Abstract

Much had already been published about German immigrants to the United States and their history and language by 1983, the tercentennial commemoration of the founding of Germantown in Pennsylvania, and this occasion stimulated further scholarship (see, e.g., the bibliography by Tolzmann, 2007, and publications by the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, http://mki.wisc.edu). Since then, however, little has been written about more recent German immigration and even less about the desire of Germans to maintain their native and heritage language and culture in the United States. German language preservation is presently not perceived as vital by German scholars and researchers in the United States or by government officials here or in Germany.