Emma Gingerich: Breaking Amish interview

[NachosFlandersStyle]

I don't think it's absurd that a culture would approach sound and image as distinct issues. Even mainstream culture wrestles with this. Lots of people are willing to be quoted in the paper, for example, but ask if they want their picture printed and many will balk.

 

But speaking of PBS, there's an American Experience about ex-Amish that you can watch on their website. It raises an issue that seems to have been true for the woman in the article, too: most Amish men speak fluent English and have done business with the "english." But women are likely to face much larger language and culture barriers when leaving. One more way that "separate spheres" keep women's options limited.

[EmmieJ]

The PBS series I referenced in an earlier post is Food Forward.  Unrelated to being Amish or breaking free, but I do recommend it for anyone interested in various sustainable ways to produce/harvest the food we eat. 

[AlysonRR]

On 2/19/2016 at 10:03 PM, Rhetorica said:

My husband and I moved to Missouri in 2005, and hearing about her departure about the same time reminds me how much I wish I could help others trying to leave. But since I wasn't raised in the Midwest, I don't have strong connections to the Amish around here (now in Iowa).

I seem to remember Mose Gingerich had a relatively large group of ex-Amish in Missouri that helped ex-Amish, particularly youth, get established.  He's been in a few documentaries and has a website.  He might have contacts in your new area who could advise you how to connect with Amish people wishing to leave.

[Rhetorica]

1 hour ago, AlysonRR said:

I seem to remember Mose Gingerich had a relatively large group of ex-Amish in Missouri that helped ex-Amish, particularly youth, get established.  He's been in a few documentaries and has a website.  He might have contacts in your new area who could advise you how to connect with Amish people wishing to leave.

Yes, we actually lived in the same area for several years. I got in touch with him after I watched a (pirated?) VHS tape of Amish in the City and looked him up. We emailed a few times, but then lost touch when he had some health problems and then got very busy making the National Geographic documentaries. Since I was in grad school at the time and could speak to some of the cultural issues from a more academic perspective, he put me in touch with the filmmakers and I actually did a brief interview with them. (It didn't make the final cut which didn't surprise me since we were working under a serious time crunch and I didn't have enough time to get comfortable in front of the cameras.) According to what he wrote on his blog, it seemed that the publicity was often overwhelming to him, so since we'd never actually met (he wasn't on set the day I was there for filming), I didn't pursue getting in touch. I'm still friends with him on FB though, so that's a good idea. Thanks!

I will say, however, that I've been put in awkward situations by outing myself to other ex-ers, and as a result I've become a little gun-shy. There was a maintenance guy at my (former) workplace whose name/accent was obviously of Amish origin. When I mentioned my background to him, he took it as a license to get all kinds of familiar with me. It was super unprofessional and awkward and I did my best to avoid him after that. Clearly the guy was still dealing with the trauma of his family rejecting him so many years ago, but I was not offering to become his confidant on-the-spot while sitting at work where any of my colleagues could walk in at any point and hear him recount his life history--and hear him speculate about my sex life too. Gah!

Let me be clear, I don't think Mose would behave like that at all! But it was a wake-up call for me that reaching out to other ex-ers has risks because our individual identities are much more complex than just being ex-ers. We are also so many other things too. And just because someone else is an ex-er doesn't necessarily mean I want to spend a lot of time with them. But still, if I knew of someone wanting to leave, I'd do everything within my power to help. It's just that in the back of my mind I'm aware that I have no idea what I might be getting myself (and my husband and kids) involved in.

[Rhetorica]

I wanted to respond to some of the discussion about Amish and cameras. Something that might bring some clarity is remembering that the Amish have never allowed them, and given their generalized resistance to newer technology, they don't necessarily do much soul-searching about why or why not a specific technological innovation is forbidden. Of course, you'll get a few unofficial spokespeople or an outsider sociologist giving their take on the reasoning behind it, but in reality the vast majority of Amish individuals have spent less time thinking about cameras than any one of us talking about it here. This is my biggest pet peeve about many scholars who study the Amish: they state the official position about X issue, but never mention the fact that this doesn't necessarily reflect the actual motivations in the context of the lived experiences of most Amish people. It's far more typical that an Amish person doesn't have a camera because 1) it didn't occur to them and if it did 2) their family members would rat them out and get them in trouble with the ministers. And so they get on with life as usual.

