Why should the Palatine boors be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and by herding together establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of us Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs, any more than they can acquire our complexion.
Benjamin Franklin: Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751)
Those Germans in Pennsylvania nearly had the constitution (and thus following legal documents) be written in German as well. I feel like that’s a possible shift in how future immigrants would have been assimilated, if there were precedent to allowing non-English at that level, maybe there’d be at least more pronounced and longer lasting non-English speaking communities rather than defaulting to the English dominated WASP culture that is hegemonic. Idk just mayo thoughts
Benjamin Franklin: Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind (1751)
Zamn… the world will never again reach this level of racism, the westfalen
I bet we’ll see it again as material conditions deteriorate
He also called Germans swarthy/dark-skinned.
He called Swedes swarthy, the guy was operating on a whole different level of racism.
Look at these swarthy Eastern hordes!
Those Germans in Pennsylvania nearly had the constitution (and thus following legal documents) be written in German as well. I feel like that’s a possible shift in how future immigrants would have been assimilated, if there were precedent to allowing non-English at that level, maybe there’d be at least more pronounced and longer lasting non-English speaking communities rather than defaulting to the English dominated WASP culture that is hegemonic. Idk just mayo thoughts