Blog Assignment 13: German Immigrants

My German Immigrant Story

 

In order to share my family heritage outside of America, I only needed to go back a couple of generations. My parents were all born in America; however, two out of four of my grandparents came from somewhere else. I am a “mixed-race” which consists of English immigrants from England on my father’s side and German immigrants from Germany on my mother’s side. For the purpose of this assignment I will share with you my family’s immigrant story that my grandfather from Germany told me many years ago.

 

 

My grandfather, Hans Dorsch, told me that he came to America on a ship when he was about three years old in 1923. My great-grandmother, Mathielda Dorsch (age 30), and my great-grandfather Christian Dorsch (age 33) set out to seek a better life. Like so many during that time other family members set out before them to get the lay of the land and later sent word to come to America. It was told to me that an uncle in the family sent word that he was settled and was farming the land and needed help. Unfortunately, my great-grandparents did not know they were being swindled and misinformed by that relative. When they arrived as German immigrants and headed west to South Dakota to work on their relative’s farm they quickly learned that the uncle did not own the farm, instead they were there and obligaed to help pay a gambling debt off in exchange for farming. Despite this rocky start and the trials and tribulations of being an immigrant in a new country, in the end, my great-grandparents ended up owning their own farmland and became successful farmers and had three more children.

Typical Ship Enroute to America from Germany

 

Copy of a Passenger Log of Immigrants to America

 

This assignment made me curious to see if I could actually find my grandfather's and his parent's passenger records at the Ellis Island website. After a brief search I was able to find their passenger record for all three of them. The previous address that they gave was from Eckernfoerde, Germany. The ship that they traveled on was called The Andania, which departed from Hamburg, Germany. They arrived at Ellis Island on December 15, 1923. The following link is what the website showed as being his record of entering America as a German immigrant:

 http://ellisisland.org/search/passRecord.asp?MID=14883535610888183168&FNM=HANS&LNM=DORSCH&PLNM=DORSCH&CGD=M&bSYR=1920&bEYR=1920&first_kind=1&last_kind=1&town_kind=0&ship_kind=0&TOWN=null&SHIP=null&RF=2&pID=601578050026

As we have learned throughout this class, individuals are shaped by interactions with others and the many social forces (Newman, 2012). Up to this point it is easy to see how the words of encouragement and a promise of a better future by another person influenced their journey to another country to start anew. In addition to this individual interaction, it is also important to look at societal forces that may have played a role in their decision to move to America. In 1923, Germany was experiencing major economic problems with hyperinflation and high unemployment. After viewing this YouTube video, you can understand why they were desperate to find new opportunities in life.

YouTube video explaining the Crisis in 1923 in Germany

 

In coming to a new country, no different than the immigrants of today, there are many challenges. The most obvious is how different immigrants are than the current citizens. They dress different; they have different values, beliefs, and come from a completely different culture. Then to make matters more difficult, they speak a different language, creating even a bigger gap between the current and the new members of society. I would think that the language barrier could have delayed their ability to shop, work, and create relationships with people who were not other German Immigrants.

I remember being a little girl and visiting my great-grandparents in the 70's. It was evident that even after forty-five plus years in America they still spoke very broken English. My grandfather later told me that he learned English faster than his parents, and became fluent when he attended school. He often had to act as an interpreter for his parents. I would think that the language barrier would have been a very big challenge, especially when you are dependent on your children to explain things that they may not be old enough to comprehend. Another problem that this language barrier can pose is the inability to assimilate in to the American culture.

I believe some of the immigrants of our past, like the Germans, had some advantages over others in our history. For example, I think that history has proven to be less tolerable to those immigrants of color, adding additional racism to the already sensitive situation of welcoming newcomers. The other advantage that I think my ancestors reaped the rewards came in the form of timing. They got out of Germany before all hell broke out as well as America was in the time of needing workers and farmers. Whereas, if they were arriving today, in a down economy, they would be met with opposition and fear that they should not be able to use our resources, get hand-outs, and take our jobs away from us Americans.

Why is the Subject of Immigration Volatile?

In today's world the common things that occur and the reactions that surface when immigration is present, I think is why the subject of immigration is so volatile. Out of the many things that Newman (2012) lists , I think the most prevelent reason for the conflict is fear and the threat that immigrants pose on the people already there. Fear and threat acts as a fuel to the fire, creating a volatile reaction to immigrants. Especially, when the economy is in a down swing and there is a large influx of immigration in a given area. This only increases the fear that these immigrants will come in and take all of the jobs, bog down our educational system, and deplete our healthcare resources by potentially bringing in diseases, or freeload. It is feared that if they do not take all the jobs then they must be milking the welfare system (Newman, 2012). All of this and more, like the different values, beliefs, and norms they bring to America makes people fear that they will have a permanent change on America, leaving it as place they will no longer recognize.

In contrast to fearing immigrants and creating confict, I would like to end on a positive note. Newman (2012) mentions that those who interact more with immigrants "at work, at school, or in the community can reduce these feelings of threat." These people who do not hold the antiforeigner sentiments have less of these adjustment problems and negative feelings towards immigrants than those "natural" citizens who stand-off on the sidelines and only create more fear, hate, animosity, discrimination, prejudices, and even racism towards these people who are wanting to immigrate to a great country like majority of our ancestors did. Hence, this is how we all got here, why is it all of a sudden not acceptable to allow anymore?

 

References

Newman, D. (2012). Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: 9th Edition SAGE Publications.

German Ship Picture http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Antie2eseH_kKk0j_bzCH62bvZx4?fr=yfp-t-701-s&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&p=pictures%20of%20german%20immigration%20ships

http://ellisisland.org/search/passRecord.asp?MID=14883535610888183168&FNM=HANS&LNM=DORSCH&PLNM=DORSCH&CGD=M&bSYR=1920&bEYR=1920&first_kind=1&last_kind=1&town_kind=0&ship_kind=0&TOWN=null&SHIP=null&RF=2&pID=601578050026