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German-Slavic Relations in Texas and the Midwest

100%

Kamphoefner W. D.

Studia Migracyjne - Przegląd Polonijny

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2015

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vol. 41

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issue 4 (158)

27–53

EN

A telling incident took place in a small Texas town in 1916: not the greatest year for German-Slavic relations on either side of the Atlantic, one might think. But even at this late date, the German language was still being taught in the public schools of Needville, Texas, about 60 km southwest of Houston, using a book originally published for the St. Louis public elementary schools. In the wartime anti-German hysteria, school authorities in Needville ordered all these textbooks to be gathered and burned, but one copy was rescued and preserved–ironically not by a German-American pupil, but by a Czech girl in the second grade, whose parents spoke German as well as Czech, and wanted her to learn the language. As my essay will demonstrate, this was only the tip of the iceberg. In Texas and much of the Midwest, especially in rural areas, relations between German immigrants and their Czech, Polish, and Sorbian neighbors was for the most part quite friendly. Much of this was based on their cultural affinities which set them apart from Anglo-Americans, and at times united them against a common enemy, one might say.

2

What’s New About the New Immigration? A Historian’s Perspective over Two Centuries

100%

Kamphoefner W. D.

Studia Migracyjne - Przegląd Polonijny

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2019

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vol. 45

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issue 3 (173)

7–27

EN

For a historian of immigration observing current debates, less disturbing than what people don’t know about immigration history, are the things they “know” that simply aren’t true. Recent immigrants are often held up to an impossible standard of the melting pot that was a much slower and more messy process than it appears in the romanticized hindsight of public memory. This paper offers an overview of the process of negotiation and mutual accommodation that has always figured prominently in the integration of immigrants into our society over the past two centuries. Except for the origins of immigrants and the color of their skin, little has changed over the last two centuries. English is alive and well, even on the Mexican border and the West Coast. In Amy Tan’s autobiographical novel, The Joy Luck Club, an immigrant mother laments that her daughter’s Chinese vocabulary hardly extends beyond “pee-pee” and “choo-choo train,” asking plaintively, “How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?” Immigrant parents have been asking that question for a long time. Some things never change.

3

THE HOUR OF YOUR LIBERATION IS GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER

63%

Helbich W., Kamphoefner W. D.

Studia Migracyjne - Przegląd Polonijny

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2009

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vol. 35

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issue 3(133)

43-58

EN

There were three basic categories of German19-century emigrants to the USA: the great majority whose passage was paid by themselves or by relatives, those who were subsidized by public funds, and convicts who had agreed to banishment to America as an alternative to serving out their terms. The latter group was by far the smallest, no more than 3000, but on both sides of the Atlantic they aroused far more debate and criticism than their number warranted. Here the authors offer a case study of a tiny group of such transportees from an even tinier German state that provides background, detail, and realism. The intriguing question of what became of them, worthy citizens or again social failures, is something we are still working on.

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3 Studia Migracyjne - Przegląd Polonijny

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1 2015

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3 Kamphoefner W. D.

1 Helbich W.

German-Slavic Relations in Texas and the Midwest

What’s New About the New Immigration? A Historian’s Perspective over Two Centuries

THE HOUR OF YOUR LIBERATION IS GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER