Alena Miller
Goshen College
Two Hispanic women were shopping at a gas station in Havre, Montana, a few years ago. They were friends, U.S-born citizens, and they happened to be conversing in Spanish. A border patrol agent stopped them and asked to see identification. When they asked if he was joking, he persisted. They both showed their Montana drivers licenses. He deflected their claims of racial profiling and instead claimed, “It’s the fact that it has to do with you guys speaking Spanish in the store in a state where it is predominantly English speaking, O.K.?” Though in the U.S. it is not legal to ask for identification solely based on race or language, he continued to check their backgrounds (Hagg).
Borders are established not just by constructing physical walls; they are also established through ideological boundaries that separate who is or isn’t accepted in a society. In the United States, Latin American immigrants are sometimes seen as outsiders. A Pew Research Center American survey found that “illegal” was the most common word associated with immigrants in the United States, followed by “jobs,” “deportation,” and “freeloaders” (Lopez, Krogstad & Barrera). As Vilma Ortiz and Edward Telles notes: “Persuasive anti-immigrant sentiment and treatment has also worked against all Mexicans whether immigrant or born in the United States. Viewed as alien and low status, Mexican immigrants were (and continue to be) scapegoated and targeted for mistreatment” (45).
While there is much research that has established the white perspectives of Latin American immigrants, this article examines stereotypes held against people of Latin American origin by comparing them to parallel views of the Amish in terms of citizenship and belonging. In doing this, I hope to expose the imagined ideological borders and border communities that have been created. Neither group I study is part of mainstream America, making both the Amish and Latino/a immigrants part of “border communities.” For the Amish, however, this separated social space is by choice, while in a simultaneous reality it is imposed, without choice, on many people of Latino descent. Oscar J. Martínez writes, “The essential functions of a border are to keep people in their own space and to prevent, control, or regulate interactions among them” (5). Like a physical border, the symbolic border of language also does this. By examining the perceptions of white (non- Hispanic) Americans toward the primary languages spoken by these two groups (Spanish and Pennsylvania Dutch), this study finds that the race and ethnicity of these two language communities leads two opposite constructions of the groups’ perceived worthiness as citizens and their right to remain culturally/linguistically distinctive within American society.
The people I interviewed include experts on borderlands and Latino/a culture as well as experts on the Amish, who understand the Latin American connections in places like in Goshen, Indiana and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In addition I interviewed Hispanic and Anglo community members. The community members I interviewed are: Rocio Díaz, Estrella*, Gwendolyn [last name withheld by request], Gilberto Perez; Kate* and Rob* (*names changed to protect privacy). I also originally planned on interviewing Amish community members, but I met hesitancy among the Amish I knew or had approached. This was due to an outbreak of Covid-19 at the time among the Amish. Unable to complete these interviews with them, I relied on Amish scholars and primary sources instead.
Views of Americanness
Policies on language can reflect contempt or approval towards a people group, their race, and their culture. It is important to understand not only the way language shapes the perceptions of white Anglo Americans on the “Americanness” of Amish and Latin Americans, but also the role race plays in these perceptions. As Lourdes Torres notes, “For Latinos, our language practices, as well as our bodies, are criminalized and forever connected with illegality” (3). In my interview with Eric Morales, who specializes in Latin Folk Religions at Utah State University, he noted that one aspect of race is the existence of an oppressor group and an oppressed group. In this type of relationship, the “dominant” group sees the oppressed group as a threat. If the oppressive group wants to maintain dominance, they must continue to oppress.
