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  #41  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 5:39 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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dubz

Last edited by mrnyc; Dec 19, 2022 at 5:53 AM.
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  #42  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 5:53 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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^ not too many scandinavians, but there is a strong finnish community in ne ohio. there is a finn heritage museum too.

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Originally Posted by McBane View Post
Agree with others about the Amish. It's a unique culture and Germanic but it's distinct from German. It's not like the Amish are hosting Oktoberfest festivals, fly German flags, or brew their own beer. They're very religious people.

i had a german nanny gf in columbus and her dad came over to the states to visit. he rented a car and made a beeline to amish country. he said its pretty famous in germany. when he got back he said it was fun and interesting, but the german was so strange. it was like ye olde german that no one speaks anymore he said.

for trivia the amish majority holmes county is the only county in ohio where the majority esl/lep services in schools aren’t in spanish, but are in german.
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  #43  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:04 AM
Docere Docere is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
While MN and the Dakotas certainly own the "Scandinavian-American" category, saying that significant Scandinavian communities didn't exist elsewhere in the US is going a bit too far.

Digging through Encyclopedia of Chicago entries, there were around 150,000 people born in Scandinavian countries (primarily Sweden and Norway) living in Chicago by 1930, and likely an equal number of 2nd-gens by then as well.

That's obviously no rival to the Twin Cities, but it's not nothing either. I have to imagine that other legacy cities likely had Scandinavian migrant communities as well.
Pretty much every nationality that immigrated in large numbers to the Midwest, I would think, had strong representation in Chicago. Maybe the Finns were an exception because they were really, really concentrated around Lake Superior and avoided big cities.
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  #44  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:13 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by Docere View Post
Pretty much every nationality that immigrated in large numbers to the Midwest, I would think, had strong representation in Chicago. Maybe the Finns were an exception because they were really, really concentrated around Lake Superior and avoided big cities.
not only there and not just rural, but finns came to ne ohio as well. specifically cleveland, ashtabula, conneaut & fairport harbor. there were 3k finns in cleveland city in 1930 and another wave came later. most finns came to the usa prior to the second world war.

fairport harbor museum
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  #45  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:18 AM
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Do you ever see German flags flying outside houses in the Midwest in the same way you see Irish / Italian / Portuguese flags all over southeastern New England? Or maybe the Bavarian flag or the flag of another German state / previous kingdom instead? I'm under the impression that many Germans immigrants, especially the ones who ended up around Cincinnati, were Catholics from Bavaria.
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  #46  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:27 AM
Docere Docere is offline
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^ I doubt it. Two world wars and German hyper-nationalism during the 1930s and 1940s kinda made that unpalatable.

Speaking of New England, German ancestry is less common in the region. It ranks fifth among white ancestry groups:

New England

Irish 2,550,467 16.9%
English/American 2,422,634 16.1%
Italian 1,715,523 11.4%
French/French Canadian 1,491,299 9.9%
German 1,005,156 6.7%

In the least "German" state - Rhode Island - German ancestry (4.5%) is in sixth place, behind French Canadian and Portuguese.
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  #47  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:28 AM
mrnyc mrnyc is offline
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Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Do you ever see German flags flying outside houses in the Midwest in the same way you see Irish / Italian / Portuguese flags all over southeastern New England? Or maybe the Bavarian flag or the flag of another German state / previous kingdom instead? I'm under the impression that many Germans immigrants, especially the ones who ended up around Cincinnati, were Catholics from Bavaria.
i dk, but if they do it in cinci they certainly don’t do it anywhere else in ohio (well, outside of sugarcreek in holmes county, which is the amish tourist town). and ohio is a strong #3 for germans in the usa, so its not like there arent reasons. i would guess that unlike more recent immigrants who are quick to fly homeboy flags germans are highly assimilated and are typical mixed amerimutts culturally by now.
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  #48  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:41 AM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Do you ever see German flags flying outside houses in the Midwest in the same way you see Irish / Italian / Portuguese flags all over southeastern New England? Or maybe the Bavarian flag or the flag of another German state / previous kingdom instead? I'm under the impression that many Germans immigrants, especially the ones who ended up around Cincinnati, were Catholics from Bavaria.

I've never seen it flown in a serious fashion - not in the way that people "mean it" when they fly the Ireland or Italian flags.

Also, the current postwar German flag is completely different than the flags from the 1800s, when Germans came to the United States.

Last edited by jmecklenborg; Dec 19, 2022 at 2:05 PM.
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  #49  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 6:49 AM
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I've never seen the German flag used by private citizens in the Twin Cities. The one's I've seen here are Sweden, Norway, Mexico, Ecuador and Somalia.
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  #50  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 12:30 PM
TempleGuy1000 TempleGuy1000 is offline
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Originally Posted by wwmiv View Post
https://www.jstor.org/stable/29764261

Much of NYC’s vernacular was designed by German architects:

https://www.villagepreservation.org/...erican-legacy/
There's no doubt German-immigrants contributed a lot to every type of industry in America. However, where they really building "German"-style buildings or just building contemporary architecture of it's time? I guess that's part of it all, German's have been in America for a very long time and essentially their culture blended with the others to create "American Culture" and it happened so long ago, we don't really notice it.
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  #51  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 2:48 PM
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Do you ever see German flags flying outside houses in the Midwest in the same way you see Irish / Italian / Portuguese flags all over southeastern New England?
No.

Whatever lingering German nationalism that was left in the US after WWI was thoroughly annihilated by Adolf Hitler.

I remember my own great-grandfather telling me how he and every other German-American he knew in chicago "buried" their Germanness during great wars and did everything they could to prove their american patriotism.

