ABSTRACT
In the years leading up to the First World War, German immigrants and their descendants built up vibrant and visible communities in most of the major states of the western hemisphere. Their communities were particularly strong in large nations such as the United States and Brazil, but they also had considerable presence in smaller agricultural states like Guatemala. With the outbreak of war in 1914, Germans in North, Central and South America faced three major difficulties related to state policy and individual action, namely 1) official restrictions; 2) economic warfare; and 3) popular violence. Despite having a reputation in the nineteenth century for being ‘positive’ and patriotic immigrants, Germans and German-Americans found themselves defined as enemies by governments from Canada to Argentina, with broad implications for their citizenship status, their commercial interests, and their educational and social institutions.1