As for interactions with tourists, not surprisingly, if you're not around cameras much, you feel awkward in front of them. On top of that, smiling and performing would send a message that you like the attention which is the fastest way to lose any credibility among your associates. Not because of the camera, but because you are showing off. And that would just be embarrassing. Even though there is a great deal of performativity in the culture (as in any culture), there is simply no space for overt performance or calling attention to yourself as an individual. It's not that you're overtly punished for doing so, but you might get ribbed for it and if you do it enough, you'll get a reputation.

[umsami]

Interesting article.

 

On a weird note, I think she looks kind of like Daisy in "Downton Abbey" in her "Amish garb" photo. 

[AlysonRR]

1 hour ago, Rhetorica said:

And just because someone else is an ex-er doesn't necessarily mean I want to spend a lot of time with them. But still, if I knew of someone wanting to leave, I'd do everything within my power to help. It's just that in the back of my mind I'm aware that I have no idea what I might be getting myself (and my husband and kids) involved in.

I get that completely. It might be necessary for you to help in hands-off kinds of ways, depending on your read of a person - an introduction to a sympathetic employer or potential roommate, that sort of thing instead of bringing them into your home.  Your family has to come first.  But it's nice of you to want to help :-)

[elliha]

On 2016-02-19 at 6:23 PM, samira_catlover said:

From what I understand, it's a mixed problem between "don't make graven images" and "if you are in a picture, that is very worldly and helps to foster your vanity, that you look all nice and pretty". 

Have heard that Amish kids, when confronted by English photographers who INSIST on photos (English=people in the world), are told to stick their tongues out to the sky.  (If you put your tongue out to the English, you are being very rude, and that is ugly. The sky does not mind tongues or feels rudeness, and it does not make a nice picture, so the English will probably not take the photo.)

Here in Southern Maryland, FWIW, farmers do not seem to mind terribly if English park their cars and stare all entranced for half an hour at men and boys plowing with horses---but we're not whipping out cameras, because ugly.

I have read a bit on the blog Amish America and the approach seems to be different in different groups. Some don't mind having their pictures taken at all, they just don't walk up to you and tell you to take a picture. Some are OK with picture if you don't ask first as they are obligated to turn you down if you ask. Some are OK with pictures where people are in the background such as taking a picture of an Amish farmer plowing a field because the person is not the focus, the activity is. Others allow their children to be in pictures but not adults. The children are not members and thus not obligated to follow Amish rules. The whole "taking my soul" is probably not a common explanation. 

[Peas n carrots]

From what I understand, it's a mixed problem between "don't make graven images" and "if you are in a picture, that is very worldly and helps to foster your vanity, that you look all nice and pretty". 

Have heard that Amish kids, when confronted by English photographers who INSIST on photos (English=people in the world), are told to stick their tongues out to the sky.  (If you put your tongue out to the English, you are being very rude, and that is ugly. The sky does not mind tongues or feels rudeness, and it does not make a nice picture, so the English will probably not take the photo.)

Here in Southern Maryland, FWIW, farmers do not seem to mind terribly if English park their cars and stare all entranced for half an hour at men and boys plowing with horses---but we're not whipping out cameras, because ugly.

I have read a bit on the blog Amish America and the approach seems to be different in different groups. Some don't mind having their pictures taken at all, they just don't walk up to you and tell you to take a picture. Some are OK with picture if you don't ask first as they are obligated to turn you down if you ask. Some are OK with pictures where people are in the background such as taking a picture of an Amish farmer plowing a field because the person is not the focus, the activity is. Others allow their children to be in pictures but not adults. The children are not members and thus not obligated to follow Amish rules. The whole "taking my soul" is probably not a common explanation. 