Flying the stars and stripes became a billion times more "german-american" than flying any flag associated with the old country.
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Dec 19, 2022 at 5:30 PM.
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  #52  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 2:57 PM
UrbanRevival UrbanRevival is offline
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I've seen some overt displays of German-American heritage in Pennsylvania, including displaying a German flag. Certainly not as common as displays of Irish- or Italian-American heritage, but it's not unheard of.

A more subtle display of German ancestry (at least in PA) would be the hex sign, found on many a barn and farmhouse in Central PA:



https://lancasterpa.com/shopping/hex-signs/
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  #53  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:08 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
No.

Whatever lingering German nationalism that was left in the US after WWI was thoroughly annihilated by Adolf Hitler.

I remember my own great-grandfather telling me how he and every other German-American he knew in chicago "buried" their Germanness during great wars and did everything they could to prove their american patriotism.

Flying the star and stripes became a billion times more "german-american" than flying any flag associated with the old country.
Right. And this wasn't just a nativist impulse, or reflexive anti-German sentiment.

There were fascist rallies on American soil before and during WW2. The NYT recently did an expose of Third Reich-funded network of German summer camps and youth programs. There was strong support for the Third Reich from German-Americans until the end. Of course that doesn't justify discrimination, but the community was in a difficult place, and chose assimilation in the postwar years.
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  #54  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:10 PM
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Originally Posted by UrbanRevival View Post
I've seen some overt displays of German-American heritage in Pennsylvania, including displaying a German flag. Certainly not as common as displays of Irish- or Italian-American heritage, but it's not unheard of.
it's not 100% completely unheard of, but in chicago at least, it's nothing at all like you see with the other major ethnic groups here like mexicans, irish, polish, puerto ricans, etc.

the ratio here would be something like you'll see 100,000 mexican flags for every 1 german flag. they're that rare.

in fact, thinking about it, the only german flag i can recall seeing around me is the one flying outside of DANK Haus (chicago's german-american cultural center), which is a couple blocks away from me over on western.

DANK Haus streetview:

https://www.google.com/maps/@41.9681...7i16384!8i8192
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Dec 19, 2022 at 7:08 PM.
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  #55  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:21 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Shawn View Post
Do you ever see German flags flying outside houses in the Midwest in the same way you see Irish / Italian / Portuguese flags all over southeastern New England? Or maybe the Bavarian flag or the flag of another German state / previous kingdom instead? I'm under the impression that many Germans immigrants, especially the ones who ended up around Cincinnati, were Catholics from Bavaria.
You don't see German flags flying outside anything in Germany either. . .

. . .
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  #56  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:24 PM
Crawford Crawford is offline
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Right, Germans think the U.S. flag-waving is weird.

My German relatives are always mystified at flags displayed on private homes and in churches/religious facilities.
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  #57  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:37 PM
UrbanRevival UrbanRevival is offline
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
it's not 100% completely unheard of, but in chicago at least, it's nothing at all like you see with the other major ethnic groups here like mexicans, irish, polish, puerto ricans, etc.

the ratio here would be something like you'll see 100,000 mexican flags for every 1 german flag. they're that rare.
That makes sense. A lot of it has to do with much longer history of cultural assimilation (as discussed, the settlement of Germans tends to go back much farther than other ethnic whites). It's why you'd be even harder-pressed to find someone hardcore about their British-American heritage, plastering the Union Jack everywhere.

I'd agree, though, that displays of heritage from places like Mexico or Puerto Rico (very common on the East Coast), or other countries in Latin/South America seem to be disproportionately higher than any European nationality.
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  #58  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 3:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Steely Dan View Post
it's not 100% completely unheard of, but in chicago at least, it's nothing at all like you see with the other major ethnic groups here like mexicans, irish, polish, puerto ricans, etc.
I wonder why the Italians didn't go through a similar "lying low" during WW2? Or maybe they did... I know there was a large postwar wave of Italian immigrants that didn't live through that, so maybe they helped rekindle a bit of Italian pride after the war.

Italians were also more recent immigrants to begin with, the bulk of Italian immigrants arrived in the 1900-1910 period while Germans came 40-50 years earlier.

I was in Monterey CA recently and was surprised to see the Italian grocers and delis in that city. I always think of California as a second-stage destination for people to shed their ethnic/"hyphenated" identities and fully embrace Americana.
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  #59  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 4:03 PM
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I wonder why the Italians didn't go through a similar "lying low" during WW2? Or maybe they did... I know there was a large postwar wave of Italian immigrants that didn't live through that, so maybe they helped rekindle a bit of Italian pride after the war.

Italians were also more recent immigrants to begin with, the bulk of Italian immigrants arrived in the 1900-1910 period while Germans came 40-50 years earlier.
the only thing i'd add is that italian-americans also had a bit of a "hitler shield".


"of course mussolini did all kinds of terrible things, but just look at the shocking horrors of hitler and the nazis!!!"

"yes, yes, you're right, antonio. they were a whole other level of pure raw evil. you may fly your il Tricolore in peace. and while i'm here, can i get a slice with pepperoni?"
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Last edited by Steely Dan; Dec 19, 2022 at 4:21 PM.
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  #60  
Old Posted Dec 19, 2022, 5:26 PM
jmecklenborg jmecklenborg is online now
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My German relatives are always mystified at flags displayed on private homes and in churches/religious facilities.
I hitched a ride one day from a German guy at my college and he sort-of flipped out at the sight of ROTC students wearing their military clothes on campus. I got the impression from his high emotions that in Germany it's socially if not legally forbidden for military staff to wear their military uniforms off-base.
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