AHC: Multiculturalism in the US

Okay, your challenge is to have, by any POD you want, a USA where individual cultures are retained: German is still spoken, so many more German-Americans retain their culture, same with Poles, Italians, the Dutch, Slavs and anyone else. Essentially, a USA where multiculturalism is the norm but not he „melting pot“ kind, a multiculturalism that recognizes the differences of each individual culture and promotes them.
 
No WWI. German was a major language in the US and the primary language of many Americans until the anti-German backlash of WWI. WWI resulted in legal and educational changes to force Americans to speak English and many places actively banned speaking anything else. I think an America that "promotes" cultural differences is ASB but one that tolerates or doesn't do much to oppose them is mostly OTL until WWI.

https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/116243
 
In addition to preventing the anti-German backlash keeping America out of WW1 would have the effect of strengthening the rapidly growing Socialist movement at the time, which was heavily devastated by internal splits and external repression brought about by America's entry into the war IOTL. A lot of the Socialist's support was grounded in the various immigrant working-class communities and as such it seems likely that they would support cultural rights as part of their program. Even if the Socialists remain a minor player in American politics they could get minority cultural rights on the agenda.
 
Okay, your challenge is to have, by any POD you want, a USA where individual cultures are retained: German is still spoken, so many more German-Americans retain their culture, same with Poles, Italians, the Dutch, Slavs and anyone else. Essentially, a USA where multiculturalism is the norm but not he „melting pot“ kind, a multiculturalism that recognizes the differences of each individual culture and promotes them.
Louisiana French, Spanish, Gaelic, Yiddish, Italian, Polish, German, Durch, Russian, Armenian, Greek, Swedish,Japanese, Chinese - to name a few. Maybe New York has Yiddish and Italian language districts with even the directions are in their perspective language.
 
A good piece of evidence that this is ASB is that the same flattening of immigrant languages happened all over the Americas. Argentinians speak Spanish with Italian influences, but not Italian. Moreover, it's happened across multiple migration waves - in the US that includes the German wave in the mid-19c, the Italian and Eastern European one at the turn of the century, the Hispanic one in the late 20c, and the Asian one right now; all of those have Anglicized, even while coming to very different cultural and social eras of the US. We also see this happen with migration into Europe now - second-generation Algerians and Moroccans in France speak French better than Arabic.
 
I don't think Germans would primarily speak German after 160 years of living in America. The only way to achieve this is through keeping German only villages sprinkled across the rural Midwest. But you're gonna run into problems with that, such as marriage. The moment a German marries a swede, they'll use English to communicate.


Where we see preservation is religion. Irish and Italians married each other along with German Catholics, while German Protestants married Anglo-Saxons and Protestants. But even though Catholics kept their Catholic faith, a Catholic American identity developed. Those of Irish, Italian and French origin are Catholic but are Americans.
 
The US was colonised by French and Spanish speakers as well as a small Russian enclave. However the French creoles, Spanish Texians and Californios were rapidly outnumbered by US immigrants who then became the dominant culture. Perhaps with a different pattern of settlement these groups could have larger population an retain a similar status to Quebec.
 
The US was colonised by French and Spanish speakers as well as a small Russian enclave. However the French creoles, Spanish Texians and Californios were rapidly outnumbered by US immigrants who then became the dominant culture. Perhaps with a different pattern of settlement these groups could have larger population an retain a similar status to Quebec.
Why not just have the US annex Quebec, then? The US becomes multicultural by default with the inclusion of a region with a robust population of non-English speakers.
 
when is the US going to win that war?
The easiest time would be 1775 to 1783 when it was on the winning side of that war in OTL, and had captured Montreal and besieged Quebec city. Have Carleton not narrowly avoid capture, and there is a decent enough though low chance for the US to take Quebec city. They probably won't hold it, but it gives a chance to solidify control of Montreal and environs, and by holding a good chunk of Quebec get the rest in the peace deal

Apart from that throw enough changes to have Napoleon do better against Britain, and alter timing of 1812, if the British have Canada as 4th priority for a few years (behind the Isles, war on the continent and India), then the US might be able to take Upper and Lower Canada and get Britain to agree to remove that boil on their bum to worry about bigger problems
 
The easiest time would be 1775 to 1783 when it was on the winning side of that war in OTL, and had captured Montreal and besieged Quebec city. Have Carleton not narrowly avoid capture, and there is a decent enough though low chance for the US to take Quebec city. They probably won't hold it, but it gives a chance to solidify control of Montreal and environs, and by holding a good chunk of Quebec get the rest in the peace deal

Apart from that throw enough changes to have Napoleon do better against Britain, and alter timing of 1812, if the British have Canada as 4th priority for a few years (behind the Isles, war on the continent and India), then the US might be able to take Upper and Lower Canada and get Britain to agree to remove that boil on their bum to worry about bigger problems

Sure, but I doubt it would make the US multicultural, as Quebec would just be flooded with English speakers like the ex French, Spanish and Mexican territories were. Thats the problem, the multiple cultres being overrun, not the US having access to other cultures.
 
Sure, but I doubt it would make the US multicultural, as Quebec would just be flooded with English speakers like the ex French, Spanish and Mexican territories were. Thats the problem, the multiple cultres being overrun, not the US having access to other cultures.
It wasn't flooded with English speaking settlers OTL despite being owned by Britain/Canada, they just went to Upper Canada instead, then further west. Assuming the US gets Quebec in the Revolution or *1812 Upper Canada probably comes along for the ride given geographic realities. Any settlers willing to go that far north would probably go for less occupied land as in OTL. 1822 Quebec had a population of 427,000, 1820 Louisiana 153,000, which included significant amounts of slaves. Quebec is going to be a lot harder to assimilate than Louisiana was
 
It wasn't flooded with English speaking settlers OTL despite being owned by Britain/Canada, they just went to Upper Canada instead, then further west. Assuming the US gets Quebec in the Revolution or *1812 Upper Canada probably comes along for the ride given geographic realities. Any settlers willing to go that far north would probably go for less occupied land as in OTL. 1822 Quebec had a population of 427,000, 1820 Louisiana 153,000, which included significant amounts of slaves. Quebec is going to be a lot harder to assimilate than Louisiana was

Also, many anglophone settlers (the Irish) actually assimilated into the francophone culture. Many Québécois today have Irish ancestors.
 
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