Kultur 1

Hallo!

For me, "How German is American?" was a great topic for our first culture blog post as it's a question that has been on my mind since the class has begun. The more I learn about German culture the more similarities I find to my own life, as well as the lives of many of my friends. This may be a unique scenario, but it seems to be happening too often to be a singular event.

The article spends a lot of time discussing how German culture has "submerged." I think that this is a good term to describe the process, but perhaps not in the same context that the article is using it. There are a lot of implications of a disappearing culture, however I think that this disappearance is not German influence going away, but rather becoming an accepted set of social norms in American society. Concepts like research universities, sports integrated into schools, the Republican and Democratic symbols, "Uncle Sam" and even the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile have simply become standard parts of society. The fact that we see them as normal instead of seeing them as particularly German ideas doesn't change their history and I personally believe that it doesn't diminish their relation to German culture. Again, in a different context I believe that "submerged" is a good term, but perhaps "integrated" might be a better one. A good example of this is when the article quotes Milwaukee as the "most unconsciously German city in America." I believe that this applies to a lot of places in the U.S., (...however I must admit that I haven't traveled nearly enough to back that statement up with very much evidence).

Ich komme aus Posen, Michigan. Posen is a small, very Polish/German village which explains a lot of the German parallels I find in my life, and likely why I feel so connected to a lot of the cultural aspects of the article and the class as a whole. Many of the different topics discussed can be found in my town (e.g. ...it's not absolutely crazy to see an Amish person on the side of the road).

I'm excited to learn more about this culture and maybe even learn more about myself in the process.

Tschüss!
Luke Bruski