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Conventional wisdom would have us believe that every immigrant to the United States "became American," by choice and with deliberate speed. Yet, as Special Sorrows shows us, this is simply untrue. In this compelling revisionist study, Matthew Frye Jacobson reveals tenacious attachments to the Old World and explores the significance of homeland politics for Irish, Polish, and Jewish immigrants at the turn of the twentieth century.
Drawing on Yiddish, Polish, and English-language sources, Jacobson discovers the influence of nationalist ideologies in the overt political agendas of such ethnic associations as the Knights of Zion and the Polish Falcons, as well as in newspapers, vernacular theater, popular religion, poetry, fiction, and festivals both religious and secular. In immigrant communities, he finds that nationalism was a powerful component of popular sensibility.
A captivating example of Jacobson's thesis is immigrant reaction to American intervention in Cuba. Masculinist/militarist strains of nationalist culture met with the keen impulse to aid a subjugated people. The three national groups, laden with memories of their own subjugation, found an unlikely outlet in the Caribbean.
But when the U.S. war for Cuban liberation was followed by a crusade for Philippine subjugation, immigrants faced a dilemma: some condemned the American empire rich in Old World parallels; others dismissed the Filipinos as racial "others" and embraced the glories of conquest. In effect, the crucible of American imperialism was vital to many immigrants' Americanization, in the sense of passionate participation in national politics, pro or con.
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Subjects
Politics and government, Irish, Jews, Immigrants, United States, Poles, Political activity, 19th century, History, Immigrants, united states, Irish, united states, Jews, united states, politics and government, Polish people, united states, Polish peoplePlaces
United StatesTimes
19th centuryShowing 2 featured editions. View all 2 editions?
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1
Special sorrows: the diasporic imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish immigrants in the United States
2002, University of California Press
in English
0520233425 9780520233423
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2
Special sorrows: the diasporic imagination of Irish, Polish, and Jewish immigrants in the United States
1995, Harvard University Press
in English
0674831853 9780674831858
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Includes bibliographical references (p. [251]-314) and index.
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