This is a short expose about the beauty and history of immigration to the United States. Many of us spend time trying to find our ancestral roots. Overall the USA is truly an ethnic melting pot composed of people from around the world which has added to the greatness of the USA both culturally and economically over the last several hundred years. While the nation has over 340 million people, this essay shows how small the world has become.
It was a heady summer in New Orleans, where I found myself, a 21 year old fresh out of LSU Louisiana State University where I had been a classmate of today’s Majority Leader Steve Scalise. On that August day, I was walking through the cavernous belly of the Superdome.
There in 1988, amidst the hustle of delegates and politicos in the stadium halls, I said hello to the legendary Charlton Heston, and then, I caught sight of another interesting celebrity. A tall, commanding figure—six foot three, if not more and about 42 years old, with that unmistakable air of a New York billionaire, striding through the hall like he owned it. Of course, we all knew who he was; the man had a presence, one that made you stop in your tracks. It was Donald Trump. [i]
We, a handful of wide-eyed souls, seized the moment, stepping up to visit. He didn’t disappoint. Gracious as you like, shaking our hands, smiling for photos—moments frozen in time, captured in film and I still have the photo. He was in town, we gathered, to show his support for the likes of Bush, Reagan, and Quayle at the 1988 Republican National Convention.
Fast forward to 2005, the year my father, Judge Henry Mentz (A Reagan Appointed Judge), neared the end of his life journey. With the heavy weight of his wisdom on my shoulders, I found myself asking the question that had eluded me for so long: Where did our name Mëntz/Mentz/Menz come from?
My father, a battle-hardened WWII veteran who had marched under General Patton’s banner, survived the harrowing onslaught of the Battle of the Bulge, and walked the ice & mud-soaked fields of Europe, liberating France, Germany, and Austria—he couldn’t say. But he only one suggestion: “Look into Heidelberg, Germany,”. And so, I did. [ii]
By some twist of fate, I stumbled upon a Bavarian historian, a man who had access to military records from the King of Bavaria himself. It was through this unlikely connection that I discovered the name Mentz, which had been passed down like a well-worn heirloom, had roots in the southern reaches of the Rhineland-Palatinate, near the famed Southern Wine Route. [iii]
The story went deeper still. My great-great-great-grandfather, a man named Philip Mentz, had left this lush, Bavarian-landscape of vineyards in 1844, heading across the Atlantic to New York, then to Louisiana. The villages of Edesheim and Edenkoben, in that serene corner of southwest Germany near the French border, were where it all began. [iv] The birthplace of my family’s journey.
In 2007, I set foot in Heidelberg, where the past seemed to whisper around every corner. I stepped into the Heidelberg Library, and found that several people with my surname attended University in Heidelberg to achieve a degree in the 1700s.
From there, I made my way to Edenkoben, that tiny, picturesque village nestled among vineyards and history. The area was rich with stories, as old as the hills themselves, and even older than the ancient city of Speyer, where emperors of the Holy Roman Empire were once laid to rest. The likes of Emperors’ Conrad II, Frederick Barbarossa, and Philip of Swabia all shared their final rest in the Speyer Dome’s cathedral’s hallowed ground. [v]
While in Edenkoben, I found myself in the mayor’s office, face-to-face with Bürgermeister Werner Kästner. He didn’t know it, but he was a distant relative—a connection that went back two hundred years, to a man named Philip Kästner, who was the original bearer of the name that would evolve into Mentz.
A few twists of fate, and had George Menz not married Anna Maria Kastner who had a child, my name might very well have been Kastner or Costner. Yes, you read that right—Costner. As in Kevin Costner. In the same way via immigration, the Kastners became Costners, the Drumpf family became Americanized to Trump, and the Menz or Menzinger had become Mentz !
But it was in that mayor’s office that something even more remarkable happened. Mayor Kästner suggested that I visit Dr. Kuby, a historian whom I believed was deceased but was alive and well at 93 years old. A prominent Rhineland-Pfalz historian that I had read about, Dr. Kuby had spent his life documenting the German immigrants from this very Palantine (Pfalz) region who had made their way to America.
And there, in his modest home, we sat down over tea, exchanging stories, learning from one another. Like the tale of Roots, as told by Alex Haley, our shared history unfolded before me, enriching my understanding of who I was, and who we all are. During our talk, Dr. Kuby humbly disclosed had been a German priest and POW in Colorado during WWII—a remarkable coincidence, for I now call Colorado my home.
But it wasn’t until 2015 that the coincidence hit me. I had readabout Trump’s ancestry in the news, as it was often a topic of conversation in the media. When I dug deeper, I discovered the unthinkable: Trump’s ancestors hailed from a village called Kallstadt, just a stone’s throw away from Edenkoben & Edesheim. An unimaginable coincidence — Trump’s family name, much like mine, had roots in the very same region. Trump’s people had emigrated and immigrated to America in the 19th century, just as mine had.
It was in that moment, amid the vineyards and castles of the Rhineland, that I realized just how small and multi-ethnic the world truly is. My family, like Trump’s, was far from homogeneous. My father’s ancestry was a tapestry of English, German, Irish, Scottish, and Norman roots. My mother’s side was no less diverse: German, Sicilian, Hispanic, Alsatian, and Egyptian blood ran through her veins.