Morales described “Aztlan,” a mythical territory of the ancient Aztecs which expanded from Mexico into the present-day South-Western United States. He says that there is sometimes a fear among far right-wing whites that Latinos are trying to take back their rightful land tied to their Indigenous Aztec blood. This supports the idea that oppressors must always fear those who they oppress because those who are pressed down to the very bottom can only move in one direction, and that is up. He says, “Aztlan became a pretty big talking point for right-wing media who were trying to say that Mexicans and Latino/a immigrants were trying to come here and take over the area, because it is that idea that it belonged to us at one point, our Indigenous blood is still a part of it.” This right-wing fear is rooted in the act of Latin American people moving across land and lines to live in the U.S. Even if Latino people are patriotic, even if they pledge their allegiance to the red, white, and blue flag, simply their presence in the political boundaries of the U.S. is a threat to the political structure that gives power to whiteness in America.
On the other hand, the Amish, who refuse to join the army or swear an oath in court, and primarily speak a German dialect, are not perceived as a threat to this very same political structure in America. According to Morales, this has to do with their lack of political influence:
You always have to look at what’s going on with power. The better off Black people are getting, the more say that they’re having in the economy, the more say they’re having in politics. The better off Mexicans are getting, the more say they’re getting as well. Until the Amish really organize and try to take over political districts or try to take over the state of Pennsylvania’s politics, I’m not sure people are gonna see them as a threat.
The Amish are a group that emphasizes humility, simplicity, and separation from the world. It goes against their beliefs to be involved in politics. Although a small percentage of Amish are registered to vote in some areas, the large majority are not, Steven Nolt, professor of Anabaptist studies at Elizabethtown College, said in an interview. Because the Amish try not to make themselves stand out, the American public tends to see them as simple, quiet country folk who just mind their own business.
Rather than seeing themselves as “citizens,” the Amish largely view themselves as “subjects” under the rule of the government. This is part of their belief of separating church and state. Joseph Springer, curator of Goshen College’s Mennonite Historical Library, describes this:
A key part of [the] Amish self-understanding is separation from the world, and another key understanding is a universal commitment to Christian pacifism. An Amish parent would never be pleased (and most Amish youth would never even consider) to have their child join the military … Because the Amish consciously want to align themselves with the Kingdom of God rather than the kingdoms of the world–the use of symbols of national citizenship/allegiance (such as pledge and flag) would be very rare.
The opinion of Amish as good citizens was reflected in my interview with Kate, who is white and was raised, and still lives, in the almost all-white town of Huntington, Indiana, with her two young children. When I asked her what she thought of the Amish, she referenced the Black Lives Matter protests going on around the country then:
What I know about the Amish, they are very hard workers, and they provide for their families, and, you know, I think of them just being a good citizen, minding their own business. Don’t get involved in everybody else’s problems, and don’t cause problems. Not that I know of. I haven’t heard of any of them getting in anybody’s way or, you know, protesting, doing any of that kind of stuff that’s going on right now.
In her statement, she equates protesting for Black Lives Matter to causing problems and not being a good citizen. She implies that, unlike the Amish, Black people are not working hard because they are too busy causing problems for “everybody else,” implying white people. She equates “minding your own business” and “working hard,” to being a good citizen. To her, being a good citizen means maintaining the status quo. It doesn’t matter to her that the Amish don’t pledge allegiance to the American flag, they won’t join the military, and that they speak German (and do not lose the language, unlike the children or grandchildren of many Latin American immigrants). The Amish are white and therefore, at least implicitly, not a threat to her identity. In the end her perception of the Amish as white was more powerful in creating a space for belonging than her “American” ideals.
Morales recognizes that race plays a role in how separatist groups like the Amish are perceived. He thinks that if there were a Black group exactly like the Amish, they would get a lot more harassment and pushback: “Whenever there are histories of segregated minority communities doing well, there has been violence [towards them]. You know, like the Tulsa race massacre, Black Wall Street.” Again it comes down to the idea of threat because the existence of powerful Black or Brown people still pose a threat to nationalistic white identity.
