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Germans aren't that uncommon. I know many people with German last names and German ancestry, from big cities to small towns. Germans aren't really viewed as ethnic because they assimilated quicker than other ethnic groups and they don't have dark hair and dark features. In the South, no one really questions your ethnic background unless you "look ethnic" So Germans pretty much just blend in.
Well in any case, the map above shows Germans to be much less common in the South. That is undebatable.
There are a lot of folks of German descent in the South. If you go to Central Texas or parts of North Carolina you will discover towns that were settled and founded by German immigrants in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
As far as the ethnicity of a lot of white Southerners--many folks who list American as their ethnicity are probably of Scots-Irish descent. The Scots Irish were folks from the Scottish Highlands and northern England who were brought over to Northern Ireland in the 1600s to settle the counties of Ulster in order to dilute the power of the Irish Catholic land-owning elite. These folks on the other hand were fiercely protestant.
Eventually the Brits enacted laws that favored Anglican Protestants over Presbyterian Protestants (the faith of the majority of Scots Irish). Feeling marginalized, hundreds of thousands of them emigrated to the US in droves and a lot of them settled on the western frontier of the original 13 colonies. When they first arrived, they were considered merely "Irish" and later as "Scotch Irish" in order to differentiate themselves from the Catholic newcomers in the mid 20th Century.
Anyways a lot of Scots Irish have historically tended to identify there heritage with where they presently are since there arrival in the US siginified their mass emigration to a new place for the second time. Thus a lot tend to use American when stating their ethnicity.
Senator Jim Webb has written an excellent book on this topic.
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^ Very illuminating post, south-to-west. I assumed Scotch-Irish was a blanket term for Scots and Irish, but I also read somewhere else it also refers to those that settled in Northern Ireland.
^
You are correct. In the US Scotch-Irish refers to Protestants of Scots ancestry who emigrated to the US from Northern Ireland....though there is also an admixture from the English "borders", too.
This was a dominant ancestry group on the early frontier in the upland areas of Carolinas, Virginia, and Pennsyslvania. It was this migration that brought whiskey to America.
They seem to be seen as the 'vanilla variety' in the Northeast and Midwest, but are German Americans seen more in light of their German identity in the South, where most are black, English, or 'Scotch-Irish'?
I go by restaurants. I'd like to see a nice German restaurant in my Tennessee town. If there are so many Irish Americans in the south, where are the Irish restaurants? In my town, we've got Mexican and Chinese, which is good...and the worst/most bland American food imaginable. I actually have to go to another town for good barbecue. I say, our US immigration quotas and interstate migration should be based on restaurant skills. If we let 10 German Americans into the state, at least one has to open a restaurant/bakery/deli that's not in a major city. That goes for Italian Americans, too, and any other ethnic group. That would be my immigration/interstate migration policy and I'm sticking with it.
English Americans/Canadians...uhhhh, you guys go find technology/manufacturing jobs, okay?
I go by restaurants. I'd like to see a nice German restaurant in my Tennessee town. If there are so many Irish Americans in the south, where are the Irish restaurants? In my town, we've got Mexican and Chinese, which is good...and the worst/most bland American food imaginable. I actually have to go to another town for good barbecue. I say, our US immigration quotas and interstate migration should be based on restaurant skills. If we let 10 German Americans into the state, at least one has to open a restaurant/bakery/deli that's not in a major city. That goes for Italian Americans, too, and any other ethnic group. That would be my immigration/interstate migration policy and I'm sticking with it.
English Americans/Canadians...uhhhh, you guys go find technology/manufacturing jobs, okay?
I have never been to a German restaurant.... what is the food like? We also have tons of Chinese, mexican and steak/buffet houses but I couldn't tell you where a German restaurant is but one waaaay on the other side of town.
I go by restaurants. I'd like to see a nice German restaurant in my Tennessee town. If there are so many Irish Americans in the south, where are the Irish restaurants? In my town, we've got Mexican and Chinese, which is good...and the worst/most bland American food imaginable. I actually have to go to another town for good barbecue. I say, our US immigration quotas and interstate migration should be based on restaurant skills. If we let 10 German Americans into the state, at least one has to open a restaurant/bakery/deli that's not in a major city. That goes for Italian Americans, too, and any other ethnic group. That would be my immigration/interstate migration policy and I'm sticking with it.
English Americans/Canadians...uhhhh, you guys go find technology/manufacturing jobs, okay?
..means different things to different people, but , in terms of immigration, the reference usually means "Irish Catholic", which also implies northeastern and midwestern cities. As other posters have stated, the South is largely made up of Protestants from England, Scotland and yes, Ireland, but not quite so many Irish Catholics. Living in Boston, I'm surrounded by the influences of Irish Catholicism (although Italian Catholics also make up a sizeable proportion, too).
I have never been to a German restaurant.... what is the food like? We also have tons of Chinese, mexican and steak/buffet houses but I couldn't tell you where a German restaurant is but one waaaay on the other side of town.
...lots of beef and pork (rouladen, pork shanks, sausage, sauerkraut, potato pancakes, etc.) As you can see, the food is very rich and heavy, and you probably won't feel like eating anything for hours after you're finished your meal.
Since you're in KY, I'd suggest a place in Cincinnati, which has a large population of German descent. The best place I've ever been has been Mader's, in downtown Milwaukee, although Berghoff's in Chicago is very good as well.
There is at least two German restaurants in Louisville. Gasthaus, off Brownsboro Road close to the Watterson interchange. Here is the Louisville Hotbytes review
Or you could try Erikas at Hurstbourne Lane and I-64.
These are run by German immigrants so you are getting the real deal there. One also has homemade pastries, too.
Probably the most German it got in recent times was Chicago in the 1950s and 1960s. There was a massive migration to the US after WWII by Germans. Wars shake things up and this was no different.
This postwar migration (made by airliner vs steamer) settled along Lincoln Avenue, mostly along North Lincon near Western.
A true urban ethnic shopping street developed selling German things of various types and a record/stero store played that [i]schlager[i] music over the PA system on the sidewalk (and you could buy your Grundig inside, as well as the schallplatten to play on it). You could eat in German restaurants, shop in German delis, buy the latest German magazines and newspapers in an import store (that also sold china and crystal). There were even furniture and clothing stores that sold imported things. And the move theatre..the Davis...showed German movies (not art films, just generic B movie entertainment, without subtitles). Also, during that era Chicago also had German language radio at certain times on FM radio..just certain shows or blocks of time, not full time broadcasting.
So that was my only experience with a German-American population in the US as a not-yet-assimilated ethnic community.
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The whole Irish question..
