WWI was the defining moment of assimilation. External and internal social pressure forced a lot of german americans to stop speaking german and integrate with wider american culture. By WWII they had pretty much completely integrated into american society.
No, it’s in the name. WASP = white anglo saxon protestants. The core of whiteness is the nobility. Because race science and the concept of whiteness is dumb.
I read once that the general 19th / early 20th century fascination that many Scandinavian Americans had with the thought of ancient Norsemen reaching way further inland on Turtle Island than they ever really did, manifested in things like the Kensington Runestone hoax… That all of that was basically in order to assert that the Scandinavian settlers had more of a “right to the land” than the Anglos, who saw the Scandinavians basically as weird foreigners.
Now I’m not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant and from looking like Anglos, yet Scandinavians’ deviation from the hegemonic Anglo core, most obviously in language, still created tension. This tension as I see it never really fully disappeared, it just became a lot less obvious: like, I have been called “not a real American” for being Norwegian before — but the difference between myself and the average self-identified Norwegian American is that I actually live in Norway, speak Norwegian, and generally have a meaningful connection to Norway.
I feel like Scandinavian Americans were historically much more of a mixed bag, with both your Joe Hills and Knute Nelsons, but the thorough assimilation of Scandinavians by today makes modern Scandinavian Americans much more consistently Seppo-ish.
Now I’m not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant
Early America has A LOT of anti-Catholic brainworms, the Puritans were constantly fretting about “Popish Conspiracies”, there were tons of nativist anti-Catholic political parties and gangs. A lot of German immigrants were Catholic, and basically all Irish were, it was probably a bigger contribution towards hostility towards them than ethnic tensions.
They start with the assumption that England is the best and work backwards from there. The Saxon is only good when mixed with the Angles, thus they are superior to Germans for example.
The impression that Germans and Scandinavians are included is largely based on how things became later when you got national romance and especially since Germany have the dubious honour of being home to the most notorious race scientists and the notion of Aryans.
Ok this is new to me.
Aren’t Germans and Nordics considered the core solid WASPs to which others are compared?
It’s not even considered ‘ethnic’, I thought? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_ethnic
This is some vintage 1800’s style Know Nothings level of xenophobia
Racially, American nativists have focused on a wide variety of ethnicities. Historically, targets have included… German Americans – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_in_United_States_politics
Interesting. I had not known this.
WWI was the defining moment of assimilation. External and internal social pressure forced a lot of german americans to stop speaking german and integrate with wider american culture. By WWII they had pretty much completely integrated into american society.
No, it’s in the name. WASP = white anglo saxon protestants. The core of whiteness is the
nobility. Because race science and the concept of whiteness is dumb.
WASP is Anglo-Saxon, which includes basically northern Germany but not the rest.
I read once that the general 19th / early 20th century fascination that many Scandinavian Americans had with the thought of ancient Norsemen reaching way further inland on Turtle Island than they ever really did, manifested in things like the Kensington Runestone hoax… That all of that was basically in order to assert that the Scandinavian settlers had more of a “right to the land” than the Anglos, who saw the Scandinavians basically as weird foreigners.
Now I’m not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant and from looking like Anglos, yet Scandinavians’ deviation from the hegemonic Anglo core, most obviously in language, still created tension. This tension as I see it never really fully disappeared, it just became a lot less obvious: like, I have been called “not a real American” for being Norwegian before — but the difference between myself and the average self-identified Norwegian American is that I actually live in Norway, speak Norwegian, and generally have a meaningful connection to Norway.
I feel like Scandinavian Americans were historically much more of a mixed bag, with both your Joe Hills and Knute Nelsons, but the thorough assimilation of Scandinavians by today makes modern Scandinavian Americans much more consistently Seppo-ish.
Early America has A LOT of anti-Catholic brainworms, the Puritans were constantly fretting about “Popish Conspiracies”, there were tons of nativist anti-Catholic political parties and gangs. A lot of German immigrants were Catholic, and basically all Irish were, it was probably a bigger contribution towards hostility towards them than ethnic tensions.
Absolutely, absolutely.
They start with the assumption that England is the best and work backwards from there. The Saxon is only good when mixed with the Angles, thus they are superior to Germans for example.
The impression that Germans and Scandinavians are included is largely based on how things became later when you got national romance and especially since Germany have the dubious honour of being home to the most notorious race scientists and the notion of Aryans.