White nationalistic identity is unreflective of the impact of colonialism, chattel slavery, lynchings, exclusion, systemic oppression, segregation, murder, and theft. To be proud of whiteness is to live in fear that your skin will one day cease to be invisible and that your race will be held accountable for the atrocities it has created. Whiteness exists as a result of a long colonial history that aimed to assert control and dominance over American lands and peoples. As Morales puts it, “Latinos have an Indigenous claim to the land. The Amish do not. Latinos are in a much larger area and encompass a much wider population than the Amish. The Amish are much more segregated.” Because of this, the Amish are not often seen as a threat to “whiteness” or “Americaness” even though they may not conform to all of white colonial standards in terms of their beliefs. Mita Banerjee maps out the way in which certain immigrant groups are wanted and others are rejected. Although the Amish are not recent immigrants, and many Latinas/os are not either, her way of thinking still applies to these two groups. Banerjee says:
Certain immigrant groups may seem to the national imaginary more desirable than others. This preference of some immigrant groups over others is often couched in terms of cultural compatibility: only those immigrant communities seem desirable as potential citizens, whose cultural habits, religion, and mores seem compatible with the dominant culture of the country they seek access to. In the North American context, the concept of ‘desirable civil subjects’ has been closely intertwined with the notion of “whiteness.” (103)
This can be seen in Rob’s positive view of the Amish and negative view of Latinos. Rob lives in Huntington, Indiana, is white, and in his late 70s. His great-grandfather moved there from Germany in the late 1800s, and his family has been living in Huntington ever since. Rob was in the military during both the Vietnam War and the U.S.’s first invasion of Kuwait in 1990. He is a school bus driver in Fort Wayne and through this job has interacted with the children of immigrants and with children from many diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds. These experiences have somewhat shaped his white world view, though he still sometimes refers to African Americans as “colored.” When asked about why Mexican immigrants join the military he said, “You know they may not have the money. That’s why a lot of them talk about service, you know going into the service. Because you sign the paper and you get a bonus.” He was not convinced that they joined for the same patriotic reasons he himself had. He said, “Well, when they first go in they probably may not be [patriotic].” He thought that they joined because they might be able to attend college or receive money. “They don’t want to go back home, a lot of them don’t want to go back home. They’re here for the dream. Uh, work, um, make money, have a house. The kids have clothes, food on the table. That’s what they’re coming for.”
In his view, immigrants come to America for “the dream,” which refers to the “American Dream.” They come to make money and get rich, not to be patriotic or to comply with the arbitrary standards that make a “good” American citizen. When asked if the Amish were good citizens, even though they refused to join the army, he excused that position as a religious belief and answered with a story illustrating the good nature of the Amish. His friend’s tractor got stuck in a flooded field and his Amish neighbors offered to plow the field with their horses. He implied that even though the Amish are not patriotic and do not join the army, they can be good citizens because they help out those in need. Rob is very willing to see the Amish in a good light, and even excuse their unpatriotic tendencies, but he was not convinced that people of Latin American descent were bona fide “good citizens” even when they demonstrated their patriotism with the ultimate act of commitment: joining the U.S. military.
When Rob talks about non-Anglo groups of people he connects race and language:
A lot of my friends there in Fort Wayne, um, bus drivers and stuff. They were Hispanics from California and bus drivers and some of them very broken English but most of them spoke English. Um, a lot of times when you see them it’s their stature, their tan, they’re more tan [than] we are and supervisors are African American. Some of their language is different than mine. Mine is different than theirs.
Rob is conscious of race and of language, which for him represents a “different” type of people than him. This is true even if the person speaks English with a different accent, such as some of the African Americans he described. As a bus driver he has had his eyes opened to the diversity of language and race that are present in places outside of small white towns like Huntington. His wife, however, has not had this experience. He recalls:
I was walking with people this last night in Walmart, and this whole family was speaking Spanish but it didn’t bother me, cause I heard it on the bus. But it bothered my wife. ‘Why can’t they just talk English? I think they’re either talking about me or.’ I said no, they’re just trying to know information, like what kind of food this is, or you know, and um, I said if they’re talking about you you’re probably staring at them.
