Kultur1, Norman Lam

Being without any German roots, I still find this article very interesting yet informative. In short, this article made me think about issues such as the preservation of German heritage and the influence of German immigrants on America.

I was curious to read that the next generations of German immigrants into America would gradually become monolingual with English and have their German-American identity submerged. Attempts by institutions such as Grundsow Lodges to preserve Pennsylvania Dutch in communities had failed as a result of greater mobility and the loss of rural isolation across America. It is interesting to see that in other countries such as China where I am more familiar with, different minorities and settlements have been able to preserve their dialects and heritage a little bit better even after the unification of the country and promotion of Mandarin as the official language.

The article improved my knowledge on the huge amount of influence German immigrants had over the history and development of America. Just recently, I have learned that the Brooklyn Bridge in New York was designed by a German immigrant (John Augustus Roebling). In addition to that, I learned from the article that Thomas Nast created and popularized the important American cultural icons such as the Santa Claus, the Republican elephant and the Democratic donkey.