My father's mother came from Stuttgart Germany, basically indentured to a family in New Jersey. She learned English, when I asked my Dad to teach me some German, he only knew one prayer, he said his mother told him that in America, you speak English, and refused to teach him. Every other gran was Irish, but apparently were in the USA a lot longer than grandma on his side. I never knew her. It's okay for some traditions to stay in the family, I think. Food for instance, one of my Dads quests for a lot of his adult life was to find a restaurant that could make saurbraten like his mother could. German potato salad, rye bread over white bread, saurkraut, etc. He was born in 1910. He clearly remembers his mother getting the boys up to look out the window from their tenement on E 42nd street, giving them little flags to wave as the soldiers were marched to the docks, before dawn, to go fight in the first World War. The patriotism and love of America was strongest in those first generation immigrants, they yearned to assimilate, and the things that they contributed to, from their culture, were welcomed in the neighborhoods. NYC had its Germantown, Little Italy, Spanish Harlem, etc, yes, but they were enclaves that had something to offer, mostly in the way of groceries and restaurants.
My father's mother came from Stuttgart Germany, basically indentured to a family in New Jersey. She learned English, when I asked my Dad to teach me some German, he only knew one prayer, he said his mother told him that in America, you speak English, and refused to teach him. Every other gran was Irish, but apparently were in the USA a lot longer than grandma on his side. I never knew her. It's okay for some traditions to stay in the family, I think. Food for instance, one of my Dads quests for a lot of his adult life was to find a restaurant that could make saurbraten like his mother could. German potato salad, rye bread over white bread, saurkraut, etc. He was born in 1910. He clearly remembers his mother getting the boys up to look out the window from their tenement on E 42nd street, giving them little flags to wave as the soldiers were marched to the docks, before dawn, to go fight in the first World War. The patriotism and love of America was strongest in those first generation immigrants, they yearned to assimilate, and the things that they contributed to, from their culture, were welcomed in the neighborhoods. NYC had its Germantown, Little Italy, Spanish Harlem, etc, yes, but they were enclaves that had something to offer, mostly in the way of groceries and restaurants.