Kate, the other Huntington resident, also reports a similar suspicion. When I asked her about her feelings towards people speaking Spanish in public, she answered:
It doesn’t bother me, but I guess … let’s take my daughter, for instance. She likes to go get her nails done. Um, I know they’re not Spanish speaking, but whatever they’re speaking in there, it’s like you always just wonder what are they talking about? Are they talking about me? I think that’s kind of–everybody has that kind of little thought. Like what are they saying…? But generally speaking it doesn’t bother me one bit. Like I know that’s their heritage, and if they want to speak it–have at it!
Kate claims she is not bothered “a bit” by hearing people speak languages other than English, but her anecdote about getting her daughter’s nails done contradicts this. She admits that she wonders if they are talking about her. She also says that she thinks “everybody” has that kind of thought. This statement implies that English speakers are “everybody” which reinforces the idea that Anglos are the in-group and people who don’t speak English, or possibly even the “right” kind of English are the out-group that does not belong. She also believes that learning English is a necessary part of becoming a U.S. citizen:
I know English is a primary… you know, that’s what we speak in the United States, so I think that they should like… Cause I know there’s a lot of people who don’t speak English and I wouldn’t say it’s an inconvenience to others, but it makes it hard. And it’s like to me, if you’re gonna live here, take some classes and start speaking it. Cause if I were to move to Mexico, I would wanna learn Spanish. You know so I guess it’s kinda hand in hand that we’d have to prove that you can speak some basic English to get by.
Some Anglo Americans find different accents and languages to be suspicious when the speakers are non-white. A pacifist non-patriotic, white Amish person with an accent is not suspicious. A Brown person who has an accent is suspicious. The Anglo perception of Americanness is influenced by language and race. Morales says:
The United States kept finding ways to highlight immigration of Europeans as normal and natural, and that of anybody else, as illegal and unfair. So when we think of immigration we often think of things like Ellis Island, and all the people arriving to Ellis Island were European. Whereas we don’t think of things like Angel Island. It was the port of entry on the West Coast, where people from Asia tended to arrive. The national image of immigrants has always been predicated on Europeans. I would argue that the national image of “illegal” has been predicated on people of color, specifically Blacks and people of Latin American descent.
As Kate put it when asked if language is important to citizenship: “I think so. And like I said, I think prove that–you know, if you’re marrying someone, that’s one thing, um, but don’t, uh, come to the U.S. to expect to live off the government. You know, find a job or try to find a job or do something. I think you should, that should be something they require for you, to have a job.” In her statement she reinforces the internalized distrust that people who don’t look like her are by default “bad” immigrants, perhaps even “illegal,” and they come to the U.S. to try and “live off the government.” Daniel Webb, an early American historian at The University of Chicago who specializes in Native American, U.S.-Mexico borderlands, and Latino/a history, summarizes this: “I think that…there is very little attention paid to the legacy of settler colonialism or to the larger history of race relations in this part of the Midwest.” He points out that without education and history, it is easy for white people to continue to oppress people of color through the ignorance they were taught growing up.
Assimilation and Separation
Historically, Latin American immigrants have used language to assimilate into mainstream American culture, while the Amish use language to separate themselves from it. My findings on this topic confirmed this, but also found exceptions. In my interview, Rocio Diaz talks about how the students she works with view speaking Spanish. Diaz works at Goshen College. She is an Associate Director of Student Life, is part of the English as a New Language program as well as the advisor for the Latino Student Union. Rocio moved from Mexico to Goshen, Indiana when she was young. She works with first generation immigrant students and their families as well as with DACA students.
