Migrantische Netzwerke und Integration: Das transnationale Kommunikationsfeld deutscher Einwandererfamilien in den USA

Basierend auf einer Sammlung von 1000 Briefen deutscher Auswanderer in den USA analysiert dieser Aufsatz die Entwicklung und Bedeutung transatlantischer und deutsch-amerikanischer migrantischer Netzwerke über einen Zeitraum von 150 Jahren. Wir unterscheiden zwischen „starken“ und „schwachen“ Beziehungen, die diesen Netzwerken zugrunde liegen, und untersuchen die politischen Faktoren, die die verschiedenen Formen von Netzwerken prägen. Unsere Studie konzentriert sich auf die Schnittstellen zwischen den transatlantischen und deutsch-amerikanischen migrantischen Netzwerken. Sie kontrastiert dabei Elemente des 19. Jahrhunderts, ein Zeitalter dichter migrantischer Netzwerke, die sich weitestgehend ohne staatliche Einwirkung entfalteten, mit der schrittweisen Auflösung und geringeren Verbindlichkeit deutsch-amerikanischer und transatlantischer Netzwerke im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Bandbreite der bisher nur punktuell erforschten Auswandererbriefe veranschaulicht sowohl die Diversität von Integrationserfahrungen als auch die Gleichzeitigkeit von kultureller Anbindung ans Heimatland und wirtschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Integration in den USA über einen langen Zeitraum hinweg

Language, locality, and transnational belonging: remitting the everyday practice of cultural integration

This article explores how ‘ordinary’ German migrants in the United States reflected upon their local integration and transnational belonging with reference to their language practice in the period 1820–1970. The analysis is based on approximately 8,000 letters sent by around 700 German-speaking migrants who wrote, over varying time periods, to family members and friends still living in their places of origin. These letters provide insights into the migrants’ transnational communication networks over an extended time and from across the United States. Until the emergence of a fully centralised bureaucracy during the interwar period, most legislation affecting the living conditions of migrants varied significantly between US states. This raises the question whether the practices and narratives of belonging captured in the personal letters vary accordingly across locations, especially with regard to the balance between local and transnational belonging. Tracing this variation in sub-national destination characteristics, we argue that feelings of transnational belonging are not directly responsive to shifts in political conditions and resulting policies but rather pragmatic adaptations tailored to a particular local context. The maintenance of the German language or German community ties expressed in the letters also conveys an everyday practice of resistance or adaptation to local language policies in the US and remits concrete ideas about what it means to uphold a German identity

Integration and identities: the effect of time, migrant networks, and political crises on the Germans in the United States

This article offers the first large-scale analysis of the interlinked dynamics of integration and belonging based on perceptions of “ordinary” German-speaking migrants in the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our analysis draws on a corpus of over a thousand letters from the North American Letter Collection held at the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha in Germany. Through computer-assisted text analysis, framed by research on transnationalism and immigrant integration, we explore patterns in integration and identities over time. We show how the migrants continuously redefine their identities vis-à-vis their homeland and the host society, and their letters thereby shape the image of the United States and the homeland for their recipients. Our analysis establishes more comprehensively than have previous historical and social science studies that integration into a host society is a non-linear process. Immigrant identities are influenced less by the time they have spent in the receiving country than by critical political events that affect both the country of origin and that of destination. Such events can reactivate migrant's identifications with their homeland. Immigrant networks filter this dual process in that they can facilitate migrants’ integration while also reminding them of people and places left behind

The simultaneity of feeling German and being American: Analyzing 150 years of private migrant correspondence

Analyzing the long-term dynamics of migrant integration is a significant challenge for researchers. This paper traces how ‘ordinary’ German-speaking migrants in the USA expressed their sense of participation and belonging throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries in the letters they wrote to their families ‘back home.’ We study a large collection of migrant letters written by German-speaking immigrants in the USA between 1830 and 1970 and analyze this new data with methods of computerized text analysis. The investigation shows how migrants continuously make and re-make identities within and across their heterogeneous migrant ‘groups.’ Our paper highlights the strong incentives for social and cultural integration in the absence of restrictive host state policies. We also show that political events and crises affecting both the country of origin and the destination country act as a catalyst in redefining, at least temporarily, parts of the migrant identities in relation to both the sending and host states

Language, locality, and transnational belonging: remitting the everyday practice of cultural integration

This article explores how ‘ordinary’ German migrants in the United States reflected upon their local integration and transnational belonging with reference to their language practice in the period 1820–1970. The analysis is based on approximately 8,000 letters sent by around 700 German-speaking migrants who wrote, over varying time periods, to family members and friends still living in their places of origin. These letters provide insights into the migrants’ transnational communication networks over an extended time and from across the United States. Until the emergence of a fully centralised bureaucracy during the interwar period, most legislation affecting the living conditions of migrants varied significantly between US states. This raises the question whether the practices and narratives of belonging captured in the personal letters vary accordingly across locations, especially with regard to the balance between local and transnational belonging. Tracing this variation in sub-national destination characteristics, we argue that feelings of transnational belonging are not directly responsive to shifts in political conditions and resulting policies but rather pragmatic adaptations tailored to a particular local context. The maintenance of the German language or German community ties expressed in the letters also conveys an everyday practice of resistance or adaptation to local language policies in the US and remits concrete ideas about what it means to uphold a German identity

Migrantische Netzwerke und Integration: Das transnationale Kommunikationsfeld deutscher Einwandererfamilien in den USA

Basierend auf einer Sammlung von 1000 Briefen deutscher Auswanderer in den USA analysiert dieser Aufsatz die Entwicklung und Bedeutung transatlantischer und deutsch-amerikanischer migrantischer Netzwerke über einen Zeitraum von 150 Jahren. Wir unterscheiden zwischen „starken“ und „schwachen“ Beziehungen, die diesen Netzwerken zugrunde liegen, und untersuchen die politischen Faktoren, die die verschiedenen Formen von Netzwerken prägen. Unsere Studie konzentriert sich auf die Schnittstellen zwischen den transatlantischen und deutsch-amerikanischen migrantischen Netzwerken. Sie kontrastiert dabei Elemente des 19. Jahrhunderts, ein Zeitalter dichter migrantischer Netzwerke, die sich weitestgehend ohne staatliche Einwirkung entfalteten, mit der schrittweisen Auflösung und geringeren Verbindlichkeit deutsch-amerikanischer und transatlantischer Netzwerke im 20. Jahrhundert. Die Bandbreite der bisher nur punktuell erforschten Auswandererbriefe veranschaulicht sowohl die Diversität von Integrationserfahrungen als auch die Gleichzeitigkeit von kultureller Anbindung ans Heimatland und wirtschaftlicher und gesellschaftlicher Integration in den USA über einen langen Zeitraum hinweg