ABSTRACT
Pacific Northwest Norwegians’ constructions of race figured into their evolving Norwegian-American identity at the turn-of-the-century. As Protestant Nordics, they benefited from white privilege. They understood themselves as Norwegians of unquestionable American citizenship, and asserted their capacity for self-government in response to the racialized and gendered construction of American citizenship. They viewed themselves as good Americans “born of a good people,” while they racialized others, refuted charges that their customs and celebrations were un-American, and repudiated claims that Norwegian Americans held anything in common with African Americans or Chinese immigrants. When their Americanness occasionally came under attack, they mounted a “best American” defence to claim and defend their Americanness, if not whiteness, and used such charges as an opportunity to trumpet their believed racial, national, and civic superiority. The Puget Sound Norwegian community demonstrates the degree to which even “assimilated” immigrant groups who entered the United States on a welcome mat contended with adjustment to the demands of assimilation and whiteness. Unarticulated as a clear aspect of their identity, whiteness nevertheless represented a real dimension in people’s lives with which they had to contend – a dimension that both afforded possibilities and administered limitations.
