Is it true that many Americans have German ancestry? And is that something that affects Americans, like do they talk about it etc.?

I'd have to look it up because I don't know the actual truth of it.

That being said, I've heard claims of German ancestry on both sides of my family, so I guess anecdotally that fits with what you've heard. A lot of my living relatives are based in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania which I believe have a lot of Dutch and German influence, so it does make sense.

On the topic of "African-American", that's a complex and nuanced thing that's hardly analogous to white, Caucasian people identifying with their distant relatives such as Irish, Scottish, German, etc so I wouldn't personally consider that being anything even remotely synonymous. It's hard to put into words, other than to say there's no comparison between people whose ancestors willingly came to the USA hoping for a better life versus those who were forced into it with no say on their own part.

Having said that, most multi-generational white folks don't normally call themselves "Irish-American" or "German-American". Those types of terms are usually only used by people, who for instance, their parent literally is a citizen of Ireland or German. Most white people whose families have been in the USA for generations toyingly refer to themselves as Irish, German, Italian, etc because of the privilege and presumption of the "American" part of it, if that makes sense.

There is a lot of German ancestry throughout the country for sure. There’s a section of Philadelphia called Germantown because of the significant number of German immigrants that settled there. There’s also the Amish and Mennonites you may have heard of that are prevalent in PA and Ohio. The Midwest US’ culture of beer brewing was largely a product of all the German immigration. I think nearly half of people in Wisconsin have German ancestry if I recall correctly. What’s crazy too is, in the 20th century there were American towns that spoke German as the primary language. WWI mostly put an end to that though because there was a good amount of xenophobia that came out of the war.

As for American interest in their German ancestry, it definitely exists. There’s a German American club near my hometown. There are Oktoberfests regularly held throughout the country as well. My neighbors wear lederhosen for it, even. I assume our celebrations are poor facsimiles of what goes down in Bavaria, but it’s still a blast to drink beer and eat German food in the fall regardless. Americans overall like to look into their family heritage and there’s definitely a good amount of pride around it for most.

One final thing I will say about the German immigrants is, they were overwhelmingly slavery abolitionists and really helped drag the country out of the shameful institution. German and Irish immigrants made up a huge part of the Union Army. Immigrants are a good thing; people would really benefit to learn that.

My American grandma (my mom is from England)cane from a super German family. They were 48ers that moved here following the upheaval of 1848, and maintard a lot of German roots. They spoke German at home up until 1914, when they decided it would be bad for someone to overhear them speaking in German, but he still retained enough that he didn't use any English when he traveled to Germany in the 60's. He was the first of his family to go to college,and he went to a German college in town, that his kids, his grandon, (my dad) and his great grandsons (my brother and I) also attended. I grew up going to UCC churches (formerly the Reformed German Church), but i definitely identify much more with the English side of the family, and have a super English sounding name.

Around Ohio we still have loads of people with German names, but not too many people speak any amount of German. German immigrants were more or less immediately accepted in American society in a way that Catholic Irish, Italians, and now Hispanics, weren't. While there are still historic German districts in cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, St Louis, and Philadelphia, Germans were integrated in American society and paved the way to loads of American staples like pork chops, hot dogs, hamburgers, lager beers,etc. Oktoberfest celebrations have become a lot like st.patricks day where the holiday is now about heritage than any actual event.

People don't really talk much about German ancestry though because pretty much every white American (and many Mexican Americans) have a bunch of German ancestors, or even a german last name like Scherzer, Kershaw, Verlander, Anheuser, Busch, Mueller, or Kuhrs. So while most Americans have German ancestry, but few discuss it unless a parent or grandparent was actually born in Germany, Rammenstien AFB not withstanding

The main impact to me is that I'm annoyed that my ancestors immigrated from Prussia at just the right time for me not to be eligible for birthright citizenship from either Germany or Poland.

They do. There was a big wave of emigration from Germany after the conservative clampdown of 1848, which included religious minorities such as Mennonites and those with progressive and radical views. (The latter bolstered sentiment for the abolition of slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.)

They even had a dialect of German in Texas (Texasdeutsch), which was spoken in various communities until WW2. Some linguists from a German university travelled to Texas about 20 years ago to interview the handful of (then elderly) speakers and study the dialect.

There was a period was German was the second most used language. Much of American culture was influenced by German immigrants. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Americans?wprov=sfla1

I am from the Midwest and one of my grandfather's spoke only German until he went to school like the rest of his town. So there is influence. However, like mentioned below most of this German heritage got removed and self-censored around WWI and WWII. So these German influences were removed, hidden and "assimilated" into more mainstream American culture. There are traces around here in surnames, our beer culture as well as our love of sausages but lots of loss into the more dominant American "white" culture.

You will see that lots of European cultural idiosyncrasy, cultures, food traditions etc. were dropped and conformed to be part of the dominant American white culture. There are some traces but a majority dropped their own culture to pick up conformality in the larger United States. Which is frankly sad. When talking about this is gets obvious that the definition of who is considered "white" and what cultures are included and excluded is not some static definition but depends on the times. You can see if from the various waves of discriminations against different newer groups for food, language, religion etc.

I think a lot of Millennials and younger are working on bring back these regional cultural identities based on what their grandparents held on to and / or hide. There are culture centers for European origins in my city there is a German, Swedish, Slovakian cultural centers as well as those of non-Europeans such as Hmong. I know I have been trying to get more in touch with my northern Germanic roots in a healthy non-problematic way.

There are Amish communities in Wisconsin that exclusively speak German to this day. Usually one or two young people will know English but the older generation doesn't.

I believe English may be larger but it becomes tricky to measure. The English generally came here earlier and so there is much more admixture with other groups than with descendants of more recent immigrants. Black Americans especially often have English ancestry but this is not widely discussed.

As other have said, lots of German things in Pennsylvania. There were many waves of German migration.

My grandfather and his siblings could speak Pennsylvania Dutch, but none of that got passed down after that.

It looks like the thread from the other day is gone about are German families tougher on themselves than American ones, but I talked there about how there wasn't much sharing of anything, so with nothing passed down about our German heritage, I have no connection to it whatsoever. If you asked if I was from a German family, I'd say yes, but it doesn't mean any more to me than that.

I think it's unfortunate that I don't know much about my family, but none of them were big talkers.

Tongue in cheek answer: yes, you can tell based on our recent acceptance of fascist ideology. It's in our blood.