The German Diaspora Reaches New Mexico

Tomas Jaehn. Germans in the Southwest, 1850-1920. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005. xii + 242 pp. $24.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-8263-3498-5. Reviewed by Walter Struve Published on H-German (July, 2006) Tomas Jaehn's book on German migrants to conclusions appreciably. For the sake of conve‐ New Mexico and their progeny during the period nience this review will follow his usage, which from New Mexico's organization as a U.S. territory understandably is not always consistent. through World War I is mistitled. The phrase "in A far more important issue is how much is the Southwest" should be replaced by "in New gained by studying an area of the United States Mexico." Only occasionally does Jaehn generalize where few Germans went. Through statistical about the Southwest. There is to my knowledge no studies and comparisons with German immi‐ other substantial monograph on Germans in New grants elsewhere in the United States, Jaehn Mexico. Inevitably, many readers will judge the demonstrates that useful perspectives can be book on the basis of how well it fills this gap. gained regarding New Mexico, the Southwest, Jaehn defines as "German" anyone born with‐ German immigrants elsewhere in America and in the boundaries of what became the German na‐ (although he does not pursue this last issue), the tional state of 1871, or anyone with at least one study of migrants and ethnicity in general. Some German-born parent or grandparent. This defini‐ of the best parts of Jaehn's book are extended dis‐ tion excludes Austrians, German Swiss and many cussions of German travel literature on New Mex‐ German-speakers from Central and Eastern Eu‐ ico and the Southwest. He shows that most Ger‐ rope. The same definition includes many Poles, man writers on the region tended to underplay or Sorbs and others whose frst language was not ignore the role of Hispanics and greatly overesti‐ German. However, these are minor problems. It is mate the presence and role of Native Americans. unlikely that an appreciable number of German- Jaehn argues that Germans in the Southwest speaking immigrants in New Mexico came from did not have the same need to assert their ethnic outside the boundaries of Bismarckian Germany. identity that the far more numerous Germans in Use of a more--or less--inclusive definition of "Ger‐ the Midwest and the Middle Atlantic States felt. man" would be unlikely to have altered Jaehn's He emphasizes two reasons for this contrast. The H-Net Reviews first is that so few Germans went to the Southwest he is making. His fnding that successful German that little was to be gained through ethnic organi‐ merchants tended to leave New Mexico is tantaliz‐ zations. According to Jaehn's statistics, the New ing since he provides few details. Jaehn's con‐ Mexico territorial census of 1850 turned up 292 tention that German merchants brought capital‐ Irish and 224 Germans; Germans comprised only ism to New Mexico is difficult to assess since he 0.3 percent of the population of 61,547. Jaehn doc‐ fails to define the crucial term "capitalism." uments that, although from 1850 to 1920 Germans In an appendix on the occupations of Ger‐ were one of the largest European ethnic groups in mans in New Mexico, Jaehn indicates the basis for New Mexico, they were never more than 1.1 per‐ his analysis of their social and economic situation. cent of New Mexico's total population (pp. 29-30). He is working with treacherous, difficult-to-em‐ He fnds in the presence of a large Hispanic ploy categories. For example, Jaehn writes: "I con‐ population in New Mexico a second reason why sider German barbers, who learn the trade, mem‐ the Germans of New Mexico were not inclined, as bers of a trade, and musicians, who presumably were their brethren in the East and Midwest, to attended college, as professionals" (p. 148). Leav‐ found ethnic associations such as chorale societies ing aside the syntactical problems in this sen‐ and Turnvereine. When Germans began to arrive tence, I gather that when Jaehn refers to "musi‐ in New Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century, cians" he is following the usage of the American Jaehn reasons, political and social life there was censuses and combining what in German are two dominated by Hispanics, who were tolerant of distinct occupations: Musikanten, people, often other Europeans and whose political and cultural itinerants, who learned to play popular and folk hegemony the Germans did not challenge. Jaehn music in bands and the like on the job; and what has ascertained that almost all of the early Ger‐ are usually described as Musiker, the principal man arrivals were males, many of whom married performers of what we designate as "classical mu‐ Hispanics and raised Spanish-speaking