Romanian-speaking immigrants and their descendants. The vast majority of ethnic
Romanians who settled in the United States came from the Austrian-Hungarian Empire in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Along with Serbs, Hungarians, Saxons, ethnic
Jews, and Gypsies, all of whom shared some folkways, Romanians (also identified as
Rumanians or Roumanians), established enclaves in America closely tied to village and
region in the old country. Few came from the “Old Kingdom” of Romania (Moldavia and
Wallachia). After World War II, the then borders of Romania incorporated much of the
territory from which the immigrant Romanians came: Banat (adjacent to, and including,
parts of northern Serbia), Bukovina (including much of the ethnically Romanian former Soviet state of Moldova), and especially Transylvania (those formerly Hungariandominated lands north of the Carpathian Mountains).
Spurred by visions of quick cash to be made in America that is graphically captured in
the folk proverb of this era, Mia di dolar si ban de drum inapoi (A thousand dollars and
money for the trip home), thousands of Romanians joined other immigrants of the “new
wave” coming to urban industrial centers from farms of southern and eastern Europe. By
the end of World War I, immigrants identified as Romanians numbered more than
100,000, and some Romanians were documented as Austrian or Hungarian. Even though
thousands of the “birds of passage,” as they were called, had returned to the old country
with their hard-earned dollars, many young men stayed, sending for wives and
sweethearts to join them as they were able to move out of boarding houses, supporting
families on more or less steady pay from mills and factories.
The experience of immigration itself was incorporated into traditional folk expression.
The earliest immigrants, often young men only in their teens, composed songs about their
experiences. These were sung and written down aboard steamships or in cramped
quarters of boarding houses. These folksongs followed the formuiaic traditions of the
“blueslike” doina, particularly the doina de duca (leaving songs) or cintece di strain
(songs of estrangement), traditionally sung in Romanian villages when young men left
home or were conscripted into the Army. Describing the difficulty of earning a dollar, the
poor living conditions of the unskilled workers, and homesickness, these “America
songs” were often sent back home as bitter, sarcastic commentary on the American
Dream. Still found in folksong repertoires in parts of modern-day Romania
(especiallyTransylvania), these songs were not transmitted beyond the first immigrant
generation in America.
Folktales have been widely collected and studied in Romania, but this important folk
tradition has not remained vital among Romanian Americans any more than among other
20th-century immigrant groups. The great basme (wonder tales) are known through
translations of 19th-century collections, if at all. Several immigrant povestitori
(storytellers) in America have been recorded, but their Märchen (fairy tale) traditions
have not taken hold in America. Among many American-born Romanians, however,
there is an awareness of folktale stereotypes of certain characters described in Romanian
humorous tales, such as Pacala (a famous trickster), the prost (generic fool), priests and
priest wives, and especially tigani (Gypsies). While few remember speciflc anecdotes
about these Old Wbrld stereotypes, many people share the traditional attitudes toward
them, as memories of stereotypical traits have become part of an ethnic sensibility.
As a result of a regional diversity in the old country, the American Romanian folk
culture had from the beginning distinctive regional characteristics, although much of this
intragroup diversity has been gradually diffused during the 20th century. Always a
relatively small ethnic presence in America, Romanian American communities are based
increasingly on formal religious organizations (including the Romanian Orthodox Church
in America) and various cultural organizations devoted primarily to pan-Romanian
“folklore revival” activities among the younger generations. Ethnic-neighborhood
contexts of folklife, a coalescence of regional styles, repertoires, and dialects, have
declined dramatically in the last two generations. Some Old World regional distinctions
in foodways and music persist in a few settlement cities, such as Detroit, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Gary, Indiana, that are based on the regional migration patterns of the
early 20th century.
In communities where the American-born Romanians are active in ethnic affairs,
different churches at Christmastime sponsor groups of colindatori (carolers), who visit
houses of parish members. Also, about sk weeks before Christmas, congregations of
various Romanian Orthodox and Roman Byzantine Rite Catholic churches sing some
colinde (carols) at the Sunday worship service after liturgy. Sometimes, on Christmas
Eve, casually organized groups travel in cars to other parish members’ homes. These
colindatori will be invited inside to sing and be offered refreshments. Sometimes the host
is expected to make a donation to the carolers, who in turn give the money to the church.
In Romanian villages colindatori are always groups of young men and boys who will be
ritually offered refreshments. The donation to the church is an American innovation.
