The neighborhood where I grew up in San Francisco, the Noe Valley, was, in my childhood, a blue collar 'hood with predominantly equal halves of Irish and Italian descendants; there were a few Chinese, some Hispanic, and a fair amount of German descendants. In the 50s and into the early 60s, being openly German, as far as culture was concerned, was shied away from by the German descendants; the sting of WW2 was still a bit fresh; there was also a situation with some of the older citizens of San Francisco, who either survived the quake or were offspring of the survivors: the great bulk of real estate and buildings were insured by insurance companies headquartered in Germany; when the 1906 Fire & Earthquake devastated almost all of the city, the German companies quickly closed their offices and never paid off on their policies, leaving citizens who were already in dire straits with no where to turn; the animosity engendered by the companies actions were only compounded by WW1 & WW2. I don't recall ever seeing cultural gatherings or celebrations for the German portion of SF and that was unusual since almost all the other culture had at least annual celebrations; I never saw a German cultural event until I got to Los Angeles...
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