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173 pages

English

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A Singing Ambivalence is a comprehensive examination of the ways in which nine immigrant groups-Irish, Germans, Scandinavians, Eastern European Jews, Italians, Poles, Hungarians, Chinese, and Mexicans-responded to their new lives in the United States through music. Each group's songs reveal an abiding concern over leaving their loved ones and homeland and an anxiety about adjusting to a new society. But accompanying these disturbing feelings was an excitement about the possibilities of becoming wealthy and about looking forward to a democratic and free society.Distinguished historian Victor Greene surveys an extensive body of songs of known and unknown origins that comment on the problems immigrants faced and reveal the wide range of responses the newcomers made to the radical changes in their new lives in America. His selection of lyrics provides useful capsules of expression that clarify the ways in which immigrants defined themselves and staked out their claims for acceptance in American society. But whatever their common and specific themes, they reveal an ambivalence over their coming to America and a pessimism about achieving their goals.A Singing Ambivalence examines the familiar sentiments of new immigrants to the United States, while at the same time conveying from an aesthetic viewpoint how immigrants expressed their hopes and difficulties through song. This is an important volume that will be welcomed by scholars of music and immigration history.

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Histoire

USA

États-Unis

Migration

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Publié par	The Kent State University Press
Date de parution	21 février 2013
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781612773902
Langue	English

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A Singing Ambivalence
A Singing Ambivalence
American Immigrants between Old World and New, 1830-1930

