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Notes -
I mean, this is probably true, but German culture is hardly alien to Anglophone culture. They were already high church protestants who shared a culture and history. They shared the same work ethic and broad culture. German isn’t that alien.
Indians are not that close. They share almost nothing of our culture, our history, our religion. They don’t share the same work ethic.
A significant number of German immigrants to the United States were Catholics. Some of the most Catholic places in the United States are predominantly German, and it’s not an unusual sight to see historically German towns where there’s a Catholic, Lutheran, and Restorationist/United/Nondenominational Protestant church all extant for over a century.
I agree Germans aren’t all that alien, and their religious and social culture shares a lot with Anglos. But Germans were at the forefront of “will these ethnic minority religious weirdos ever assimilate???” a little over a century ago, with a lot of Germans insisting on speaking German as a native tongue.
This was forced out of them, and as an Anglophile with significant German heritage, I’m glad for it. But I’m not so sure Germans are a great example of natural assimilation — yet they’re a great example of how assimilation can work if it’s enforced.
I mean I get that, but my thought is that cultural differences between the two groups matter. Even if the Germans hadn’t fully assimilated, the difference between a Lutheran and an Episcopal group of Christians is tiny. Even between Catholics and Episcopals Theres no gulf between them that would create a division. Even the Languages are fairly similar.
But the difficulty for Indians, various Muslim peoples, East Asians (although I think Japan and Korea have adopted a bit of our culture already) is that they aren’t really like us. Their languages are not like ours, their religion is different, their cultural assumptions and mores are different. And especially as we’re much less keen to enforce immigration and assimilation, this is tearing at the social fabric much more so than the largest community of unassimilated Germans could possibly do. And so I think talking about unassimilated Germans in an Anglo context is a false equivalence here. Muslims are no Lutherans. Indians are not Germans. Even if you enforce the assimilation to the point of them completely losing the language, you still have issues of religion and social mores and the degree to which they tolerate different ideas.
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