What are German-Americans like? Are they a distinct ethnic group like, say, Irish-Americans...

What are German-Americans like? Are they a distinct ethnic group like, say, Irish-Americans? It seems like America is full of them.

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Very attractive.

Not really. They are much less "muh heritage" than Italian and Irish Americans. They are just kind of typical midwest folk. Also keep in mind that most of the area that shows Germans consists of the least populated parts of the country, so there aren't as many as such a map might make it seem.

you're trying to bait some "muh heritage" fags aren't you Hans?

Spot on portrayal.

I think some Amish people still speak German as well as English

Lmao at that one purple dot in the center of Indiana.
Fucking Indianapolis

>Are they a distinct ethnic group like, say, Irish-Americans?

Yes and no

First, you have to keep in mind this map is highly misleading. This is self reported, estimates of the actual English-American population range at 25% which is far higher than German-American, and it's unclear what the exact genetic make up of the population as a whole is. The average white person is majorly a mix of British/German ancestry (Irish included under British as the two genetically aren't that distinct), the exact mixes depending regionally, with French and Italian regionally thrown in.

That said, there are large populations of people who are still somewhat culturally associated with their German heritage but they tend to live far away from the major population centers.

There are still native speakers of German in the USA who aren't recent immigrates but from many later generations. The largest populations of these tend to be the Amish and Mennonites and related groups.

The Amish are primarily located in Pennsylvania. Most of them still speak High German. There are some among them and the Mennonites as well who speak Low German. It was interesting I heard from one guy who grew up learning Low German as his parents were Mennonites, he spoke it at home. He couldn't understand High German at all though as he had no experience with it, unlike a normal German person growing up in Northern Germany would.

Most don't realize they're any different. Some try to blend into the English/British American identity. Those who think their German ancestry is important tend to take German classes in school and are huge neo-Nazis.

They're pretty cool, and most are receptive of me trying to brush up on my german with them

i thought they spoke a weird form of dutch

A small portion of them speak Low German which is closer to Dutch than High German and is spoken in parts of the Netherlands as well as Germany, but most of them speak a form of High German

Other than the Amish, German-Americans are far less muh heritage than the Irish-Americans or Italian-Americans, likely because German identity started being heavily suppressed during the World Wars and there haven't been that many immigrants since. Also

>Tfw original colonist British American with ancestors that fought in the Revolution and both sides of the Civil War

OP here, thank you for all the answers so far. I've lived in Pennsylvania for a while and Pennsylvania Dutch is not really the same as German by any means. That said, I didn't see any evidence of the whole muh heritage thing. I mean there was a good amount of German-inspired restaurants, but they were mostly decent.

Ah, I gotcha, thanks man

That map is absolute bollocks

>America has "distinct ethnic groups"

Yes we're all just a blend of shieet nigga just like the memes tell

Why did you invite the Germans in then? It was your colony.

Most of the Germans immigrated in the 19th century, well after American independence.

It was simply fashionable when your great great great grandfather was German to pretend you were because much heritage.

Actually there were plenty of Germans in America at the time of the revolution and before

Ben Franklin even gets angry at them and calls them dirty fucking kikes, making fun of them as the Mexicans of his time

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observations_Concerning_the_Increase_of_Mankind,_Peopling_of_Countries,_etc.

Hilarious to read

Reminds me of a Jonathan Swift's modest proposal, except serious and not as extreme.

Many German Americans used to speak German in their household.
The world wars kind of put a stop to that. Now we are just average midwest people.
Also many of the midwestern Germans also have Irish blood.

>And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth.

Rest of Europe BTFO

I'm German-American and I've literally never, ever celebrated >muh heritage. I don't even find Germany to be that interesting.

But I grew up in New England where everybody is either French, English, Irish, or Italian, and all of those cultures have very vocal >muh heritage types. Might have been different if I had frown up in the Midwest.

nah, amish speak german. they're from southern germany and alsace

mainly mennonites who speak low german. it's a dying language though since the people who spoke it as their first language are in their 90s and are dying. shame I didn't show an interest in it before my grandma died :(

not really. there are some traces of nordic muh heritage though, but mostly people don't care about german muh heritage since it's the norm.

>but mostly people don't care about german muh heritage since it's the norm.
Pretty much. In the Upper Midwest it's something of a mix of Germanic and Nordic culture with a few native terms thrown in to create our culture. Obviously we all speak English, however German is probably the second most common language learned in high school/college after Spanish. Genetically Germanic countries make up the bulk of our ancestry, followed by Nordic and Irish, but since that really doesn't matter, it's not a big deal.

We call them Pennsylvania Dutch, because we're retards.

No, they're boring and autistic. That's the only thing they inherited from their German ancestors.

>Are they a distinct ethnic group like, say, Irish-Americans?

No. Irish, Italians, Slavs, and Jews all lived in ethnic enclaves in East Coast cities. This never happened to Germans, who spread out to the West.

There was some controversy when a large number of German Catholics were emigrating during the early 1900s, and when recent German immigrants were under scrutiny during the World Wars, but those were very brief. The majority of German-Americans are Protestant and assimilated into WASP culture very quickly. Their influence lives on in things like Christmas Trees and our word for kindergarten, as well as our penchant for hot dogs and burgers.

Never met anyone who identified themselves as German-American, they have been in USA and Canada for 4-5 generations for the most part so they are less "muh heritage" then others.

pewhispanic.org/2015/09/28/from-ireland-to-germany-to-italy-to-mexico-how-americas-source-of-immigrants-has-changed-in-the-states-1850-to-2013/

>The majority of German-Americans are Protestant and assimilated into WASP culture very quickly.
Assimilated? Yes. But a lot of German Americans maintained their Catholic heritage. Irish immigration occurring in the decade prior probably had something to do with establishing the Catholic church in the US reasonably well. The number of towns in the Midwest with names containing the term "Saint" in them is part of that.

Not much of Germany was catholic, mostly Bavaria and some of the Rhineland

Why did the Irish ruin America while the Germans assimilated almost perfectly?

Some parts still kept their German traditions and speak German at home, while the vast majority were Americanized or a better way to look at it "self de-Germanized" during WW1.

They're mostly your average, church-going American worker.

>The majority of German-Americans are Protestant and assimilated into WASP culture very quickly

Lol not even. The only reason they assimilated is because we forced them too

WW1 Xenophobie

Germans have assimilated. The German neighborhoods in places like New York have disappeared. Which is too bad, it's hard to find a good German restaurant in the US. There's a good one about 20 minutes away in Connecticut I like.

were pretty much totally assimilated with very little unique identity outside of a few cosmetic things

personalities are stereotypically a bit more autistic i guess

I live in a historically German neighborhood of Chicago; there's a Brauhaus and a DANK Haus, but IDK how authentic that is, and it's starting to be gentrified, though there is an authentic Deli/Sausage shop...founded by a Pole :/

I don't think most americans truly care for their ancestry. German Americans are the same as everyone else. I'm German.