Also, American colindatori are not limited by age or gender. In south Florida, where
some immigrants still live, groups have been mainly composed of elderly people. In the
Cleveland and Detroit areas, however, where there are more active American-born
people, groups may be largely composed of high-school students or young people
returned from college for the holidays.
Songs most commonly sung are the colinde not usually limited to a local village in the
old country. “Trei Pastori,” “O Ce Veste,” and “Florile d’Albe” are the three most
popular songs passed down to younger generations. While there once were known
regional variations of these songs, nowadays the words are standardized and learned
partly (and increasingly phonetically) from mimeographed sheets with words from
homemade songbooks.
Romanian folk dances and dance music have also been adapted to a multiethnic
environment in America, not always by ethnic Romanian Americans. Eastern European
and Balkan dance bands may play Romanian dance music as a part of the mixed
repertoires required by such multiethnic bands, who perform at weddings and other
festive occasions, including bar mitzvahs, for different ethnic communities. From the
beginnings of immigration, Romanian dance music was adapted to American
opportunities. Manufactured brass and woodwind instruments, known to a certain extent
in the Old World, replaced the traditional handmade folk instruments as soon as
musicians could afFord them. Romanian and Gypsy orchestras recorded dance tunes in
the 1920s on RCA Victor and Columbia Phonograph Company labels, performing
numbers that reflected regional sensibilities: “Memorii din Banat,” “Invartita dela
Chicago,” “Doina din America,” and “Doina din Seliste,” to name a few. Dance music
and dance styles became associated with a specific settlement community dominated by
immigrants from specific Romanian regions: The Cleveland folk-dance style was
identified as Transylvanian; the Chicago and Philadelphia style, as Banatian; and a
Gary—East Chicago style, also as Transylvanian.
Although some specialty folk-dance groups consciously try to preserve Old World
regional authenticity in their dancing, most younger generations who still perform
Romanian folk dances have adapted a greatly simplified American style that shows little
or none of the variation that marked village or regional dances for the immigrants. The
dances most often performed as Romanian folk dances are performed generically
throughout Europe as well as America: the hora unirea, (basic circle dance), and the
sarba (snake dance), done in a long winding line with arms placed on adjacent dancers’
shoulders, are the most popular. Some people still remember the strigaturi, or traditional
shouts, that traditionally accompany many Romanian dances.
Foodways remain as an important ethnic social marker. Romanian American foods,
basically peasant fare adapted to Americanized tastes and ingredients, may be served in
honor of the standard American “heritage holidays” celebrated by multiethnic Americans
of Romanian ancestry: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter (although Romanian
Orthodox celebrate Craciun [Christmas] and Pas [Easter] according to the Byzantine
calendar). On these occasions, people might eat mamaliga (stiff corn mush) and sarmale
(stuffed cabbage on sauerkraut) along with turkey and dressing or ham and potatoes.
Clatita (a crepe or pancake) and cozonac (a cake) would also be appropriate to celebrate
a festive occasion widi an edinic touch.
People in the late 20th century tend to disassociate themselves from Old World folk
belief. Third and fourth generations remember that their grandparents believed in the evil
eye (deochi), but dismiss this once widespread tradition as “just folklore.” Likewise, the
stories of strigoi (witches) and of the appearance of dracul (the devil) that have been
passed down are now told for amusement, set in a time and place long ago and far away
One complication in the folklore of belief is the belief by Americans in general that
Romanians, especially those of Transylvanian ancestry, have something to do widi
Dracula. Folk custom and belief in Romania in the 1990s do have some interesting
parallels to the literary creation of Bram Stoker, but the obsessive connection devoted by
American popular culture to this aspect of Transylvania has had impact on edinic identity
of Romanian Americans, leaving some insulted and some amused.
Members of a recent generation of immigrants, those who defected from the
communist regimes after World War II, have energized some traditional Romanian
American communities in important ways. Because they mosdy are not from peasant or
rural village backgrounds, the “newcomers” have tended to focus more on political and
intellectual pursuits than on maintaining and reviving the Old World folkways.
Kenneth A.Thigpen
References
Galitzi, Christine A. 1929. A Study of Assimilation among the Romanians in the United States. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Thigpen, Kenneth A. 1974. Romanian-American Folklore in Detroit. In Ethnic Studies Reader, ed.
David W. Hartman, pp. 189–201.
——. 1980. Folklore and the Ethnicity Factor in the Lives of Romanian-Americans. New York:
Arno.
——. 1986. European-American Music: Romanian. In The New Grove Dictionary of Music in the
United States. Vol. 3. London: Macmillan, pp. 82–86.