Through DNA testing, I uncovered even more, revealing connections to Spain, Portugal, Provence, Turkey, Dravidian/Hindu, and even Native American ancestors. It seems the world is remarkably connected, far more than we ever imagined, and the Trump family, children and grandchildren also have rich and amazing ancestry as well.
Similarly, after examining Trump’s roots, I was struck by an interesting fact: Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod, was born on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland, an island that was once part of the ancient Viking Norse Kingdom much like Greenland had been. [vi]
What makes all this historic is that Donald Trump was the first U.S. president in history whose mother’s first language was not English and the same with Melania Trump becoming the first immigrant who became the First Lady of the USA who learned several languages including English. [vii] Small details, perhaps, but it speaks volumes about the rich culture and ethnicity that shapes us all.
This story, at its heart, is not just about Donald Trump’s roots, but about our collective heritage. With modern tools like DNA analysis and genealogical research, we can peer into the past like never before. We can trace our lineage, uncover the stories of those who came before us, and perhaps, just perhaps, come to understand who we truly are.
It is still astonishing to me that my father marched with the Army through the Saarland Valley and Rhineland in 1945 without even knowing that his ancestors lived and work there a mere 100 years before.
After meeting Trump in 1988, I went on to earn a doctorate in law (JD), an MBA, and international law graduate diploma/certificate. As an international lawyer and professional, I became one of the first e-learning pioneers in the USA that have ever taught over 300 courses in law and business while authoring dozens of books, winning various awards and volunteering for several US presidents.
In 2019, I was honored to be appointed by President Trump as a White House Commissioner for The Presidential Scholars Commission. It was a superb appointment, but with COVID, we never traveled to the White House to meet the student recipients of the gold medals of excellence which I hope to do one day soon in the future. [viii]
And so, we are at the crossroads of time, where the President was reelected with a majority of votes winning a plurality of the ethnic vote. Even today, the German Wine Route still snakes its way through the rolling hills and fertile vineyards of the Rhineland. This winding path stretches through Bavarian villages such as: Kallstadt, Edenkoben, and Edesheim—places where the vines have taken root for centuries, nurturing the world’s most exquisite Riesling and wineries that are 800+ years old.
These villages are not merely places on a map; they are living monuments to the past, and a homeland to great thinkers such as Beethoven, von Gothe, Wagner, and Max Planck. This Bavarian region is so profoundly beautiful and unyielding in its charm that the locals, with quiet reverence, seem intent on keeping their secrets hidden from the wider world.
The cultural irony is that this part of Trump’s Germany and Bavaria is not a Beer region but rather an ancient Wine growing province where there Romans had forts over 2,000 years ago in nearby cities such as Speyer. Two thousand years later, a master named Stefan Mentz serves as the Winzermeister (Master Winemaker) at Winery of: Werner Anselmann which is a 400+ year old label near Kallstadt with a wine growing history going back to 1126. [ix] Today, the Trump family winery in Virginia is a special link to the Rhineland’s long-standing wine heritage and to the Trump’s of America.
In the end, President Trump has always supported immigration to bring in great people from all nations. Donald Trump has always supported H-1B visa programs, which allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations. [x] In 2018, Trump even offered to accept 1.8 million immigrants and DREAMERS living in the shadows but Trumps generous offer was rejected by democrat leaders. [xi]
For many years, Donald Trump also has proposed policies allowing international students graduating from U.S. colleges and junior colleges to automatically receive green cards, facilitating their permanent residency. [xii] Further, in 2018, I wrote an article about the economics of immigration which states that the US is one of the few nations that does not profit from immigration and visas, but this could be fixed quickly. [xiii]
Additionally, in April 2025, President Trump introduced the "$5 million Trump Card," a residency permit for wealthy immigrants investing at least $5 million in U.S. projects. This initiative aims to attract high-level foreigners seeking to live and work in the United States, and could generate up to $1 Trillion dollars or more in just a few short years. [xiv] As mentioned in a previous articles, there are 750 million people who would move to the USA if given the chance; therefore, many of us are extremely grateful that our forefathers made the journey. [xv]
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Commissioner George Mentz JD MBA CILS CWM® is the first in the USA to rank as a Top 50 Influencer & Thought Leader in: Management, PM, HR, FinTech, Wealth Management, and B2B according to Onalytica.com and Thinkers360.com. George Mentz JD MBA CILS is a CWM Chartered Wealth Manager ®, global speaker - educator, tax-economist, international lawyer and CEO of the GAFM Global Academy of Finance & Management ®. The GAFM is a EU accredited graduate body that trains and certifies professionals in 150+ nations under standards of the: US Dept of Education, ACBSP, ISO 21001, ISO 991, ISO 29993, QAHE, ECLBS, and ISO 29990 standards. Mentz is also an award-winning author and award winning graduate law professor of wealth management of one of the top 30 ranked law schools in the USA.Mentzenborg is just a term of art to describe the theory and process by George Mentz JD MBA ChE. CWM is for Chartered Wealth Manager ® and ChE Chartered Economist ® is a credential for economics professionals
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