children. sic." Jaehn's reference to "attending college" does The early German arrivals were mostly mer‐ not make sense for either type of musician. Most chants--large and small, itinerant or with fxed of the conservatories and Fachhochschulen of to‐ places of business. A substantial proportion were day did not exist in the nineteenth and early German Jews, Jaehn observes, who were consid‐ twentieth centuries. ered, and considered themselves, part of the Ger‐ Jaehn distinguishes two periods from 1850 to man community. Jaehn implies that this climate of 1920. They are not sharply delineated. The frst tolerance in New Mexico was unusual, but it was extends to the 1870s or 1880s and ends when, as a common in nineteenth-century America. Jaehn result of the extension of the railroad, substantial might usefully have compared the situation of the numbers of American migrants arrived in New German merchants in New Mexico to that of the Mexico. Only then, according to Jaehn, did Ger‐ German merchants in nineteenth-century Mexico, mans in New Mexico sense a need to organize and especially in Mexico City, a subject on which there assert themselves as an ethnic group; even then is a substantial literature in English, Spanish and the founding of ethnic organizations did not occur German. At the very least--and this criticism ap‐ at the same tempo and scale as in the Middle West plies to Jaehn's book as a whole--he might have and the East. For Jaehn, World War I did not bring fleshed out his abstractions about German New to New Mexico such heavy-handed anti-German Mexicans with more substantial examples. He Americanization measures as it did to the Mid‐ presents lists of German family names with little west and East. He suggests that World War I en‐ discussion of how they are relevant to the point abled the Germans of New Mexico to merge with 2 H-Net Reviews the Anglo-American majority at the expense of It is difficult to calculate whether this description Hispanics and Native Americans. This conclusion of Jaehn's subject or of Rölvaag's principal charac‐ meshes nicely with Russell A. Kazal's fndings in ter is the faultier. his recent study of German Americans in Phila‐ Despite faws and blemishes, Jaehn's study is delphia: Protestant German Americans succeeded a welcome addition to the literature on the histo‐ in identifying themselves as "old stock" in the af‐ ry of acculturation and German Americans. A gap termath of World War I.[1] In Jaehn's terms they in the history of the German diaspora has been became "Anglos." Both Kazal and Jaehn recognize narrowed by an ambitious book. Jaehn and his the role of the decline in German immigration be‐ publisher have produced a handsome, well-illus‐ ginning in the late nineteenth century as an un‐ trated book with a nice binding and a superb dust derlying factor in the waning of German ethnicity jacket. in the United States. They follow the major trend Notes in historiography (including John A. Hawgood and Frederick C. Luebke) by regarding World War I as [1]. Russell A. Kazal, Becoming Old Stock: The a powerful accelerator of tendencies toward the Paradox of German-American Identity (Princeton: dissolution of what Hawgood called "German Princeton University Press, 2004). America."[2] Jaehn contributes significantly to the [2]. John A. Hawgood, The Tragedy of Ger‐ study of ethnic assimilation. man-America: The Germans in the United States A number of minor errors have found their of America during the Nineteenth Century--and way into Jaehn's study. Although the book is gen‐ After (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1940; reprint, erally well written, the author stumbles occasion‐ New York: Arno, 1970); Frederick C. Luebke, ally. For example, he refers to people "performing Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World patriotic speeches" (p. 135). Another slip is per‐ War I (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, haps partly a function of age. He alludes to "care 1974). packages" sent to Europe by people in the United States after World War I (p. 137). There were American relief efforts in Europe following both world wars, but the acronym C.A.R.E. (Committee of American Remittances to Europe) is a product of World War II. There are also other obvious er‐ rors. One of Jaehn's best illustrations shows Adolph Bandelier, an important student of New Mexico, visiting the territory in 1880, but the op‐ posing page implies that Bandelier frst came to New Mexico in 1882 (pp. 22-23). (As Jaehn ac‐ knowledges, Bandelier was a German Swiss.) Some of Jaehn's allusions confuse more than they clarify. Invoking O. E. Rölvaag's great novel about Norwegian settlers on the North American fron‐ tier, Giants in the Earth, Jaehn characterizes New Mexico's Germans as "Per Hansa types" (p.

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