Ethnic American subcultures as subsets of the old (e.g. Italian-American from Sicily)

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by craigs

You keep showing stats of German immigrants being more protestant than Catholic, but anecdotally, the only German-Americans I have known, as such, are Catholic (and/or non-religious).

As a 6th generation german Catholic in Chicago, the stats presented showing Germans in America being super-majority protestant always seem a bit off to me as well.

But that's probably just the bias of my own experience. And unlike you I've known and met non-Catholic germans in chicago too. Pew says that Chicagoland is 2% Lutheran, and I'm guessing most of those would be German descendants.

[Docere]

The stats I've seen (from the 1970s) showed that the number of German, Irish and Italian Catholics is pretty much equal.

[Buckeye Native 001]

Hell, both sides of my family are German. My dad's side came to the U.S. in the 1860s and are so protestant they're practically WASPs and my mom's side came to the U.S. in the 1920s and are so Catholic the Vatican thinks they should tone it down.

That said, the Catholic side is a hell of a lot more vulgar and crass than the Protestant side.

Case in point: Two days after burying my paternal grandfather, my dad's side of the family went to the Morelein Lager House in Downtown Cincinnati before my parents and I had to fly back to Arizona. My cousins suggested I spend the last night barhopping in OTR with them, then one of them jokingly (?) suggested my newly widowed grandmother join us. Being half my mom, and all that entails (no/poor filter), I suggested grandma come with us so we can hook her up with and get a new grandpa. Most of the family was rightly horrified and I fully expected to be written out of the will, but my grandmother laughed.

I immediately excused myself to go to the restroom. My mom waited for me to exit the restroom and asked if I forgot what side of the family I was with?

In sum, protestant and catholic Germany is a land of contrasts. That, and I'm probably an asshole. Mostly the latter.

[Docere]

It's easier to split Irish since the Irish in the eastern cities were more Catholic while Irish Protestants were more common in the South and rural areas. And the Irish American community basically means Irish Catholic even if a majority of those of Irish ancestry are Protestant.

German doesn't really have an urban/rural split. It doesn't seem to be the case that German Catholics were more urban and German Protestants more rural.

[bobdreamz]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

That's why they're all Republican White Supremecists. They really want to jump on that bandwagon socially and economically ASAP.

As a Cuban-American I find your comments to be very offensive & insulting.
I am not a Republican nor a "White Supremacist" in anyway shape or form.
I'm clueless as to how your arrived at that conclusion.

[eschaton]

I'm half German, from three grandparents.

My maternal grandmother was 100% German, and very Catholic. Both her parents were from the same small village in Banat, Austria-Hungary (an area now part of Romania). The whole area was ethnically cleansed of Germans after World War 2 for obvious reasons. They didn't meet until coming to the U.S. (introduced via mutual acquaintances, and migrated separately in the early 20th century; her with her parents at age 3, and him at 17 by himself (he was worried about being drafted to fight in one of the wars that happened after WW1 when Austria-Hungary broke apart. They both had ancestors from all over Germany (Rhineland, Alsace, Wurzburg, Anhalt, etc.). Culturally speaking they were pretty Magyarized - my great-grandfather basically "cooked Hungarian" rather than German. As my wife is half Hungarian it was interesting when we were first married talking to her grandmother and finding out that they cooked some of the same cookies, with the same names, just slightly different pronunciations.

On my father's side, both his parents were half German, and originally from Queens; originally Protestant, but a series of conversions made them swap over to Catholic (paternal grandmother's mother was very Irish culturally, and she made her husband convert, and then my grandmother did as well). They migrated to the U.S. much earlier - some time in the mid-to-late 19th century. We think they were from northern Germany, but it's a bit unclear, since we lack immigration records on that side.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Docere

It's easier to split Irish since the Irish in the eastern cities were more Catholic while Irish Protestants were more common in the South and rural areas. And the Irish American community basically means Irish Catholic even if a majority of those of Irish ancestry are Protestant.

The self-described "Irish" ancestry in the South is actually what's now called "Scotch-Irish." It dates back to colonial times, where there wasn't really any distinguishing between the native Irish and the descendants of the protestant colonists who settled in Ulster. English people just saw them all as being Irish.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by eschaton

They migrated to the U.S. much earlier - some time in the mid-to-late 19th century. We think they were from northern Germany, but it's a bit unclear, since we lack immigration records on that side.

Germany has outstanding centuries-old public recordkeeping of births and marriages (at least via Catholic and Lutheran records) so if you have a name and rough dates you may be able to discover more about their origins on your own. I know my family tree back to about 1600, and it's all online.

