09 February 2008

Immigration and Americanism

I was browsing through manybooks.net looking for free books I could load into the Kindle reader I am thinking about getting when I came across a description of As a Chinaman Saw Us, a book written in 1904. It offers a satirical view of America in the guise of a fictitious report from the 'Chinaman.' Here is what he supposedly said about Chicago:

About one-half only of the total population speak or understand English. There are 500,000 Germans, 125,000 Poles, 100,000 Swedes, 90,000 Bohemians, 50,000 Yiddish, 25,000 Dutch, 25,000 Italians, 15,000 French, 10,000 Irish, 10,000 Servians, 10,000 Lutherans, 7,000 Russians, and 5,000 Hungarians in Chicago. You will be surprised to learn that numbers do not count. The 500,000 Germans are not the dominating power, nor are the 100,000 Swedes. The 10,000 Irish are said absolutely to control the political situation. You will ask if I believe that this monster foreign element can be reduced to a homogeneous unit. I reply, yes. Fifty years from to-day they will all be Americans, and a majority will, doubtless, show you their family tree, tracing their ancestry back to the Mayflower.


Many of those Germans, btw, would be persecuted and condemned as enemy aliens who had not assimilated properly when we went to war with their presumed Fatherland in 1917. There were whole sections of Chicago where you heard nothing but German, with German newspapers and German language schools. Thank god we got rid of all that.

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6 Comments:

At 10 February, 2008 15:05, Blogger jack perry said...

Ten years ago I was a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Richmond; they sent me to the Archdiocese of Chicago's seminary. That was a disaster, but what matters for your post is that once a year the seminary made an appeal to the parishioners of Chicago using actual seminarians. They specifically asked for people who spoke Italian, Polish, and even I think German because there are some parishes where most people still speak that language as their primary tongue.

 
At 11 February, 2008 10:43, Blogger Clemens said...

Yes, I can well believe that. And then there are our Chinatowns.

Which makes you wonder: What exactly is the problem with Spanish?

Mr Sobrino?

Oh, wait, I forgot. He is at a beach resort in Spain, trying to learn Spanish. Probably doesn't have time to look at blogs, what with all those Norwegian stewardesses and sunning on the beach where he is at.

 
At 13 February, 2008 02:13, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I only have time in the wee hours when the foreign and local women aren't sunning themselves ;)

I think we need to make it easier for the Ms. Latin America contestants and runners up to come to the states.

Btw, the European press is strongly behind Obama (he is being called the black Kennedy).

--Pepe

 
At 13 February, 2008 12:17, Blogger Clemens said...

Most of the world is strongly behind Obama. You should see how they feel about him in Kenya.

Y vamos a Espana en Marzo.

 
At 13 February, 2008 17:46, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fantastico!

--Joey

 
At 14 February, 2008 09:59, Blogger Clemens said...

Pepe, it's not THAT great that Obama is popular in Kenya.

 

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