Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the MakingOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making
Orth, Samuel Peter
Immigrants -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
Montenegro, Serbia, and Bulgaria, countries that have been thrust
forcibly into the world's vision by the Great War, have sent several
hundred thousand of their hardy peasantry to the United States. The
Montenegrins and Serbians, who comprise three-fourths of this
migration, are virtually one in speech and descent. They are to be
found in New England towns and in nearly every State from New York to
Alaska, where they work in the mills and mines and in construction
gangs. The response which these people make to educational
opportunities shows their high cultural possibilities.
The Croatians and Dalmatians, who constitute the larger part of the
southern Slav immigration, are a sturdy, vigorous people, and splendid
specimens of physical manhood. The Dalmatians are a seafaring folk
from the Adriatic coast, whose sailors may be found in every port of
the world. The Dalmatians have possessed themselves of the oyster
fisheries near New Orleans and are to be found in Mississippi making
staves and in California making wine. In many cities they manage
restaurants. The exceptional shrewdness of the Dalmatians is in bold
contrast to their illiteracy. They get on amazingly in spite of their
lack of education. Once they have determined to remain in this
country, they take to American ways more readily than do the other
southern Slavs.
Croatia, too, has its men of the sea, but in America most of the
immigrants of this race are to be found in the mines and coke furnaces
of Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In New York City there are some
15,000 Croatian mechanics and longshoremen. The silver and copper
mines of Montana also employ a large number of these people. It is
estimated that fully one-half of the Croatians return to their native
hills and that they contribute yearly many millions to the home-folks.
From the little province of Carniola come the Slovenians, usually
known as "Griners" (from the German _Krainer_, the people of the
Krain), a fragment of the Slavic race that has become much more
assimilated with the Germans who govern them than any other of their
kind. Their national costume has all but vanished and with it the
virile traditions of their forefathers. They began coming to America
in the sixties, and in the seventies they founded an important colony
at Joliet, Illinois. Since 1892 their numbers have increased rapidly,
until today about 100,000 live in the United States. Over one-half of
these immigrants are to be found in the steel and mining towns of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, where the large majority of them are
unskilled workmen. Among the second generation, however, are to be
found a number of successful merchants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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