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

(Paperback)

Available Formats

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

This book examines narratives of anti-German sentiment and language loss from German American communities in southwestern, Illinois. During World War I and II, government sponsored Americanization campaigns brought an abrupt end to German speaking practices in many communities across the Midwest. The narratives and the sociolinguistic practices around their telling detail the experiences of people who were singled out because of their ethnicity and bilingualism and the consequences these experiences had for their families. This work considers how contexts of discrimination informed constructions of the past that people could live with and the impact of these contexts on their beliefs about language and belonging. In addition to stories of past experience, this work also explores narratives of the present. New immigrants are moving to the region for work in local industries and their presence is regarded cautiously by German origin residents. Narrative constructions about new immigrants are considered in light of these shifting demographics and local histories of anti-German sentiment with significant implications for the future of social relationships in these communities.

Reviews

Thompson (education, California State Univ., Chico) draws on scholarship from linguistic anthropology, education, history, and psychology to analyze her interviews with 35 German Americans (ages 6195) from two rural Midwestern counties about their early lives. She asked her subjects about their families of origin and ethnic and linguistic identity, and how their own origin narratives influence their views about current immigration from Latin America. The 1918 mob lynching of Robert Prager, a young German immigrant accused of having socialist beliefs, in Collinsville, Illinois, thirty miles from the communities of Thompson's study, serves as the poignant opening of the brief historical overview, which explains the dramatic cultural losses as a result of involuntary linguistic and cultural assimilation. As the granddaughter of a German American from Clinton County (the locale of her study), Thompson had unique access to her subjects. She uses her position as both insider and outsider to understand the connections between past anti-German hysteria and hostility against immigrants today. She offers an effective critique of the monolingual paradigm in American schools and calls for more intergenerational transmission. Based on the author's PhD dissertation in education, this study will be an important resource in a wide range of disciplines. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *

Author Bio

Maris R. Thompson is associate professor of education at California State University, Chico.