Kapitel 1 Blog Post

As a German- and Jewish-American, I enjoyed the "How German is American" reading, particularly the parts regarding the dispersion of Jewish culture.  One of the most intriguing was the explanation of how Jewish refugees explained the persecution of Jews in Germany through artistic metaphors.  Although many have long asserted that Walt Disney harbored Nazi sympathies, the reading explained that Bambi was originally written by Felix Salten as a metaphor for the persecution of German Jews.  It's an encouraging element of the human condition that even under the most brutal and devastating of circumstances, creativity and flourish and even captivate whole sectors of societies.

I haven't seen one of the other examples cited, Brigadoon, but I've certainly seen The Sound of Music. Like many of the Disney films, it's unsurprising to learn that the settings crafted reflect the need to create a plot that will draw in audiences rather than the reality of life in a German-speaking country.  This fact is why the plot of Bambi is so wonderful: rather than constructing a picturesque or propagandic setting, it uses allegory to explain the systematic extermination of Jews in Germany by comparing them to hunter and hunted.

As a Chicago native, one of the other surprising parts of the reading was that the suburb of Oak Park, a suburb of Illinois, has such extensive German influence. The reading to mention omitted a German-American neighborhood in Chicago that I'm more familiar with, Lincoln Square, which still boasts a variety of German restaurants, stores, and hosts an annual incarnation of Oktoberfest.  I subsequently wonder if Lincoln Square is authentically German to a greater or lesser degree than Oak Park or Milwaukee, which are both places I've been, which also seems to have reduced its German influence to a variety of restaurants owned by English-speakers.

The reading neglected to mention why German, unlike Russian, Slovakian, or other European languages or cultures that still retain enclaves of native speakers within America, assimilated to completely (with the obvious exception of the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch).  Although French and Italian immigrants also seem to have their influence reduced to English-speaking descendants, food, and a few borrowed words, many Eastern and Central European cultures still retain urban or rural sphere of influence. Perhaps because Germans were so influential in the founding of the country, as the reading explains towards the beginning, Germans were more integrated into the mainstream of American society.  Nonetheless, I would have enjoyed a section that compared and contrasted the German assimilation to other sectors of American society.