Title: When German Immigrants Were America’s Undesirables - HISTORY
Headings: When German Immigrants Were America’s Undesirables
When German Immigrants Were America’s Undesirables
Woodrow Wilson thought German Americans couldn't assimilate.
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Content: States banned German-language schools and removed German books from libraries. Some German Americans were interned, and one German American man, who was also targeted for being socialist, was killed by a mob. Secondly, in response to this, German Americans began intentionally “assimilating” to avoid becoming targets. They changed their names to English-sounding ones, renamed German streets, and began to speak German only in private. In public, they spoke English. As a result, most Americans descended from German immigrants don’t speak the language or practice German cultural traditions (like beer after church on Sundays, which Anglo-protestants considered immoral). Rather, they have become part of the category of white Americans. However, there are still some remnants of the time when millions of Americans spoke German. Kindergarten is a grade that English-language schools adopted from German ones (the word is German for “garden of children”). And in Cincinnati, where Schade lives, one former German American neighborhood is still known as “Over-the-Rhine” —a reference to the river that runs through western Germany.