I'm guessing the Amish person who said the "taking my soul" line was yanking the question asker's chain.

I imagine it must be a massive cultural shift to go from a communal society where the good of the group is held in higher regard to the individual's needs to the mainstream culture which is highly individualistic.

@rhetorica could you comment on your own experience? Was the shift somewhat easy and easier than say, an English person converting to Amish?

[SweetFellowshipper]

Wow, amazing!

I've heard about the graven image belief (same reason they don't have dolls with faces). Regardless, I love the "sticking out your tongues at the sky" idea--it's incredibly rude/essentializing/exploitative to take photos of anyone (and their children! My goodness!) who isn't a public figure.

[Crocoduck]

Thanks for sharing this. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Amish. On the surface they seem less threatening than a lot of the fundie groups we discuss. They don't vote or advocate for public policy changes that would affect my life at all, so I don't tend to worry about their extremism. However, interviews like this always remind me their are darker things going on behind the quaint surface.

[Rhetorica]

2 hours ago, Peas n carrots said:

@rhetorica could you comment on your own experience? Was the shift somewhat easy and easier than say, an English person converting to Amish?

Sure. In fact, ages ago I started an Ask Me Anything thread (linked below). After I found it, I realized that you were the one who prompted me to do that.  

Yes, I do think the shift away from Amish is definitely easier. Of course I had the benefit of a bit more education and exposure while growing up than most Amish young people have. So all the years of reading library books helped prepare me. True confession: As a teen I read Emily Post etiquette books like they were anthropological studies. So even though all that reading didn't come close to resolving all the social awkwardness, it gave me an awareness of some of the ways the broader world worked differently.

In contrast, people who want to convert have none of those resources available. Sure, you can read Donald Graybill, David Kline, and Pathway magazines but that is an extremely insufficient basis for learning the dialect and all the traditions that have been passed down orally for 400 years. The cultural norms are so deeply ingrained and so rarely questioned that the Amish themselves aren't always fully aware of them, and outsiders only stumble onto them when they don't conform. On top of that, few Amish are welcoming to outsiders joining their community. Converts usually last only a few years and then leave in frustration. If you don't have an existing family network, you will have a terrible time finding your place in the culture. It's not that they mean to be rude, it's just that they're doing what they've always done and they don't really know what to do with outsiders once more than a few hours have gone by. Their tradition is one of European peasants who have spent many years trying to retreat from the world; evangelism/recruitment is just not a priority. (This is where the Beachy Amish differ. They do value evangelism for the most part, having been influenced by more mainstream evangelical fundamentalism. But they still cling to so many aspects of the culture and expect converts to assimilate with the same ease that most Americans expect ex-Amish to assimilate into mainstream American culture, that their success rates with evangelism are pretty dismal.)

Obviously, I'm making some pretty broad statements here. There are exceptions to all these claims, but in my experience, this is usually how it works.

 

[elliha]

The Amish are extremely diverse so I think that some groups are truly not toxic at all but it is not a life for everyone and thankfully some groups also recognize this and do not use the more aggressive ways of shunning. Some groups might allow more choice in some areas of life and people will not feel that their life are dictated even though they live a life with less choice than non-Amish do. I assume that there is a comfort in knowing more easily what is right and wrong compared to my own life and the close-knit communities are also a very strong benefit. If you are ill your sisters and friends will come and help and you do the same if something happens to them. You go and visit people and share your chores or just have a chat. You might not be a remarkable person but at least you are someone's son, brother, aunt, cousin and so on and while that is perhaps not the greatest thing, at least you are not a nobody. 

What I would like to know is how many children leave the Amish from families that are more popular and influential (because while most Amish will not admit to there being such families there are bound to be some) and how many who come from families lower down in the pecking order. My guess is the more popular your family is within the community, the more opportunities and the more freedom you will have and thus retain more children. I would also like to know the difference between Amish families with higher and lower income and their children's choices.  