She says that in the past students were ashamed of speaking Spanish because it made them seem “illegal.” “Now it’s a little different because there are many students [that] I do see a lot of pride in–that they’re bilingual and that they do speak Spanish.” In the recent past Spanish has been looked down on by many Anglos as a language of an “illegitimate” people, of people who did not belong in the United States. As Geoffrey Boyce, director of the Border Studies Program at University of Arizona, puts it:
People were speaking Spanish and Otum and Apache and all these other languages here long before anybody was speaking English. That historical fact reveals, I think, this huge contradiction in the way that people who are speaking Spanish throughout the country are often–not always, but often–kind of automatically seen as, and perceived as, being foreign; therefore, not having the same right to claim membership in the community, certain kinds of rights, and to be protected in the same way as white people, even if they speak Pennsylvania Dutch.
With Trump coming into office in 2017, Diaz says she has noticed a shift in attitude amongst the Latino student body. She feels that more of her students are proud of speaking Spanish and being Latino. She sees this as a form of resistance to the anti-immigrant and anti-Latino sentiment Trump has made apparent over his term. This same phenomenon also occurred with German speakers during WWI. According to Vasiliki Fouka, in places that heavily restricted or banned German, Germans actually began to speak more German as a form of resistance. They also began naming their children distinctly German-sounding names and marrying other Germans (213). In short, suppression often causes resistance and discourages assimilation. Because of similar circumstances, speaking Spanish has become a way for Latinos/as to show that they are proud of their heritage and resist white supremacy.
Yet despite this, there are still many times that the language is lost, whether intentionally or not. Diaz observes, “I see someone who looks like me and I immediately talk to them in Spanish, and a lot of them get offended because they don’t speak Spanish.” She says it’s important to remember that just because someone is Brown or looks Latino doesn’t mean that they speak Spanish.
Gilberto Perez, City Council Member for District 5 of the City of Goshen and vice president of student life at Goshen College, notes:
One thing I do believe that is occurring is the younger population (elementary to high school) are not speaking Spanish with high proficiency. If the student was born in Goshen, they will most likely speak Spanish at home until Kindergarten. Once children enter the school system they are taught English 180-plus days out of the year. While parents speak to one another in Spanish, their children start speaking to them in English. This is nothing new because I used to do the same thing. Interestingly, I speak English to my mother and Spanish with my father.
This demonstrates the generational shift from Spanish to English. By the third generation many people lose the ability to speak the language of their parents. Many of the “younger generation,” whom Perez describes, may be part of the second generation. He notes that the second generation is able to understand or speak Spanish to a certain degree of fluency, but they prefer English because they are surrounded by it in school. It is a transitional generation marked by degrees of bilingualism. However, the next generation will know only a little Spanish compared to their parents, and the next even less, unless of course, the language is intentionally preserved. This type of language loss shows the way in which many Latin American immigrants assimilate into “American” society.
On the other hand, the Amish are an intergenerationally bilingual society. They speak English, but yet they do not lose their German dialect. In fact, this language is one of the main ways that they define themselves from other Americans, or “the English” as the Amish say. As Springer observes, “Retaining the horse and buggy, retaining the German language, retaining dress–those things are part of what it means to be Old Order Amish.” It may seem strange that the Amish are able to keep speaking Pennsylvania Dutch when they live in, and interact with a society in which English is spoken. The Amish even teach in English in their schools. However, the Amish, unlike immigrants, are not in a transitional stage of losing or gaining language. Instead they operate in both English and German easily. In Mark Louden’s book Pennsylvania Dutch: The Story of an American Language, an Amish woman describes the importance of speaking her German dialect:
These hymns and prayers are sacred to us, written under conditions we can hardly imagine. We would not wish to lose this part of our heritage. Yet we must admit, we are not as much at home in the German language as our forefathers were. Therefore it takes more of an effort, yes, a real dedication, to keep the true spirit of these songs, prayers, and our German heritage alive. And to do this, we must understand what they are saying. (78)
The Amish use each language in a different sphere of life. Like two railroad tracks running alongside each other, Pennsylvania Dutch and English run parallel. English is the language of work while Pennsylvania Dutch is the language of the home. Nolt writes:
Languages are also used in different domains – home, religious settings, commercial transactions, education (sometimes a different language in primary education than higher education), mass media, legal documents, etc. Again, English monolinguals don’t think about this because they have only one language that they have to use in every domain, but many people in the past and around the world today switch back and forth from one language to another as domains change. The same for the Amish.
