Noted: A recent study debunks the idea that our immigrant ancestors quickly learned English and the American ways. Researchers Joseph Salmons, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Miranda Wilkerson, now an assistant visiting professor at Western Illinois University, discovered that many immigrants ignored English and relied solely on German schools, churches and business for decades and two or three generations.
“After 50 or more years of living in the United States, many speakers in some communities remained monolingual (in German),” the authors wrote. In one town, the Irish immigrants new to America learned German to fit in.