[Rhetorica]

1 hour ago, Crocoduck said:

Thanks for sharing this. I've always had a bit of a soft spot for the Amish. On the surface they seem less threatening than a lot of the fundie groups we discuss. They don't vote or advocate for public policy changes that would affect my life at all, so I don't tend to worry about their extremism. However, interviews like this always remind me their are darker things going on behind the quaint surface.

I'm with you on this! From time to time I find myself swinging from one side to the other as well. I know of so many of my loved ones who have experienced abuse only to have it pushed under the rug by authority figures--perfectly sweet people you would never guess would betray their own daughters like that. And then a few years ago I went to my cousin's wedding and was blown away by how egalitarian the wedding sermon came across (yes, they have sermons at weddings), especially in contrast to the nutso fundy patriarchy we critique here. So, yeah, a real mixed bag!

[Rhetorica]

7 minutes ago, elliha said:

The Amish are extremely diverse so I think that some groups are truly not toxic at all but it is not a life for everyone and thankfully some groups also recognize this and do not use the more aggressive ways of shunning. Some groups might allow more choice in some areas of life and people will not feel that their life are dictated even though they live a life with less choice than non-Amish do. I assume that there is a comfort in knowing more easily what is right and wrong compared to my own life and the close-knit communities are also a very strong benefit. If you are ill your sisters and friends will come and help and you do the same if something happens to them. You go and visit people and share your chores or just have a chat. You might not be a remarkable person but at least you are someone's son, brother, aunt, cousin and so on and while that is perhaps not the greatest thing, at least you are not a nobody. 

What I would like to know is how many children leave the Amish from families that are more popular and influential (because while most Amish will not admit to there being such families there are bound to be some) and how many who come from families lower down in the pecking order. My guess is the more popular your family is within the community, the more opportunities and the more freedom you will have and thus retain more children. I would also like to know the difference between Amish families with higher and lower income and their children's choices.  

Yes. The problem is that you don't get to chose whether you are born into a toxic or a healthy situation. And if it is toxic, it has to get very, very bad before anyone will intervene. Their core values of submission to God's will and forgiveness for those who have wronged me can be powerful, but it's a situation where when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So your in an abusive situation? Well, forgive and try to be nicer and wait for God's timing to change the situation. And everyone else looks away and pretends the situation doesn't exist. 

As for your second paragraph, those are very good questions that don't have clear answers. For one thing, I still have not figured out exactly how class differences work in Amish culture. They are certainly there, but in the context of a collectivist culture, they function very differently from those in the post-Eisenhower-era, post-industrial, hyper-individualist American mainstream. I haven't found a good framework for theorizing how class differences in Amish culture work and I don't know of any scholarship on this either. My gut sense is that it is a lot more messy. I think this gap in scholarship does expose a weakness in ethnographic studies of the Amish (or any culture for that matter) when they get treated as a homogeneous group and not the scattered network they actually are. (Ah! There's my next research topic! )

One observation that is relevant here is that it seems to me that people typically stay unless they feel disconnected from both their families and the church. If they dislike the church affiliation, but are in a close-knit but healthy family that provides them both connection and a satisfying degree of autonomy, they typically stay. If they are in a dysfunctional family, but find solace and meaning in the church, they typically stay. It's once they've had it with both, that they are ready to make a break for it. 

[justwatching]

15 hours ago, AlysonRR said:

I seem to remember Mose Gingerich had a relatively large group of ex-Amish in Missouri that helped ex-Amish, particularly youth, get established.  He's been in a few documentaries and has a website.  He might have contacts in your new area who could advise you how to connect with Amish people wishing to leave.

Thank you for mentioning this.  I had the Mose but wasn't sure on the Gingerich & didn't want to embarrass myself by posting the wrong name.  I've seen some of his videos and they seem to vary on the realism (one in particular), but for the most part I think they're pretty accurate.

