Narratives of Immigration and Language Loss: Lessons from the German American Midwest

161 Pages·2017·3.311 MB·

by  Maris R. Thompson

Narratives of Immigration
and Language Loss

Narratives of Immigration
and Language Loss
Lessons from the
German American Midwest
Maris R. Thompson
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
ISBN 978-1-4985-3380-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4985-3381-2 (electronic)
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for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
Printed in the United States of America
For My Parents and for Melba, Alice, and Emily

Contents
List of Figures ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Something We Weren’t Supposed to Know or Hear xv
1 Recovering Immigration History and the Role of Narrative 1
2 Contexts of German Immigration, German Schooling, and
Anti-German Sentiment 17
3 Origin Stories: Chronicles of Family Genesis, Citizenship,
and Belonging 37
4 Narrating Americanization, Anti-German Sentiment, and
Language Loss 59
5 “It’s not like an old family affair”: Narratives of New Immigrants
and New Immigration 85
6 Looking Back, Looking Forward: Making Sense of
Americanization Stories 105
Appendix A: Transcription Conventions 115
Appendix B: Interview Questions 117
References 121
Index 135
About the Author 141
vii

List of Figures
Figure 1.1: Author Collection, Emma Hogg and Philip Fischer,
“The Marriage Picture,” 1905 1
Figure 2.1: Flagg, J. M. (1917). Camouflage (A German-American
supports America in public but hoists a beer to the Kaiser
in private) 17
Figure 3.1: Author Collection, the Fischers and the family farm,
approx. 1907 37
Figure 4.1: Author Collection, Emma Fischer and Judy Schaefer,
approx. 1943 59
Figure 5.1: Author Collection, 2016 85
ix