A disparate group of varied nationalities who share ancestral mother tongues belonging to
the Slavic family of languages. There is no historical evidence that Slavs ever constituted
a single unified group. Despite politically motivated claims by adherents of pan-Slavism,
millenia of separate development has led to distinctly differing Slavic cultures.
Scholars generally divide the main Slavic nationalities into three groups: (1) Eastern
Slavs, including the Russians, White Russians, and Ukrainians; (2) Western Slavs, Poles,
Czechs, and Slovaks; and (3) South Slavs, Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Bosnians,
Macedonians, and Bulgarians. Within these categories, there is a fair degree of linguistic
mutual intelligibility, which markedly decreases across the divisions.
Mass migration of Slavic immigrants to North America occurred for the most part in
the second half of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th, although significant
numbers of Slavic immigrants also arrived earlier than, and subsequent to, this period.
The majority of Slavic immigrants were peasants in their homelands with relatively little
formal education and few resources beyond their willingness to labor. Therefore, the
greater portion of arriving Slavic immigrants found a livelihood in North America’s
rapidly developing heavy industries. The largest concentrations of Slavic Americans still
are to be found in industrial cities and mining areas, although increased geographic and social mobility has diminished this concentration,
especially in the decades since World War II.
There are significant communities of nearly every Slavic group in the cities of the
Eastern U.S. megalopolis from Baltimore to Boston, in the mill and mining towns of
western Pennsylvania, in all of the larger Great Lakes industrial cities, in Midwestern
meat-packing centers, in Western mining towns, and in the Pacific Coast cities to which
many Midwesterners and Easterners migrated. It is well known that Slavic Americans
have labored in industries such as steel, meat packing, and coal, copper, and iron mining,
but there are also significant Slavic rural farming communities, some established as early
as the mid-19th century: of Czechs in eastern and central Wisconsin, southern Minnesota,
eastern Nebraska, southern and central Texas, and Oklahoma; of Croatians in California’s
Pajaro and San Joaquin Valleys; of Poles in the onion-growing area of south-central New
York state, in the potato-growing region of central Wisconsin, and intermingled with the
Czech farmers and ranchers in Texas.
In the 20th century, other Slavic Americans managed to fulfill their dream of land
ownership after earning a nest egg through toiling in the mines and mills. Often they had
to settle for marginal farmland in regions with a short growing season. For example, in
Wisconsin, the Slovaks of Moquah, the Poles of Pulaski, the Ukrainians of Clayton, and
the Slovenes of Willard fit this pattern.
Slavs with a seafaring tradition, especially the Croatians from Dalmatia, settled in
coastal communities, on New York’s Long Island, and in New Orleans, Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and Seattle, where they follow nautical pursuits: in all aspects of the shipping
business, in shipbuilding, and notably in fishing. Dalmatians have fished off the Alaska
coast from Washington ports, dominated tuna fishing in San Pedro, California, and have
been the predominant oystermen in Buras and Empire, Louisiana, at the mouth of the
Mississippi River.
Like other southern and eastern European immigrants, most Slavic American
communities have been the victims of both overt and subtle forms of discrimination and
prejudice. Pejorative terms such as “Polack,” “Hunky,” “Bohunk” and “Rusky” have
been directed at Slavic Americans, usually designating a stereotype of the Slav as a dimwitted, coarse laborer. While most Slavic Americans acknowledge that prejudicial
attitudes toward them have decreased, a legacy of this experience is a preoccupation with
a type of ethnic boosterism that seeks to emphasize the length of time that some members
of their nationality have been present in America and to point out prominent co-ethnics
who have had notable achievements or attained celebrity.
For example, Croatians argue that the Croatian Indians who once inhabited the
Carolina coast were the descendants of shipwrecked Croatian sailors from 16th–century
Dubrovnik who intermarried with the local native people. Croatians are proud that monumental works by sculptor Ivan Mestrovic adorn the grounds of the United Nations
building in New York and loom up along the Michigan Avenue lakefront in Chicago.
Poles emphasize the important roles of Thaddeus Kosciuszko and Casimir Pulaski in the
American Revolutionary War and are also eager to point out that McDonald’s hamburger
magnate Ray Kroc was Polish American. Russians mention their 19th-century California
colony at Fort Ross; Serbs point to the scientific contributions of Nikola Tesla and to the
pitching prowess of Pete Vuckovich. Slovenes note that U.S. Senator Frank Lausche was
one of theirs as is polka king Frankie Yankovic; Ukrainians are proud of their macho
movie star Jack Palance. Narratives affirming the significance of their group’s
contributions to America are a tradition readily found in most Slavic American
communities.
It is important to remember that Slavic American ethnic communities are not
homogeneous. There are class and educational differences stemming from divisions in
their Old World society. These differences became especially apparent with the arrival of
large numbers of urbanites as displaced persons after World War II. The culture,
experience, and out-look of these middle-class political refugees tended to differ
considerably from those of the peasant economic immigrants and their American-born
progeny.
Also, there are regional differences within the ethnic groups, stemming either from
their origins in a particular section of the homeland or from American regional
differences. For example, the Hutzuli ethnic group from the Carpathian region of western
Ukraine differs considerably from the lowland Ukrainians while they share many cultural
traits with the Polish Gorali of theTatras Mountains. The Gorali, in turn, are distinct from
the Poles of the Vistula River Valley. Many Polish Americans are very conscious of
distinctive traits owing to their origins in either the Prussian, Russian, or Austrian
sections of the partitioned Poland of the 19th century.
The Czechs provide a good example of regional differences that have developed in
North America. It is easy to distinguish the ethnic musical style of Czechs from
Wisconsin from that of Czechs of Texas or Nebraska. Moreover, all of these are distinct
from the music of urban Czech Americans from Cleveland or Chicago.
Some of the Slavic nationalities are relatively homogeneous when it comes to religion.
The Bulgarians, Macedonians, Russians, and Serbs are all predominantly followers of
Eastern Orthodox churches. Most Croatians, Poles, Slovenians, and Slovaks are Roman
Catholics. The Ukrainians, however, are divided three ways among Eastern Orthodox
churches, Eastern Rite churches (which follow liturgical practices similar to the Orthodox
but profess allegiance to the Vatican), and Roman Catholicism. Most Czechs are
Catholic, but there also are significant numbers of Protestants among them. Bosnians are
a largely Islamic Slavic nationality, but there is considerable disagreement over whether
the term “Bosnian” applies also to the numerous Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats
from that troubled country.
Despite their considerable differences, it is possible to mention some common
traditional forms emphasized by nearly all of the Slavic American ethnic groups. Church
choirs, which perform liturgical music, are strong in both Orthodox and Catholic Slavic
communities. Most larger Slavic American communities also support secular choirs,
orchestras of folk-derived instruments, and ensembles that perform choreographed folk
dances in peasant costume.
The model for these activities, which are self-consciously organized with the purpose
of foregrounding positive symbols of ethnic identity both for internal and external
consumption, stems from a convergence of the folk-based symbols from 19th-century
national movements in the homelands and efforts since the 1920s by American social
workers and ethnic-diversity enthusiasts to assist immigrants’ adaption to, and acceptance
in, American society through public events and festivals involving the sharing of
performing arts, crafts, and foodways.
Many textile traditions, especially forms of embroidery, have been retained in Slavic
American communities owing in part to the needs of folk-dance ensembles for replicas of
peasant garb from the past. Other crafts traditions, often involving woodworking, musical
instrument making, or the creation of elaborately decorated Easter eggs, have been
invigorated by the symbolic meaning ascribed to them as manifestations of ethnic
identity.
Richard March