[elliha]

I think my fascination with the Amish come from seeing some similarities with the culture I grew up in northern Sweden. Up until the 20th century and for some 50s-60s people didn't have that much contact with people outside their local area. One travelled up and down the closest river or walked through the forest but some regions had no or only poor roads so there was a lot of depending on the people you know and are close to and even after us "joining the rest of the world" the culture is extremely collective. I kept my maiden name in one part because I like it but also because I know that if I would ever move back I come from a "good" family and saying that name instead of my husband's will make a huge difference. I as a person is not that important but my dad, brothers and uncles and to an extent my mom, sister and aunts do too. My husband is a nobody since he is not from our town or even from the area. 

The culture is extremely complex and a lot of unspoken rules are in place and mostly I haven't noticed them until I moved away. My husband was absolutely confused why I got mad because a woman at a market was nosy asking me veiled questions about my ethnicity when she heard which area I come from. This is a total no no, the area has three different ethnicities and the general understanding is that unless you reveal yourself through your dress, language or by stating what you are yourself you have the right not tell anyone. Asking someone to their face is outright rude but if you are nosy you can notice little things and make your own conclusions or ask questions that might give you a clue. She asked me about my food habits which differ slightly and may be an indicator and I understood what she was doing and gave her a very wage answer that was basically "I know what you are doing and I don't want you to know my ethnicity and you are making me very uncomfortable" but sounded like an answer to anyone not on the inside. 

[Rhetorica]

59 minutes ago, justwatching said:

Thank you for mentioning this.  I had the Mose but wasn't sure on the Gingerich & didn't want to embarrass myself by posting the wrong name.  I've seen some of his videos and they seem to vary on the realism (one in particular), but for the most part I think they're pretty accurate.

I've only seen clips of the National Geographic videos, and I have to say I cringed a lot. Not saying it's bad film-making or any more scripted than your typical reality TV show, but still. Eep. 

[Rhetorica]

57 minutes ago, elliha said:

I think my fascination with the Amish come from seeing some similarities with the culture I grew up in northern Sweden. Up until the 20th century and for some 50s-60s people didn't have that much contact with people outside their local area. One travelled up and down the closest river or walked through the forest but some regions had no or only poor roads so there was a lot of depending on the people you know and are close to and even after us "joining the rest of the world" the culture is extremely collective. I kept my maiden name in one part because I like it but also because I know that if I would ever move back I come from a "good" family and saying that name instead of my husband's will make a huge difference. I as a person is not that important but my dad, brothers and uncles and to an extent my mom, sister and aunts do too. My husband is a nobody since he is not from our town or even from the area. 

The culture is extremely complex and a lot of unspoken rules are in place and mostly I haven't noticed them until I moved away. My husband was absolutely confused why I got mad because a woman at a market was nosy asking me veiled questions about my ethnicity when she heard which area I come from. This is a total no no, the area has three different ethnicities and the general understanding is that unless you reveal yourself through your dress, language or by stating what you are yourself you have the right not tell anyone. Asking someone to their face is outright rude but if you are nosy you can notice little things and make your own conclusions or ask questions that might give you a clue. She asked me about my food habits which differ slightly and may be an indicator and I understood what she was doing and gave her a very wage answer that was basically "I know what you are doing and I don't want you to know my ethnicity and you are making me very uncomfortable" but sounded like an answer to anyone not on the inside. 

Oh, my gosh, yes! I can identify with so much of this, especially the part about not being aware of the unspoken rules until you're outside the culture. One difference is that in Amish culture it's expected practice to ask about where you come from--unless of course you're one of the millions of interchangeable "English" people out there who (as my non-Amish husband would say) are treated as though they came from a test tube.  In fact, it's the standard parlor game--find out how many different ways you are connected and all the acquaintances you have in common. But there are a million other things that work very much like you describe--the seemingly innocuous questions that are trying to discern something vital but unspeakable. So interesting--makes me want to switch fields and be a comparative sociologist or anthropologist or something!