Victor Greene
The Kent State University Press
KENT AND LONDON
2004 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2003022253
ISBN 0-87338-794-5
Manufactured in the United States of America
08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Greene, Victor R.
A singing ambivalence : American immigrants between old world and new, 1830-1930 / Victor Greene.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN 0-87339-794-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Immigrants-United States-Songs and music-History and criticism.
2. United States-Emigration and immigration-Songs and music-History and criticism. I. Title.
ML .3551. G 697 2004
782.42 086 9120973-dc22
2003022253
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.
To John Higham, distinguished historian, colleague, and friend.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 The Irish: Exploited Exiles
2 The Germans: Kultur and Complexity
3 The Scandinavians and Finns: Natural Longings
4 The Eastern European Jews: Migration and the Family
5 The Italians: Uncertain Followers of Columbus
6 The Poles and Hungarians: Industrial Hardships
7 The Chinese: Struggle on Gold Mountain
8 The Mexicans: The Hero as Anti-American
9 Conclusion
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
Preface and Acknowledgments
With a lifelong interest in music and song, I came to discover more recently that these art forms were much more important than simply forms of entertainment. They can also function as communication, providing a valuable method for not only composers and performers to express points of view but also more importantly for scholars to learn the sentiments of ordinary people. Music then offers an entr e into the minds of less articulate people, whose opinions are normally difficult to discern. The masses, too, I found can speak to the world through their attachment to song, especially to those musical works that are well-known and popular. They, too, then have the means to express themselves emotionally. The most obvious proof of this latter property of musical communication having an emotional property is its use by filmmakers, who wish to enhance public sentiment or extend a mood, whether it be joy, melancholy, or a state of apprehension or ambivalence.
Since almost every ethnic group has a musical heritage, often a rich one, scholars are likely to find public feelings and attitudes about important events in their past. The assumption of this work is that the song repertoire can discern how suppressed minorities and migrating peoples felt about their circumstances, such as treatment by the majority or their movement from their traditional home and family to an unfamiliar destination. As I indicate throughout the text, this extended study of a part of musical history, while possibly unusual, is not a pioneering work in exploiting music and song; as a number of scholars, folklorists, ethnomusicologists, and a few historians have examined the musical heritage seeking popular feeling.
The major feature of this study is that through the examination of the lyrics of selected songs, one can identify the range of emotions as hope, insecurity, and homesickness that our immigrant groups had about coming to and settling in America. In addition, through their group songs, one can make comparisons between those groups. This work concludes that while the pervasive attitude among all immigrants was mixed, on balance it was chiefly one of ambivalence tinged with unhappiness.
The wide range of groups covered and the distinctive, extended repertoire of the nearly dozen immigrant groups here obviously had to rest heavily on the help of the few theoretical publications on the subject and many colleagues who were experts in the various group musics. The major inspiration for this work was Leonard Levine s classic Black Culture and Black Consciousness (1977) and his sensitive use of music and song to learn the feelings of slaves. Added to this was the encouragement and substantial criticisms of my project provided by James Leary, Judith McCulloh, Philip Bohlman, Bill Malone, the students of the 1994 NEH summer seminar in popular nineteenth-century American music, and especially its directors, Ronald Walters of the Johns Hopkins University and John Spitzer of the Peabody Conservatory.
I am grateful, too, to others who either responded at length to questions I asked or their comments on sections of the work, such as John Jentz, Anne-Charlotte Harvey, Roger Daniels, Him Mark Lai, Su de San Zheng, Emily Hill, Xiaohong Shi, Susan Cheng of Music of China, Philip Sonnichsen, William H. A. Williams, James Dorman, Nancy Carnevale, Stephen Whitfield, and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: Ron Ross, Michael Gordon, Joseph Rodriguez, Lawrence Baldassaro, and Edith Moravsik. I had to call on many, of course, to assist in translations. They are all listed in the notes, but a few added more substantial help, such as Karen Majewski and Thaddeus Gromada of the Polish American Historical Association, Juha Niemela of Finland, Luisa Del Guidice of UCLA, Paul Melrood of Milwaukee, Ulf Beijbom of the Swedish Emigrant Institute, Chana (Eleanor) Mlotek of Yivo Institute, and Joel Wurl and the staff of the Immigration History Research Center, University of Minnesota. I also wish to express my thanks to the archives staff at the Milwaukee County Historical Center, the Lilly Library at Indiana University, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library and Maryland Historical Society, both in Baltimore, for their kind assistance.
Timely grants enabled me to hasten the completion of the work. I am grateful to the NEH summer seminar program, the Milwaukee Society for Jewish Learning, and a sabbatical leave provided me by the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
My greatest debts for this work especially are to my esteemed colleague, the late John Higham of the Johns Hopkins University, whose distinguished scholarship, creative intellect, and elegant writings were a model for me throughout the years, and my wife, Laura, whose skill at writing has helped my own prose immeasurably.
Finally I am exceedingly grateful to Joanna Hildebrand Craig and Kathy Method of the Kent University Press, who along with Dr. McCulloh had more faith than I that this manuscript would appear in print.
Grateful acknowledgement for permission to reproduce from the following:
A Brivele Der Mamen ( A Letter to Mother ); words and music by Solomon Small; copyright 1933 (renewed) Music Sales Corp. (ASCAP); international copyright secured; all rights reserved.
Barndomshemmet ; translation from Swedish Emigrant Ballads, ed. Richard L. Wright; copyright 1965 University of Nebraska Press; copyright renewed 1993 University of Nebraska Press.
Br der vi har langt att g (traditional); courtesy House of Emigrants, V xj , Sweden.
A Conversation between Two Ranchers ; from P. Taylor, Songs of the Mexican Migration, in Puro Mexicano , ed. J. Frank Dobie (Austin: Encino, 1935); courtesy Publications of the Texas Folklore Society; PTFS 12.
Corrido de Robstown ; from Paul S. Taylor, An American Mexican Frontier; copyright 1934 University of North Carolina Press.
Defense of the Emigrant ; from P. Taylor, Songs of the Mexican Migration, in Puro Mexicano , ed. J. Frank Dobie (Austin: Encino, 1935); courtesy Publications of the Texas Folklore Society; PTFS 12.
The Disillusioned Immigrant ; from J. Leary and R. March, Farm, Forestry, and Factory, in Songs about Work: Essays in Occupational Culture for Richard A. Reuss, ed. Archie Green; courtesy Special Publications of Folklore Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington.
An Emigrant s Farewell ; from P. Taylor, Songs of the Mexican Migration, in Puro Mexicano , ed. J. Frank Dobie (Austin: Encino, 1935); courtesy Publications of the Texas Folklore Society; PTFS 12.
The Emigrant s Farewell ; courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.
Farewell, Mother Norway ; from Norwegian Emigrant Songs and Ballads, ed. and trans. Theodore C. Blegent and Martin R. Ruud (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1936); copyright 1936 University of Minnesota Press.
Farewell Song for German Emigrants Going to America ; from Eagle in the New World, ed. Theodore Gish and Richard Spuler (College Station: Texas A M Univ. Press, 1936); courtesy Texas A M University Press.
Farewell to Slieve Gallon ; from Thousands Are Sailing , comp. John Moulden 1994); courtesy Ulstersongs, Northern Ireland.
Farv l, O moder Svea ; courtesy House of Emigrants, V xj , Sweden.
Give an Irish Lad a Chance ; courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington.
The Green Fields of America ; from John Moulden, Thousands Are Sailing (1994); courtesy Ulstersongs, Northern Ireland.
Hail to Thee, Columbus, Be Praised! ; from Eagle in the New World, ed. Theodore Gish and Richard Spuler (College Station: Texas A M Univ. Press, 1986); courtesy Texas A M University Press.
H lsa dem d rhemma ; courtesy House of Emigrants, V xj , Sweden.
The Happy Shamrock Shore ; courtesy W. A. Craig, Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
I m Sitting on the Stile, Mary ; from Irish Emigrant Ballads, ed. Richard L. Wright; copyright 1975 Popular Press; courtesy University of Wisconsin Press.
In America ; from The Two Rosetos, ed. Carla Bianco (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1974); courtesy Indiana University Press.
In a Steel Mill ; from J. Leary and R. March, Farm, Forestry, and Factory, in Songs about Work: Essays in Occupational Culture for Richard A. Reuss, ed. Archie Green; courtesy Special Publications of Folklore Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington.
Joaquin Murrieta ; from P. Sonnichsen, liner notes to Corridos y Tragedias de la Frontera, Arho