For centuries, migrants from the heart of Germany have hoped for a better life in the United States of America, for human rights, peace and democracy. Countless took their chance and changed their new homecountry for the better. Like members of the Giessen Emigration Society in the 1830s. Like Edmund who dreamed of becoming a ship's captain. Or like Ruth, a Jewish child who had to flee from her village in 1938, and became an Accidental American.