[Capsicum]

How much of Protestant/Catholic (or other) divides among the ethnic groups in the US today reflect the religion passed on from the old country vs. conversion within the US.

We expect some groups to be stereotypically one or the other (e.g. Catholic Irish) and though conversion might not be common, all it takes is for one in a few generations of intermarriage/conversion to another person's religion so that self-ID'd ethnicity and religion can change. After all, the US, unlike many nations, is stereotypically associated with strong trends in individual religious choice and conversion (e.g. born again, awakening or breaking family/ancestral ties) vs. "ethnic religion" where people just on on identifying with ancestral faith even if non-religious.

[Agitprop]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

Pew says that Chicagoland is 2% Lutheran, and I'm guessing most of those would be German descendants.

On the contrary, they're way more likely to have Nordic ancestry - predominantly Swedish and/or Norwegian with an outside chance of Danish and/or Finnish.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Agitprop

On the contrary, they're way more likely to have Nordic ancestry - predominantly Swedish and/or Norwegian with an outside chance of Danish and/or Finnish.

I highly doubt that.

Chicago did get a significant number of Swedes (though still a drop in the bucket compared to Germans).

I'm not aware of any significant immigration of Norwegians, Danes, or Finns coming to Chicago back in the day.

[Docere]

Originally Posted by eschaton

The self-described "Irish" ancestry in the South is actually what's now called "Scotch-Irish." It dates back to colonial times, where there wasn't really any distinguishing between the native Irish and the descendants of the protestant colonists who settled in Ulster. English people just saw them all as being Irish.

Right. They're not seen as Irish Americans, but just old-stock white Americans basically who had some ancestors who were Ulster Scots. A few weirdos like Jim Webb embrace this Scots-Irish thing (it's basically white Southern identity politics).

A plurality of Irish ancestry respondents live in the South, even though only a trickle of 19th century Irish immigrants went to the South.

The Protestants came earlier and outnumber Catholics because of the generational multiplier effect.

[eschaton]

Originally Posted by Docere

Right. They're not seen as Irish Americans, but just old-stock white Americans basically who had some ancestors who were Ulster Scots. A few weirdos like Jim Webb embrace this Scots-Irish thing (it's basically white Southern identity politics).

A plurality of Irish ancestry respondents live in the South, even though only a trickle of 19th century Irish immigrants went to the South.

The Protestants came earlier and outnumber Catholics because of the generational multiplier effect.

Yeah, the term "Scots Irish" seems to have only taken off within the U.S. after the Great Famine brought appreciable numbers of Irish Catholics to the U.S. for the first time. Up until that time, people whose ancestors were from Ireland who were Protestant had no issue calling themselves Irish, but they didn't want to be lumped in with the filthy papists, and hence they constructed a new identity for themselves.

[RST500]

rough timeline of Indian immigration to US by geographic location/demographic:


65-70s: Punjabi Khatris & Brahmins, S. Indian Brams
80s: Punjabi Jatts, Guj. Patels
90s: Patels, Telugus
00s: Telugus
10s: Telugus

[Agitprop]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

I highly doubt that.

Chicago did get a significant number of Swedes (though still a drop in the bucket compared to Germans).

I'm not aware of any significant immigration of Norwegians, Danes, or Finns coming to Chicago back in the day.

Then best rethink that doubt.

Logan Square was Norway's answer to Sweden's Andersonville, complete with its own Lutheran cathedral at the Blue Line CTA station of the same name.

Speaking of Lutheranism, the left-leaning ELCA denomination - versus the Missouri Synod - has its national headquarters near O'Hare rather than Minneapolis International Airport.

(Admittedly, both the Danes as well as the Finns preferred Canada.)

[Agitprop]

Originally Posted by RST500

rough timeline of Indian immigration to US by geographic location/demographic:


65-70s: Punjabi Khatris & Brahmins, S. Indian Brams
80s: Punjabi Jatts, Guj. Patels
90s: Patels, Telugus
00s: Telugus
10s: Telugus

The first wave accounts for the majority of Tamils and Keralites, eh?

[Agitprop]

Originally Posted by Buckeye Native 001

Cincinnati got the uptight ones.

Heh, it must be something about the Lower Midwest versus the Upper half!

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Agitprop

Then best rethink that doubt.

I won't.

I do stand corrected that Chicago did have significant Norwegian immigration back in the day, to go along with the Swedes.

But there's no way Chicago has more Lutherans of Scandivaian origin than German origin.

German is the fucking #1 white ancestry here

[Agitprop]

Pleased to be of assistance, Deutscher Daniel.

giggles in Cascadian-inflected Danish