No open-access location is known for this record yet.
No open-access location is known for this record yet.
In March 1937, a Polish American journal in Chicago launched a bitter attack upon the city's Polish American community. Six years earlier, Polish leaders had persuaded Chicago's board of education to provide Polish-language instruction in any high school where twenty-five or more students requested it. By 1935, however, just four schools reported classes in the subject. In Chicago, the world's second largest Polish city, only a few hundred children studied the Polish language in public schools.1 The blame for this lamentable situation lay squarely with the Poles themselves, the journal emphasized, not with Chicago's English-stock citizenry. Here the journal took aim at a teacher and self-described “leader of Polish-American youth,” who had recently argued that “snooping authorities” in his school prevented him from speaking—much less teaching—his ancestral tongue. “He had deliberately forsaken Polish,” the journal editorialized, “and to justify his position … was hauling a fantastic excuse out of the mists of idiocy.” Hardly a victim of nativist repression, the teacher “voluntarily threw away the precious sesame [of] his people.” Even worse, he faulted others for the loss. “This did not occur in a country where sadistic persecutors closed parochial schools, smashed Polish presses, or tore out tongues because they had uttered Polish words,” the journal scolded. “No, this happened in the United States, where the keeping of mother cultures is condoned—even encouraged.”2 Then why, the journal asked, had Poles relinquished their mother language? The answer was neatly captured in the journal's own name, the New American. Upon arriving on America's shores, Polish immigrants sought—and, in large part, achieved—“greater financial well-being,” the journal wrote. In the process, however, they too often sold their cultural birthright for a Yankee pottage. “We lost sight of first principles,” the New American grumbled. “Now, our dogma called for a swift disintegration, for a microscopic destroyal of everything Polish in our make-up.” To revive especially the Polish language, the journal looked to an unlikely source: Polish youth. Up until then, it acknowledged, this new generation had been exceptionally eager to shed any traces of the Old World. If a Polish renaissance was to occur, however, young Polish Americans would have to occasion it. “It is up to this youth to preserve its noble heritage,” the journal wrote hopefully. “There is only one way open to the latter, and that is to know the Polish language.”3 Predictably, few young Poles in Chicago heeded the journal's call. The city's handful of public school Polish classes soon withered away for lack of students, prompting the New American to unleash yet another attack upon overly Americanized Poles. Across the country—and across a wide array of ethnic groups—a similar pattern obtained. Ethnic spokesmen prevailed upon a school district to offer their language; ethnic students failed to register for it; then spokesmen lambasted students—and their parents—for abandoning their ethnicity. Several years earlier, however, another Polish journal in Chicago suggested a very different reason for low enrollment in foreign-language classes. “Many students fear that Polish teachers will be exacting,” the journal Poland reported, “and that their Polish-American dialect might not prove sat-isfactory.”4 Despite their leaders' constant complaints about language loss, Polish immigrants did speak Polish at home, but they used a “mixed” Polish-English vernacular, not the “pure” textbook version. To younger Poles, especially, “it was putting on airs” to speak “cultivated” Polish. “Regular” Poles spoke “plain and rough,” fusing English and Polish to form a language of their own.5 Together, these remarks contradict our two central story lines about foreign-language instruction in American public schools. Like the Polish teacher who feared “snooping authorities,” most historical accounts attribute the paucity of school language classes to Anglo intimidation and coercion. Especially during World War I, scholars claim, a rabid “100 percent Americanism” purged German and other foreign languages from the nation's classrooms.6 This interpretation slights America's diverse ethnic groups, which were active agents—or at least willing accomplices—in the constriction of these courses. Denouncing Germans' “Teuton tongue,” non-German immigrants periodically joined hands with old-stock patriotic societies to prohibit that language—and, sometimes, all languages—from public schools. Yet such bans were short-lived, expiring almost as quickly as they arose. Both before and after World War I, immigrants had ample chance to transmit Polish, Italian, Hebrew, Norwegian, and even German via the schools. They almost always passed on the opportunity, defying their leaders– impassioned pleas to protect their “native” tongues. As the Polish example illustrates, meanwhile, these same languages were frequently foreign—not native—to the very foreigners who were urged to study them. Italian newcomers spoke Sicilian or Neapolitan, not the florid Italian of school textbooks; Germans used “Germerican,” a combination of English and German; most Jews conversed in Yiddish, reserving Hebrew for religious services; and Norwegian immigrants developed a dialect that was so “polluted”—in the words of one critic—that recent arrivals from Norway could not comprehend it.7 This evidence undermines the second popular narrative about foreign-language instruction in America, which emphasizes immigrants' willful abandonment of allegedly ancestral languages.8 Whereas the theory of patriotic coercion imagines a unitary “Anglo” power that blotted out foreign-language communities, the theory of immigrant voluntarism presumes that these communities were themselves linguistically They were ethnic leaders a language ethnic to a wide of and the of foreign-language instruction that Americans as as in the first of the As of scholars have recently immigrants often the of and other Anglo they could ethnic who to a language that was as and as the “100 percent Americanism” of The same immigrants who ethnic and a ethnic to in of one in the language, they would their their their own In the German American a of foreign-language instruction in American schools. In he school even tongues. most American school such study to high schools, children their to the they their own ethnic The was it had and As a in for was from then, more and more school had foreign languages from their Across the however, the the a too foreign-language instruction and they were the he because they the nation's