For many, rural America conjures up images of farming, backward lifestyles, poverty, training grounds for right-wing militias, migrant workers. Let’s face it: many teenagers and adults see rural America as boring. Thus, it should not come as a surprise that German textbooks dealing with the culture of the United States prefer to treat the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles, New York City and Chicago. Nevertheless, I would propose that rural America does indeed have much to offer, especially when focusing on America’s most beloved ethnic group.

The Old Order Amish are a small but fascinating group which seeks separation from the outside world and rejects many of the core American values, such as rugged individualism, gender equality as well as religious pluralism. Nevertheless, this highly stereotyped and complex group has ironically become an American icon. Their struggle has been one to retain their traditional way of life against the backdrop of modernity, globalization, media attention, technology as well as curious, well-meaning Americans and tourists from all over the world. Considering the wealth of tourist destinations, news reports, Hollywood and TV movies, films, YouTube videos, popular songs, blogs, novels and memoirs, it is somewhat surprising that not more has been undertaken to make sense of what Donald Kraybill calls the “Riddle of the Amish” in the German classroom.

In this paper, I will give a brief introduction to the Old Order Amish, their core values, and strategies for survival. Then I will discuss some of the myriad of materials that could be used to develop both culture specific and culture general teaching materials, and finally focus on my project “Life Writing – Writing Life” at the Leuphana University Lüneburg, in which the students delve into Ex-Amish Ira Wagler’s New York Times Best Seller, Growing Up Amish. The memoir has often been seen as the step-child of literary studies and criticism. Yet non-fiction offers a myriad of possibilities as an intersection between language and culture. Growing Up Amish gives a voice to a group of the voiceless, while offering an insider’s view to a culture that up-until-now has largely been viewed from the fish-bowl perspective of news reporters and scholars.