I'm curious about the role of education in your home region. What percentage of young people typically go to college and what effect does that seem to have on the cohesiveness of the community? 

[justwatching]

24 minutes ago, Rhetorica said:

I've only seen clips of the National Geographic videos, and I have to say I cringed a lot. Not saying it's bad film-making or any more scripted than your typical reality TV show, but still. Eep. 

I'm glad you said this - when I saw later in the post that you were on familiar terms with him, I felt bad about what I had said.  Our Sunday School class watched the Nat Geo videos one year, and we were pretty disappointed.  I think we weren't really aware of what the subject matter was actually going to be.

I grew up GC Mennonite, and now attend an MC church (we're the only district that didn't merge into MCUSA).  When we moved here 15 years ago, there were still 3 ladies who wore coverings to services  - along with teenagers in jeans & shorts lol.  There are 2 members here now who have close ties with the Amish, one who's parents left shortly before or after he was born, and another who is Mennonite but grew up in an Amish community near here and had an Amish best friend.

While I don't relate to many of the more extreme or fundamentalist views they hold, their way of life is parallel to my heritage, and I enjoy seeing glimpses into what life was like for my great-grandparents and, to a certain extent, grandparents.  I really regret that I didn't spend more time as a little kid sitting around the table after Sunday dinner while the adults all visited (sometimes in German). ETA after reading your latest comments: and played The Mennonite Game  

My apologies for the tangent.

[justwatching]

Switching gears, in a way, I assume by the title of the post and the familiarity of the picture of her, that this is one of the cast members of the Breaking Amish show (I never watched it).  I would like to see an interview with her on the making of the show, why she agreed to do it, and how she felt about misleading viewers by pretending to just now being in the process of moving on.

[elliha]

9 minutes ago, Rhetorica said:

Oh, my gosh, yes! I can identify with so much of this, especially the part about not being aware of the unspoken rules until you're outside the culture. One difference is that in Amish culture it's expected practice to ask about where you come from--unless of course you're one of the millions of interchangeable "English" people out there who (as my non-Amish husband would say) are treated as though they came from a test tube.  In fact, it's the standard parlor game--find out how many different ways you are connected and all the acquaintances you have in common. But there are a million other things that work very much like you describe--the seemingly innocuous questions that are trying to discern something vital but unspeakable. So interesting--makes me want to switch fields and be a comparative sociologist or anthropologist or something!

I'm curious about the role of education in your home region. What percentage of young people typically go to college and what effect does that seem to have on the cohesiveness of the community? 

Establishing connections is very important too. "Who is your father?" "Oh yes, I bought a sofa from him, great sofa, I still have it 20 years later, still in great condition. Didn't your sister work at the hospital at one point?" "Yes, but that was a long time ago" "Sure it was but she worked with my best friend." and so on until you have established all the relationships that are there and the more the better.

I have no numbers on education but most people nowadays finish high school. When my parents were young many went to school for about 7 years vs. 12 years now. Much more women go to college than men. Men tend to choose physical jobs and even if they go to college it is often for "manly" things like engineering. Men tend to go to school as close to home as possible while women are more prone to leave and go further away. Schooling in general is "womanly" and while men are not supposed to be stupid (fail completely) they are rarely asked to excel academically. Girls are praised for being intelligent and told that they can be whatever they want. It is so strange that the culture which clearly favors men still doesn't seem to have a problem with intelligent, independent, strong women and I would say that this is even sought after. A good wife/girlfriend makes a man better even if she is good at manly things. Men even brag about their wives and their skills, I don't think women ever brags much about their husbands even if they do have a good one. It goes back to the old days when men might be gone for months at the time for example to work and knowing he would return to a house and farm in full working order when he got back was of course a bonus. Sadly, the women being told that they can do what they want with their life often do and leave to go to college and not everyone returns (I was one of the ones that stayed in my new town). This means that there is a shortage of women in almost every town and even more pronounced in some towns. Men have their value in the culture but women can often find value in many other places. I truly miss the tight relationships between family and friends but I am glad my little boy growing inside of me right now can have more choices and not just have rigid male roles or not be a real man. I almost hope he will be something my relatives would find a bit embarrassing...

