America is Germany?

This article gave me a lot to consider about the identity of this nation. While it is true that the proportion of the German American in the United States since the arrival of new types of immigrants and that more and more of German Americans started identifying themselves as American, the German culture has been integral in forming the identity of America(with the exception of beer, of course). Although I knew that the Mid-West was where the Germanic/Nordic people immigrated following the tragedies back in Europe, I did not realize that there were a large population in the East Coast and the West.

The answer to the question how Germans mass-immigrated is rather long. At the time of enlightment era and beyond, Prussia was continuing to annex the smaller German states to unite the German-speaking people. Some states' people believed in Catholicism and they came to America to escape the religious persecution. This is ironic because Prussia opened the border to those who were escaping the persecution from the Catholic churches. But for most of the people, the reason they came here was for the economic and political freedom that the New World provided. The freedom to have one's own property and the freedom of speech were unheard of in "Germany" at the time.

While some areas of the country retain the cultural identity of the past, most of the population was eventually integrated into the mainstream American culture because of the advent of WWI. Many opted to do so because they were afraid of provoking an anti-German sentiment to the rest of the community.