Balthus survived and all of my paternal family descends from him. They were peasants and remained so in New York, forced to settle near Albany as virtual serfs of a large landowner. By 1790 they had been expelled to Canada near the Bay of Quinte, an unpromising frontier, as a result of my Grandfather Johannes (grandson of Balthus) having been a private in Burgoyne'sarmy during the Revolution. He was captured at the Battle of Saratoga and under parole arrest until the end of the war. He had the choice of being hung or leaving, so he left.
Eventually (around 1900) my great grandfather returned the family to the USA, settling in Detroit, He was a carpenter and worked at the automotive factories. They lived in a boarding house.
The Palatine is a beautiful area, wine country then as now. It was ravaged in the 17th Century by the 30 Years War and in some ways never recovered. I had been in the area before, not knowing then of the family background. I feel no particular emotional connection to Germany as a result of this, Other ancestors are Dutch, irish and English. But the history is interesting, and it's clear that my ancestors were pushed to and fro by great waves of history. Life was very difficult for them and the line was close to being snuffed out completely by war and famine more than once.
Mostly I am struck by how much comfort and opportunity exists today in comparison to the chances of my family in the past. Like most humans, they struggled to persevere and the family unit was what sustained them. It is a story of people with little power or influence finding a way to survive through persistence and toughness. This is not a German but a human characteristic, and I am lucky that my ancestors kept at it as skillfully as they did.
German culture was very strong in Milwaukee for a long time. Until the first world war many schools were taught in German. The German self identity was strong in music, education, language, cuisine, industrial organization and trades, religion and trades. The wars of the 29th Century pushed some of this underground, and the rest eroded into superficial artifacts. It's unrecoverable in my opinion, except for the superficialities.
n.n.
gotchya.
as the kids text, ty
And, to be added to the list of things Althouse doesn't get. When people forget about their culture, it dies. If you think that's a good thing, fine, but many don't. At a superficial level, if you can't get the food or entertainment of that culture anymore, unless it is lousy the loss should be apparent.
Viz., the decline of the Yiddish theatre.
Too bad all Americans can't be roped into regarding themselves as German-American. Then we all really could be above average.
They were peasants and remained so in New York, forced to settle near Albany as virtual serfs of a large landowner.
That's my family history exactly. From the Palatine to near Albany, probably knew each other. There is a cemetery near Albany that is chock full of people with my very rare(according to Althouse's link) family name. I have never met anybody with my name who wasn't related, or heard of anybody with it that wasn't some kind of cousin. I think that probably just means that most of them changed it, same as Althouse.
The point is, that as a descendant of these refugees, I have far more allegiance to the country that took them in than the blood soaked country that drove them out.
Oh, wow. A lot of my ancestors came to the US to Albany as well. Then most of them moved on to Ohio.
>Oh, wow. A lot of my ancestors came to the US to Albany as well. Then most of them moved on to Ohio.
Erie Canal?
My ancestors landed in Brooklyn and mostly stayed there
David said...
The wars of the 29th Century pushed some of this underground, and the rest eroded into superficial artifacts.
In The Year 2525... ;)
Anthony- too early for the Eerie Canal.
My last name is German, and I sort of look like a big German guy, even though only 25 percent of my heritage is from Germany.
I think one thing that hurts German culture in the US is their food is terrible. Everyone loves Italian and Mexican and Chinese food. German, not so much. Great music, though.
Beerfest is the story of my people! If you haven't seen it, drop everything now!
"German-Americans are America’s largest single ethnic group (if you divide Hispanics into Mexican-Americans, Cuban-Americans, etc). In 2013, according to the Census bureau, 46m Americans claimed German ancestry: more than the number who traced their roots to Ireland (33m) or England (25m). In whole swathes of the northern United States, German-Americans outnumber any other group (see map). Some 41% of the people in Wisconsin are of Teutonic stock."
The Economist, February 7, 2015
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21642222-americas-largest-ethnic-group-has-assimilated-so-well-people-barely-notice-it
I love knowing the history of my people. My DNA goes back to the first Getmanic tribes. It is obvious how the media and the government try to cover up that we are the largest ethnic group in this country. You can even get the anti german comments on here are for that purpose. Senator Grassly tried to put out an acknowledgement of the internment of our people in the 40s and how we were persecuted, repatriated our homes and businesses stlen our towns shut down. But was refused. The German internment camps in this country still exist as museums.
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