Encounters with American Ethnic Cultures

Encounters with American Ethnic Cultures represents a cultural approach to understanding ethnic diversity in the Philadelphia metropolitan area.

Thirteen chapters, each using an ethnographic field methodology, explore such ethnic experience as the “invisible” (WASPS and African-Americans); “self-chosen” (Welsh-American, Irish-American, and Ukrainian-American); “gender-related” (the Lubovitcher); “religious” (Jewish, Native American, Greek-American, and Puerto Rican); and “dislocated” (Cambodians and the homeless). Ethnographic fieldwork focuses an insider’s view on the meaning of ethnic experience in the lives of participants in the research. This volume examines the role and function of various ethnic endeavors in the preservation and maintenance of ethnic identity by contemporary Americans.

This five part volume includes:

Introduction: Ethnic Culture Analysis—A Course of Study, Jane C. Goodale and Philip L. Kilbride

Methodology, Elizabeth R. Ameisen and Carolyn G. Friedman

Part I. Black and WASP in American Cultural Experience: The Invisible Ones

Exclusivity in an Ethnic Elite: Racial Prejudice as Boundary Maintenance, Elizabeth R. Ameisen

Africans and African-Americans: An Ethnohistorical View and Symbolic Analysis of Food Habits, Carolyn G. Friedman

Part II. Self-Chosen Ethnicity

Unique Americans: The Welsh-American Ethnic Group in the Philadelphia Area, Lorraine Murray

Irish-Americans and Irish Dance: Self-Chosen Ethnicity, Erin McGauley Hebard

Art and Identity: Ukrainian-American Ethnicity, Jennifer Krier

Part III. Interpretations of Gender and Ethnicity: The Lubavitcher Experience

Equality Does Not Mean Sameness: The Role of Women within the Lubavitcher Marriage, Philip Baldinger

Strategies for Strength: Women and Personal Empowerment in Lubavitcher Hasidism, Gita Srinivasan

Part IV. Ethnicity and Religion: The Persistence of Collective Representations

Our Lives Revolve around the Holidays: Holidays in the Transmission of Jewish Ethnicity, Anna Dahlem

Fayetteville or Raleigh? An Analysis of an American Indian Baptist Church, Beth Batten

Issues in Greek Orthodoxy That Define and Maintain Greek-American Ethnicity, Karen L. Belsley

Es como si fuera la casa de uno: The Role of the Community Church in Maintaining Puerto Rican Ethnicity, Monica Schoch-Spana

Part V. Dislocation and Ethnicity

Cambodian Marriage: Marriage and How it is Changing among Cambodian Refugees in Philadelphia, Rebecca C. Popenoe

Ethnic Expression in a Jewish Street Person, Andrew Millstein

Conclusion, Philip L. Kilbride and Jane C. Goodale