My German cousin (I'm 1/2 that) ran one of this country's (then) largest cities and just missed out on getting elected to the Senate. Half the family lived in the sticks and the others in the cities. All that "race mixin'," couldn't make up their minds. :-P
Germans always had a weird place in American culture. Two World Wars disrupted the natural immigration patterns. They also arrived with skills, which also screwed up the patterns, but made it easier for them to assimilate.