AHC: Preserve German language and cuisine in the US

If you don't speak the common language (English, Chinese, Hindu)

There is a Hindu language in the same way there's a Christian language, or a Muslim language. Surely you mean the Hindi language?

Anyways, German cuisine, at least, is a very large part of American culture. Take hamburgers or frankfurters as examples of German cuisine that is considered all-American. And even with a no World Wars POD, the German language would decline anyways, as the trend began pre-POD. The best way to have a stable German population is to have a majority-German state (or sizeable region, at least) - say, increase German settlement into the US and delay the US's war with the Native Americans in some areas, so that these Germans immigrate to those areas, creating communities which speak German. It should be enough for a German community along the lines of the French-speaking Cajun community in Louisiana.
 
IMHO absent the craziness of WWI, reinforced by WWII, Wisconsin could be much like parts of Louisiana (French) or parts of South Texas/New Mexico/Arizona (Spanish) where a large part of the population uses other than English at home, this language can be used easily in local stores, and you have newspapers/radio/TV in that other language. You may have dual language schools, churches in the other language or dualand foregin language filns, theater, and social societies (perhaps even other language girls scouts/boy scouts). The locals who do not have the second language as their home speech (primary English at home) will learn greater or lesser amounts of this second language and the local "dialect" will have a lot of borrow words in it. Other than Wisconsin I can't think of other states that would be that way, but certainly other areas of the USA.
 
IMHO absent the craziness of WWI, reinforced by WWII, Wisconsin could be much like parts of Louisiana (French) or parts of South Texas/New Mexico/Arizona (Spanish) where a large part of the population uses other than English at home, this language can be used easily in local stores, and you have newspapers/radio/TV in that other language. You may have dual language schools, churches in the other language or dualand foregin language filns, theater, and social societies (perhaps even other language girls scouts/boy scouts). The locals who do not have the second language as their home speech (primary English at home) will learn greater or lesser amounts of this second language and the local "dialect" will have a lot of borrow words in it. Other than Wisconsin I can't think of other states that would be that way, but certainly other areas of the USA.

North Dakota, easily. The state had (and HAS) a vibrant German-Russian as well as Norwegian cultural tradition. I would also argue that parts of Minnesota (with it's strong Finnish, Norwegian and German communities).

It's important to remember that the anti-German witch hunt of the First World War lay the groundwork works for the anti-immigrant hysteria of the early 20s which attacked many other immigrant communities which were considered radical. The far and feathering of Finnish-Americans in Duluth, for instance, come to mind.

The damage done to the culture of the Upper Midwest during this era is hard to underestimate.
 
Cuisine... I suggest looking at Mexican, Italian, and Chinese food. The American versions keep certain details, though perhaps with regional focuses on those provinces where the most people came from, but there are great changes due to different ingredients, the presence of stoves, the natural evolution of a century and a half of people in the US, etc. People usually say burgers and hotdogs are based on German cuisine, and I would say they are about as close to the original cuisine as a carton of Chinese food, some tacos, and a pizza are. Sure, you have more recent immigrants using contemporary recipes or those wanting to push the ethnic angle (such as by making a restaurant look like a movie set) but in the whole things have evolved naturally and German cuisine may have seemed to have vanished mostly because their contributions have tied themselves so strongly with American menus that no one considers it foreign.
 
Yes, and no.

I'm going to use Milwaukee and an example, because A) its one of the more successful examples of a sustained German-American culture and B) because its the one I'm most familiar with.

Germans were present in the city, in large numbers, from its very founding - many of them liberal refugees from the Revolutions of 1848. From this point onward, if they did not outnumber the English-speaking population of the city, their numbers were very nearly equal. As a result, the need to acculturate was never very strong - they simply began to set up German-language institutions which paralleled (and often times surpassed) the English speaking institutions. Milwaukee became a center of German language theater, literature, political thought and so forth - not just in the United States, but recognized throughout Europe as well - it came to be known as the German Athens. This was actually strengthened by other immigrant groups, many of whom, like the Czech and Poles, probably spoke German as a second language long before they adopted English.

The result of all of this because that, from the 1850s through the 1920s, there was simply no reason to fully culturally assimilate. The Milwaukee Germans DID learn English - by the turn of the 20th century, all but the newest immigrants would have spoken English as a second language. However, the prevalence and strength of the German institutions meant that one might use English in one's business or political life, but German would remain the language of choice in every other aspect of life.

World War One, the anti-immigrant hysteria of the 1920s and, finally WW2, are what really brought an end to this way of life. Prior to the war, there was no evidence that the culture was weakening in the least (the fact that the Germans were at the forefront of the city's Socialist party and its coming to power actually argue the exact opposite.)

I think you are still attached to the old "melting pot" theory of immigration, which has been largely disproved (or, at least, heavily, questioned) since the 1960s and 1970s. If you are interested, you should pick up Gerde's "The Minds of the West" which covers immigration to the Upper Midwest and West in the 19th and 20th centuries. Its an amazing book and one of my favorites!

I'm not attached to anything, I'm a blatant amateur and make no pretenses of being otherwise. The United States is a nation of immigrants, who bring with them their cultural mores and identities which over time are pretty much consumed by the native Anglo-American base or face severe backlash outside of areas in the U.S. where Hyphenated Americans (such as Hawaii) are still the dominate ethnic and political group. I grant that the world wars did severe damage to America's cultural leaning towards Germany (and more than a handful of other nations and their peoples as well) but even without them, it more or less is inevitable that with an immigrant's children going to American schools, making American friends etc, their line will eventually in all but name be Anglo-American (the base 'American' culture).

I'm now properly braced for backlash against this statement, have at.
 
This is a cool idea. It'd be like saying Scottish Gaelic/Irish survive in Canada, especially Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Barring the World Wars, it's quite possible I think for German to have a presence. I mean in OTL it still does, I shared a room with a lad from Minnesota whose grandparents spoke German at home, there were many small towns like that.

If Germany and the USA had closer links than the US/Britain relationship, that might help. But that would necessitate German being seen as a prestige tongue and used by a lot of the elite. I could see it becoming like Spanish though, a heritage language with many bilingual speakers. I mean look at Catalonia, plenty of Catalan speakers but they're all functional in Spanish too.
 
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