03.06 War at Home Honors

In relation to the War of Terror that began after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, there are many similarities that can be drawn along with the way German Americans were treated during WW1 attitude wise, issues that surfaces, and actions taken in the two eras.

“The German-American and Irish-American communities were strongly in favor of neutrality; they spoke out strongly against massive U.S. loans and arms sales to the Allies as a violation of neutrality. Theodore Roosevelt, who was president from 1901-1909, had questioned whether these communities were loyal to their mother country or to the United States, saying that ‘hyphenated-Americans who terrorized American politicians by threats of the foreign vote were engaged in treason to the American Republic.’”(1) Saying this, many German Americans were doubted and discriminated against because of their originality. Likewise, many Islamic and Arabic Americans faced many comments of “Terrorists” after 9/11 due to their originality. Because of this treatment, there caused many similarities because attitudes of the German Americans and Islamic and Arabian Americans.

Many actions were taken against German Americans once the United States entered the war in the ally forces. “Once the U.S. entered the war against Germany and the Central Powers, a search for spies and saboteurs escalated into efforts to suppress German culture in America. Many German-language newspapers were closed down. Public schools stopped teaching German. Many of the numerous churches which had been founded by German-speaking immigrants stopped holding services in German and began changing over to English. The result of all of these was a blurring of German ethnic and linguistic identity in the face of rising anti-German sentiment."(1) Due to such visible ethnicity opposition, the actions taken against each were evident when in quoting ” "There are things that are said in the media about Arabs and Muslims that would never be tolerated or...