[FlamingFundie]

I find the Amish culture (from an English POV) to be incredibly fascinating. I know all facets of society have their skeletons in the closet, but honestly the Amish I come into contact with either are incredibly awesome or know really REALLY well how to hide it. 

That said, can someone clue me in a bit on something? My husband's family used to host exchange students every year, mostly from Germany as that is my husband's family's heritage. Anyway, the last German girl they hosted had a friend visit her here in the states. I drove them to a local mall for some shopping, and on the way we passed several Amish buggies. Very common here in my area, so I didn't think much of it. But these girls whipped around and got all excited about seeing real Amish! You would have thought they were preteens that just caught Justin Beiber walking in their neighborhood! I was caught so off guard that I didn't think to ask why they were so geeked about seeing a real Amish family. Suddenly I was the coolest person in the world to them because I was driving them by Amish communities. lol

And I agree with a PP who mentioned that he/she thinks sometimes Amish talk German/Penn Dutch around us English just so we don't know what they are saying, haha! Makes me feel a little self-conscious when a group of Amish girls are in front of me at the Tasty Freeze, giggling and speaking another language...

[justwatching]

2 hours ago, FlamingFundie said:

I find the Amish culture (from an English POV) to be incredibly fascinating. I know all facets of society have their skeletons in the closet, but honestly the Amish I come into contact with either are incredibly awesome or know really REALLY well how to hide it. 

That said, can someone clue me in a bit on something? My husband's family used to host exchange students every year, mostly from Germany as that is my husband's family's heritage. Anyway, the last German girl they hosted had a friend visit her here in the states. I drove them to a local mall for some shopping, and on the way we passed several Amish buggies. Very common here in my area, so I didn't think much of it. But these girls whipped around and got all excited about seeing real Amish! You would have thought they were preteens that just caught Justin Beiber walking in their neighborhood! I was caught so off guard that I didn't think to ask why they were so geeked about seeing a real Amish family. Suddenly I was the coolest person in the world to them because I was driving them by Amish communities. lol

And I agree with a PP who mentioned that he/she thinks sometimes Amish talk German/Penn Dutch around us English just so we don't know what they are saying, haha! Makes me feel a little self-conscious when a group of Amish girls are in front of me at the Tasty Freeze, giggling and speaking another language...

My grandparents used to do this all the time.  Mostly when talking about things they didn't want us grandkids to hear; quite often in the field during a breakdown lol.

[OnceUponATime]

14 hours ago, FlamingFundie said:

 

That said, can someone clue me in a bit on something? My husband's family used to host exchange students every year, mostly from Germany as that is my husband's family's heritage. Anyway, the last German girl they hosted had a friend visit her here in the states. I drove them to a local mall for some shopping, and on the way we passed several Amish buggies. Very common here in my area, so I didn't think much of it. But these girls whipped around and got all excited about seeing real Amish! You would have thought they were preteens that just caught Justin Beiber walking in their neighborhood! I was caught so off guard that I didn't think to ask why they were so geeked about seeing a real Amish family. Suddenly I was the coolest person in the world to them because I was driving them by Amish communities. lol

 

To my knowledge Amish don't exist outside of America - it really is a bit of a novelty thing I think if you haven't seen them before (along the lines of how some people say their lil white babies are gushed over in Central America).
Plus then you have things like Amish romance novels (because that is a genre, I'm not joking Amazon has over a thousand of the things for your kindle). If she liked reading them she might have been really excited just like people get excited for spotting a TV-star or a musician.
There are a few things I wanted to do growing up that were a bit quirky based on novels that romanticized certain lifestyles like live a year in a kibbutz and live a year with an Amish family.