Introduction

German Americans are American immigrants of German origin. They account for the largest group of Americans of about 50 million who have the German ancestry. The German Americans highest populations occupy the states of Texas and California, and more dense populations in the Midwestern states of Wisconsin, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and North Dakota. This is American famous German Belt. The German Americans have had influence in science, sports, architecture, and politics in their participation in the labor movement, and entertainment.

The German Americans affected the labor union membership in America to improve the working conditions and further integrated as a whole the American society. Today the immigrants of German descent have fully been assimilated and naturalized into the common American culture. Today German Americans celebrate largely the Steuben Parade in the third Saturday of September in New York, Oktoberfest in Cincinnati, and the German American day in Milwaukee annually to keep up with their ancestral ties. The Cleveland, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, Minneapolis and Cincinnati metropolis still report majority German ethnicity to date (Gilbert 286).

Historical background

The first settlement of German Americans in the USA, then the ‘New world’ was in 1608 in Jamestown, Virginia.  Later permanent immigrants settled in Germantown, Pennsylvania and Hudson Valley, New York, Ohio and Illinois. The immigrants, who were about eight million, migrated for a number of reasons including economic opportunity, political and religious freedom. The German migration came in phases which made the settlers more established in the chain migration.

Given the opportunity to own land the immigrants had to sell their own labor as servants. They were tobacco farmers, vintners and craftsmen but mostly preferred animal husbandry and grain farming. The Germantown in Pennsylvania was both the first colony and also the first immigrants’ religious center. This town preserved the German practices, traditions, religious ad political freedoms. They therefore opposed slavery and without slave labor were able to develop farms, factories, business and industry. Thousands of German soldiers settled in America since the British colony could not afford to send them back to Europe after the American Revolutionary war.

Cultural background

The German immigrants had much less problems with the American Indians that any other American immigrant group. They also intermarried with other groups such as the Anglo-Saxon population (Myers 291). The involvement of German Americans in politics came after independence, and before that Germans, who barely spoke or learnt English were never interested in politics and as a tradition they didn’t participate in government. They lived in separate communities and as result aroused prejudice and suspicion. The immigrants primarily didn’t settle to the south apart from New Orleans due to the hot climate and the plantation farming methods that were not familiar to them. More particularly, the Germans who were opposed to slavery didn’t advocate for the south’s discrimination of black slaves, unlike the north that was for democracy and provided equal opportunity.