The Amish learn English to survive in the outside world, but they do not need it otherwise since they live in such tight-knit communities. Perez suggests, “In regards to Amish, I believe it is easier for them to keep speaking their language because they stop attending English school at eighth grade or so. This means that when they complete school there isn’t a need to speak a lot of English.” Since Amish mothers do not typically hold jobs outside of the home, there would be very little need for them to speak English on a daily basis. Therefore their children will also not need to speak English unless at school, and the men will not need English unless at work outside an Amish enterprise.
Conclusion
Language is at the core of any racial, ethnic, religious, or social group’s identity. The dominant culture in a society can see a non-mainstream language as a threat. That is often a part of the discrimination that Spanish-speaking communities face in the U.S. Within the Spanish-speaking community, Latin American immigrants may often work to assimilate themselves or their children through the adaptation of English. Or they may express patriotism for the U.S. by joining the armed forces, for example. Regardless of these efforts, however, they are often perceived by many white Americans as invaders– socially, economically, and linguistically. This is a result of bias and discrimination on behalf of white, or Anglo- Americans, stemming from the continuation of colonialism.
For Latin American immigrants, Spanish often feels like a wall keeping them out of U.S. society. For the Amish, who are of northern European descent and have been speaking a German dialect for over two-hundred years, this linguistic barrier does not affect them in the same way. The Amish are, in principle, against patriotic displays of loyalty. Their work to not assimilate and retain the language of their ancestors, however, is received as perhaps quaint, but acceptable, as an ornament to U.S. culture. The critiques that many Anglo-Americans have of Spanish speaking Latin Americans is twisted into a compliment when it comes to the Amish. Language is an important part of group identity, but it is also not an exclusive factor in determining the “acceptability” of a group of people into U.S. society.
My findings show that language is often closely tied to racial, ethnic, social, and religious identity. While a group may identify positively with their language within it’s own members, in the end it is the “in-group” or “dominant” racial and linguistic group of a society that has the power to determine whether that language and people group is “acceptable” or worthy of being given honorary citizenship status. It is no coincidence that the exceptions made for the white Amish community are not extended toward Latino/a Americans, who are perceived as non-white. In both cases, language acts a marker of identity, or as Morales puts it, a “shibboleth.” The perceived linguistic/racial identity demarcates one group as valid and the other as unacceptable. Language, in the end, is a powerful marker which dictates how others see us and accept our individual and collective identities.
Works Cited
Banerjee, Mita. “Naturalization and Citizenship in North America. Nischik, R.M. ed. The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative North American Literature, 2014.
Fouka, Vasiliki. “Backlash: The Unintended Effects of Language Prohibition in US Schools after World War I.” The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 204–239.
Haag, Matthew. “They Spoke Spanish in a Montana Store. Then a Border Agent Asked for Their IDs..” New York Times, 21 May 2018.
Lopez, Mark Hugo, Jens Manuel Krogstad, and Ana Gonzalez Barrera. “Many Latinos Blame Trump Administration for Worsening Situation of Hispanics.” Pew Research Center’s Hispanic Trends Project. 25 Oct. 2018.
Louden, Mark L. Pennsylvania Dutch : The Story of an American Language, Johns Hopkins U P, 2016.
Martínez, Oscar J. Border People: Life and Society in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands. U of Arizona P, 1994.
Nolt, Steven M. The Amish: A Concise Introduction, Johns Hopkins U P, 2016.
Torres, Lourdes. “Spanish Is Not Spoken Here!” Latino Studies, vol. 17, pp. 1-4. Mar. 2019.
Ortiz, Vilma, and Edward Telles. “Racial Identity and Racial Treatment of Mexican Americans.” Race Social Problems, vol. 4, pp. 41–56.