Kultur 1

I have never blogged before and am not entirely sure how to start, so I'm just going to type and see what happens.

So here we go.

Just reading the title of this article got me thinking. We were all taught in school that America is a "melting pot" of different cultures. I don't know about your educations, but I was never taught in great detail about the cultures that went into the "American culture." Being 3/8 German, this article made me feel slightly guilty for not knowing more about my ancestral culture. I didn't know that "German-American Day" even existed. Shocking as it may seem, I've never heard of Octoberfest. Unlike some of the previous posts, I don't know the stories behind my German ancestry. Now that I think of it, the only story I know is that my great-grandpa came to America from Lithuania about 100 years ago. My last name is Lithuanian for "bones." It's true. You can type it into Google translator.

I'm babbling.

I could, however, identify with the parts of the article about the history of German people in America. I took AP US History last year in high school and now know more about American history than I ever wanted to know. My history class, unlike this article, examined the role of the German immigrants in the American landscape from a very general point of view. It examined the effect the German immigration had on the already-established culture. I found this article interesting because it looked on this same bit of history, but through the eyes of the German immigrants. I feel as though I have I fuller understanding of American history from the time because of this article.