America is covered with footprints and fingerprints of Holland and the Dutch. Dating back not only to the time, four centuries ago, when Hollanders founded the new country. Today, perhaps more than ever, the United States shares a DNA with the builders and their dozens of millions of descendants.
From Nova Hollandia in Maine to the Jacob Dekema Highway in San Diego, from Miami’s founder Henry Flagler, grandson of Grandpa Vlegelaar and Grandma Van Oosterom, to Dutch Harbor in Alaska, everywhere you find traces of the land so nether that half of it thrives below sea level. The railroads, the automobile, the airplane, the oil: originated by guys who descended from Amersfoort, De Bilt, Bunnik, Breskens, Haarlem, Dalfsen.
The big names in Hollywood, the great writers, the great journalists, the great publishers, from Brando to Fonda, from Jolie to Bogart, from Mickey Mouse to Audrey. From Hemingway to Updike and from Whitman to Twain to Melville. From Cronkite to Brokaw to Anderson Cooper, and from Elsevier to Wolters Kluwer.
The largest American waste management company was originally called Huizenga of Bedum. America’s first largest mover was named Bekius from Hallum, Friesland and they tipped the U over, now Bekins. No farmer can do without the machinery of Iowa’s Vermeer from Gelderland. And Albert Heijn in Zaandam owns 2,300 American stores, Alkmaar-born Alfred Peet stood at the cradle of the 16,000 Starbucks branches, all major US airports are lit by Philips, and so are most traffic lights.
Thomas Edison hailed from Den Oever, but he was defeated by George Westinghouse of Bunschoten, and the Tesla has its roots in Vuren.
That’s why there is this newspaper, hence De Daily Dutchman, a weekly magazine about the daily Dutchness of America.
