ABSTRACT

The idea of early twentieth-century American immigration as a process of inexorable cultural loss has been prominent in popular and scholarly writing. Peasants-turned-immigrants are thought to possess rich troves of vernacular culture upon arrival, which they ultimately lose due to forced or consensual assimilation, all in the context of modernity’s devaluing of the ways of the folk. Take, for instance, the writings of Helen Papanikolas, an authoritative chronicler of Greek-America, who made the case about the gradual erosion and eventual disappearance of rural Greek culture in the United States.4 Her work in folklore and ethnohistory represented the history of early immigrants in terms of a continuing transition from an

initial stage of class and cultural conflict5 to a period of acculturation and eventual assimilation. Papanikolas ultimately declared the post-World War II wane of immigrant folk life. She called this historical moment “The End of the Great Immigrant Era,”6 associating the obliteration of folk culture with post-war prosperity, the immigrants’ movement to the suburbs, and the concomitant dissolution of face-to-face, closely knit communities. It was then when “‘Americanization’ became complete” (my emphasis).7