Earlier quoted context omitted.
German-Americans are (were?) the largest group in the US. It almost seems a miracle that German didn't become the main language in the US. I guess that since the dominant groups were English-speaking they had to adapt in order to get jobs.
Back then, it was like Spanish is in California. You see it everywhere, a huge number of people speak it, and there are a lot of Spanish-language media. However, English is still the dominant language. German used to be everywhere, being heard in the streets, with large numbers of German-language newspapers and cultural clubs. The Germans, being Germans, liked to organize themselves into clubs. It gradually died out,…
I wouldn't be so sure for that one, the thing is unlike German, there is a country with 120M of Spanish Speaking people a few miles away, as Mexico's GDP keeps growing, US economy will become even more dependent of Mexico's trade. My point is people will get more proficient at Spanish over time, not less.