July 28, 2014
NOTE: Leaders of German American organizations in the Coalition for the National Museum of the American People today issued the following statement.
As representatives of the single largest ethnic group in the United States, we believe that German Americans should have their stories about becoming Americans told along with every other ethnic and minority group in the National Museum of the American People.
The museum, which is about the making of the American People, will tell our story in its fullness from the first German immigrants who came and helped to create our nation through today. German Americans are the leading ethnic group in 23 states stretching from the Atlantic across the nation to the Pacific including Florida, Pennsylvania and all of the states in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest and most of the Rocky Mountain states.
German Americans have played a central role in creating our strong, prosperous and creative nation. We believe that the National Museum of the American People near the heart of Washington, DC will be the best story-telling museum in the world. There are more than 50 million German Americans and we will certainly come to see our own stories, and visitors from Germany will come to learn how their former countrymen and women contributed to this great nation. Americans from every other group will also come to see their stories and will learn about everyone’s rich and dramatic history of becoming Americans.
After visiting the National Museum of the American People, members of every ethnic and nationality group will have a better sense that we are all Americans. We need this one national museum in Washington telling every group’s story now and urge broad support for this effort by all German Americans, and by all Americans.