of our is in the it is wrote. not the of our cultural Like that America's of ethnic his for more language Yet of these immigrants the same language he ethnic often these as a way to America's most language until the Even where schools foreign-language to to register for more at the of his did he that immigrant just nativist have foreign-language In of he a Norwegian its language in schools. is a of in to our mother one reported in a that it to and the that was the and school had to study foreign then, with large German often schools. of these schools a of the even of the others and the other in and however, different passed English as a of In and for new children the of and to a public or all of its in Both their in the the for such to it up the of the until the of World War to at least passed English in all of the of these foreign language as its own of was to school which often it from schools during these same to school foreign-language instruction in Chicago, in and in years the from all but the and of high did New it a for the in that could the in a foreign In Chicago the of students a from in to less in Chicago German the German a of the upon foreign languages in schools. German the power of their on this the most foreign-language had to German They were not just old-stock Americans but other ethnic groups, which often the instruction of their own languages in to children study the “Teuton tongue,” for Chicago's a upon all foreign-language instruction in the would classes from schools. Yet such was the to the of its German for instruction had been the and of who school it. to all foreign languages to more such the In Germans of the Anglo The to foreign languages the of American Germans to the but as the to a “This not or one German a “It only as … not a the If to have their own language in schools, he they would the from Germans in the would the different ethnic only its most Anglo a who speak any language another German the … with that years however, Chicago's Germans would themselves the city's Polish, and Italian communities from their languages in the public schools. German was in any school where the of students requested other ethnic the same their to foreign-language took the in for their own tongue. the Germans language its in American schools, Germans because it had a upon foreign language be … because the and of the schools speak the foreign languages in the German in in German communities across the that schools only languages of and other would of tongues he with ethnic its own language upon America's In were As more and more school foreign-language study from schools, German a in the By percent of American high school students took German; the most popular language was at a Especially in large however, other languages to German In Chicago's of the instruction of any language that the of high school students The from the city's German leaders but Poles and who quickly to classes in their tongues. In a as the Polish Chicago's first Polish at a high school after the German the to German was different from a War and an example of ethnic for the Germans his the Polish foreign language the same and as their As a however, the of new school languages ethnic in America's Chicago classes in in Polish and for that schools offer the Americans had used this to German from their a school board the it would have to all other foreign languages as As as the teacher their for the to instruction in his By the however, for more a with school a of new it to one an in Chicago was as a that was all the more to just and Poles, children of their country and In Chicago's school board this To the board that language be for which a large of the city's other immigrant about students to the school foreign-language The from who to their children in this to school to students who had for Polish, meanwhile, a Polish-language of their Across the German Americans up their the of new high school the an in to protect and German least to have In New one of the few where another foreign language their Germans and the of their the most part, however, ethnic students and their these Even in an almost a of America's did not speak only a handful of immigrant public school classes in their mother to the of the and school board New Italian instruction in the a from could almost Italian Americans the subject. the Polish at in Chicago was after a for lack of Chicago's where of the students were of only up for in The to the that the school board of an two of the were that they would a of the language, but our own students this not and it not with ethnic was from this The most occasion for was the of a immigrant which always to the of this for the Norwegian the Polish journal in after the “It is for not to of our to study the Polish same a Norwegian to their especially to German Germans a he wrote. up a and with and on only one language to Poles, and America's other ethnic a the and this would upon America's World War Like most other to foreign the on German was threw the first to be but an of ethnic the In the yet another for public school German By a wide German the foreign language of American high schools. In New for it was percent of students who studied a second tongue. Yet with the of in the America's had to upon German in the schools. In the urged German Americans to their own for the subject. is not for the “It would be to that it to German language instruction in the public Upon America's World War I, however, German Americans their By passed or German of did the a of nativist and In a the high German and in students as they their own German the this is a hundred the in a instruction in the schools to school argued that German would an for of To German however, was the across the and the language at the Chicago German asked, their away with their Here the German the of the American which was a to German from the of and Chicago however, other immigrant old-stock the in public in Poles and joined hands to an English that allegedly the German have one of these at home, at the where the is and it to the of that not this to be in the the Polish journal urged in with the By then, had of from the as one that school that the would be in the they out the and it with of an American or to another Polish and the that the in Chicago would a non-German these same ethnic the of instruction from Chicago that schools English with a the journal to the own language of a that always been our America's World War I, Chicago's school board to German from the and Yet and Poles their school for the language in high and high schools. will not the situation in the Polish leaders If language was for the students to the Poles German would to all By however, German instruction had all but