A century ago, it was German-Americans who were the target of suspicion, of accusations, of fears that they were trying to betray the nation, to turn American over to the Huns. They spoke their own language, don't you know, and had their own traditions, and there were millions of them in the United States.
Yeah, that sounds vaguely familiar.
(Fun Fact: Not only did World War I mark the end of German as the preeminent foreign language taught to school kids in the US, but it marked the end of Americans considering any foreign language study to be something we should value. [https://illinois.edu/blog/view/25/116243])
During World War I, U.S. Government Propaganda Erased German Culture
As the U.S. entered World War I, German culture was erased as the government promoted the unpopular war through anti-German propaganda. This backlash culminated in the lynching of a German immigrant.
I've read claims that German was more widely spoken in Pennsylvania than English up into the mid-1800's, and know from my own research that here in Colorado the first legislature passed laws saying all Colorado statutes had to be available in Spanish and German, which lasted until 1915.
In my family the family name Wilhelm became William in 1916.
It's the reason my moms fathers family's name went from Johansson to Johnson.