Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA: A Historical Exploration of Identity

Description

This volume explores the complex and contradictory ways in which the cultural, scientific and political myth of whiteness has influenced identities, self-perceptions and the process of integration of Nordic immigrants into multicultural and racially segregated American society in the 19th and 20th centuries. In deploying central insights from whiteness studies, postcolonial feminist and intersectionality theories, it shows that Nordic immigrants - Danes, Swedes, Finns, Norwegians and Sámi - contributed to and challenged American racism and white identity. A diverse group of immigrants, they could proclaim themselves 'hyper-white' and 'better citizens than anybody else', including Anglo-Saxons, thus taking for granted the racial bias of American citizenship and ownership rights, yet there were also various, unexpected intersections of whiteness with ethnicity, regional belonging, gender, sexuality, and political views. 'Nordic whiteness', then, was not a monolithic notion in the USA and could be challenged by other identities, which could even turn white Nordic immigrants into marginalized figures. A fascinating study of whiteness and identity among white migrants in the USA, Nordic Whiteness and Migration to the USA will appeal to scholars of sociology, history and anthropology with interests in Scandinavian studies, migration and diaspora studies and American studies. Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Table of Contents Acknowledgements Contributors Series editor’s preface Introduction: Whiteness in Nordic immigrants’ identity formation Recent developments towards whiteness studies Exposing colour-blind myths about Nordic immigration Whiteness as a standpoint and institutionalised privilege Arriving to a multi-ethnic republic Whiteness as epistemological ignorance Not quite white: painful experiences of Sámi immigrants White immigrants and the failure of class solidarity Nordic superiority and the derogatory representation of others Challenging intersections of whiteness and ethnicity Nonconformity and resistance to white norms Notes References Part 1 Whiteness as epistemological ignorance Chapter 1 Norwegian migration and displaced indigenous peoples: Toward an understanding of Nordic whiteness in the land-taking Introduction Wisconsin in the period of removal and migration (1830s–1850s) Minnesota in the era of wars, exile, and secondary migrations (1860s and 1870s) Centennial celebrations (1914 and 1925): narrating whiteness Conclusion Acknowledgments Notes References Part 2 Not quite white: Painful experiences of Sámi immigrants Chapter 2 Racialization of the Sámi in early twentieth-century migration processes: Trans-atlantic continuities and divergences Introduction Sámi migration and contemporary identity in North America Race, ethnicity, class, and gender in migration processes Albertine Josefine Svendsen (1886–1984) Bereth (Bertha) Kristine Susanne Larsdatter (1881–1954) Karen Marie Nilsdatter (1874–1956) Kirsten/Risten Nilsdatter Bals (1879–?) Luhkkár-Ánne/Anna Mortensdatter Nilima (1866–1949) Conclusion Notes References Part 3 White immigrants and the failure of class solidarity Chapter 3 “On liberty and equality”: Race and Reconstruction among Scandinavian immigrants, 1864–1868 Introduction Liberty and equality Limits to the military melting pot Retreat from Reconstruction Conclusion Notes References Part 4 Nordic superiority and the derogatory representations of others Chapter 4 Atop a hierarchy of whiteness: Danish Americans as portrayed by Danish travel writers in the second half of the nineteenth century Introduction The travel writers Danish-American city dwellers Rural Danish Americans The lower end of the scale In-between groups Assimilation and pluralism Conclusion Notes References Chapter 5 Good Americans “born of a good people”: Race, whiteness, and nationalism among Norwegian Americans in the Pacific Northwest Introduction Whiteness and the construction of the racial self Norwegian romantic nationalism and the construction of the “racial” self “White men” and the racial “othering” of others The Scandinavian racial self and Norwegian superiority Conclusion Note References Primary sources, archival Primary sources, published Secondary sources Part 5 Challenging intersections of whiteness and ethnicity Chapter 6 Ideal immigrants? Ethnic community building among Norwegian Americans in the nineteenth century Introduction Religion and ethnicity The centrality of kinship and land Portrayals in dime magazines and guidebooks A homemaking mythology White identity: Hilton and Hamsun Conclusion References Chapter 7 In the American matrix: Norwegians in Chicago in the nineteenth century Introduction Norwegians in a multi-ethnic urban environment Conclusion References Part 6 Nonconformity and resistance to white norms Chapter 8 Claiming roots: Politics of racial ancestry in the Finnish-American press during the 1938 New Sweden Tercentenary Introduction The Delaware Tercentenary celebration in 1938 Nordic or Finnish ancestry? Frontier imagery Conclusions Notes References Chapter 9 The Nordic mystique: Swedish women as sexualized “other” in postwar America Introduction Nordic whiteness and sexuality in the pre- and postwar eras The dawn of Swedish sin in Playboy during the late 1950s The 1960s heyday of “Swedish sin” Conclusions References Scholarly sources Newspaper and magazine articles Film Conclusion: Nordic slotting into the American ethno-racial hierarchy References Index