from the German from its high schools, students for it. language or the new language German from Yet most had that on their only of America's largest even German in their schools. American high schools. In almost percent of American high school students took German; less percent In just the of from to less languages as of their at least different passed foreign-language instruction in the of the Yet these foreign languages in the or English as a of for school to provide foreign languages as high school Especially in large high schools did offer Polish, Italian, Hebrew, and Norwegian as as and Even German more an as and bans on the In less years after the and Chicago that German classes would upon the of a of The New the of World War the study of The was the of the of the of which took the in the new The same who school to their languages ethnic to in them. New across the in and to their new in high schools. who in Italian for the which not just on their and but on their of Italian and of and in Italian, with for study of the subject. such as and for to and to their schools, where at least students had to register before Italian could be “It is that the active of and their children so had of the language, the journal they upon younger of the language of their As in the however, most immigrants a to these in that their language just the of students who for which was the World but the German American community. The Germans themselves the of their to which at least as as German … not any in the a German in in is to the German who have lost all of the of their mother Like other the that immigrants had an ancestral Yet most newcomers spoke their mother to a wide array of and By foreign-language they their leaders' to their to their a form of ethnic In a of Italian to register their children for classes. As of the Italian at New had more hundred students the subject. this was not in the or the where Italian other To the low lack of as as their where often the but children it. In on to Italian study as a for By their ancestral language, Italian children would to the of their and the of their the Italian one of the most is his own his in “This is or in America, the language of his and the of his however, that these same did not speak the language he upon them. of Italian who Italian the language of and of and from the dialect which his from or or immigrants used an vernacular, he not that and Italian of which it is a or of only the that from the same district in In might in in in in which to that or … to this have been of English words which the immigrant up in his with American dialect was a Italian in dialect with English words is a to of these Italian first a and of this and then the up of the Italian neatly the central that foreign-language in the the one they language study would in immigrant on the it would children a that their did not Even school then, not be that immigrants them. the of for one reported upon his Italian students who a different Italian from that of the The quickly not but the In these in to was about the Italian language; other of it was in the and to and Upon the of in of in the country spoke The language took in but did not the until the a new schools to in Italian in Across to the with “We from the of their or and they in the dialect of that not in the recently language of their this new often so from that the new nation's could not only in America, where immigrants a of English words and to their of these that were in their for Poles spoke of the to or to protect their after the of a immigrants new to even the most from the Norwegian for their Italian sold their at a in Norwegian, one new children in his to him or The children the with the had requested or for the he was a from the English of such them. a Norwegian Norwegian American for it for from the community. By the as to their the to study “pure” Norwegian, the they had developed a that was “mixed” but such other the of “pure” languages as only reason other in Italian was to their and prove to other that they were not who up in a Sicilian in New Italian was as an from the dialect he spoke at these immigrants' foreign-language In a and Italian to Italian in the public schools, who have of Italian in the form of one dialect or German in their language would the that children at reason for the dialect of in the of wrote the school his own very that they German and with its and with the which German argued that of the would To most however, dialect with language children could languages until they lost their To their language … would away from the who that wrote one bitter German only of school is the at their German their own part, immigrant to this so as they a “mixed” language, their children would to a “pure” their however, they to register for language classes in the public schools. Poles were especially Polish, which an for the that had their Despite pleas to in their language, often that could it more they Italian the in the that children would study their they they their their the in the of Jews did of a ethnic different languages upon the schools. for public school Hebrew instruction to a in New the The American the in upon the New of to protect and The however, a the same in the New schools. language of the in and the is the To the and of … the they in Hebrew, the students in their of and they spoke and wrote in just other they had a to their via the public The New the that the of To the of Hebrew, most of and all of English Jews as and even and up in it to themselves in the American Hebrew, of New be in the English of who even schools, high schools, To be the as it is been at a of was a that on Jews it was By Hebrew and To the home, the to the Hebrew is it in any of its is looked upon with to the of Hebrew the New to offer in its public schools. the in Hebrew, which a language in Six years Jews New schools, just had in the Jews to a high not a one of took Like other ethnic Hebrew this to a paucity of To the Hebrew and cultural of their and to the language the the of their In the of American however, spoke Hardly of this they to register for a language that was to it. Hebrew in religious schools, where teachers the of Yiddish, a language from the his own religious to was their form of of these same parochial school teachers Hebrew in the public schools, another reason for low foreign-language Especially before World War I, a wide array of ethnic leaders such classes for students away from religious that even in foreign tongues. The was in Polish communities, where
Loading…
Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 26 citations exist upstream.
Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.
Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.