*Aπαγορεύεται η μερική ή ολόκληρη αναδημοσίευση άρθρων και κειμένων χωρίς την γραπτή έγκριση του ΑΡΧΕΙΟΥ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΟΥ ΧΟΡΟΥ

ΜΟΝΟ ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ

Continuity and Change of

Ethnicities and Cultures in New Jersey, U.S.A

Iveta Pirgova, Ph.D.

Down Jersey Folklife Center at Wheaton Arts

New Jersey, U.S.A.

1. Introduction

This paper does not provide an in-depth analysis of the communities and cultures in New Jersey, but it rather suggests an overview of their very complex character as well as an approach for better understanding the continuity and change of each culture as shaped by its long-lasting co-existence in multi-ethnic and multi-cultural context.

2. Old Topic, New Approach

Continuity and Change of Cultural Elements:

“Continuity and change” is an old topic for the folkloristics although it had different focuses over the years: “past and present”, “tradition and innovation”, “folklore in the modern world” and many others. There was a variety of approaches to this topic. Very often elements of the folk culture were used for analytical reconstructions of older, even archaic stages of human cultures as these elements were viewed as suvivals of old cultures in the modern society. These elements were perceived as evidences of cultural continuation and/or material expressions of traditional values providing conceptual and practical connection between the past and the present. These were all very productive approaches that provided our discipline with brilliant classifications of folk groups and folk genres, textual analyses, semiological, structural and more general cultural interpretations. The only issue that has remained was that they continued to keep the researchers’ attention more or less focused on the cultural elements (with or without consideration of the context) rather than on the cultural dynamics. This focus created difficulties to even identify which elements should be considered as part of the folk culture and which ones should be placed in other types of cultures.

Methodological Shifts

Later on major methodological shifts began to influence not only the nature of our fieldwork methods, but also the analyses of the collected materials. The researchers’ interest started to gradually change from text oriented interpretations to broader analyses of the relationships between these texts and the individuals and groups producing them, from symbolism to communication in its various forms, which lead to a variety of re-definitions of folklore[1]. More and more folklore studies changed their focus from past traditions to living traditions[2], from ritualistic forms of the folk culture to the everyday life expressions of folklore[3]. Some other topics also became relevant to the folklore studies such as the ones about “authenticity”[4], the role of the folklore in personal or communities’ identities[5] or the issues around “proper” presentation of folklore in non-folklore cultural contexts[6]. Gradually we, as professional researchers, became more self-reflexive[7] and began to better understand the usage of our professional efforts by political and educational institutions serving national[8] or other power related interests. We began to re-conceptualize some of our basic terms such as tradition[9], locality[10], and cultural memory[11].

Continuity and Change of Cultural Dynamics:

All these changes in topics and methodological re-orientations mark a major shift in our discipline, which is from considering folk culture as a set of elements or traits to interpreting it as part of a constant process where all cultural elements are subject to re-evaluation, reproduction and presentation[12]. Performance studies oriented publications as well as the ones using new dimensions of the functional and contextual approaches lead us to more in-depth analyzes of the dynamic characteristics of the folk culture. In his book The Dynamics of Folklore, Barre Toelken says: “All folklore participates in a distinctive, dynamic process. Constant change, variation within a tradition, whether intentional or inadvertent, is viewed here simply as a central fact of existence for folklore, and rather than presenting it in opposed terms of conscious artistic manipulation vs. forgetfulness, I accept it as a defining feature that grows out of context, performance, attitude, cultural tastes, and the like”.[13] and further describes the folklore process (chapter 2) and the dimensions of the folk event (chapter 5)

So, now we want to interpret the cultural elements not only as parts of certain structures or systems, but as part of the cultural dynamics where all structures and systems are in constant movement thus providing continuity for some and change for others depending on a variety of other dynamics such as politics in different historical periods, development of technology and communications, relocation of human groups, types of social and cultural interaction. And now, when we are shifting our focus from analyzing elements and structures of folk culture to considering its processual character we have much better chance to understand the nature of its continuity and change in the present-day world.

From this perspective, I would suggest that we consider the continuation/perpetuation of folklore and folklife as secured by the constant reproduction of identity (individual or group’s one) and locality[14], while the changes are the cultural response to changes of the ideas about identity and locality as occurred in the constant transformations of the historical, political, social, technological, ethnic and mega-cultural contexts. In short, I would define continuity as constant reproduction of identity and locality, and change as the cultural response to contextual dynamics.

Tradition in this way could be defined as the means of cultural reproduction and a specific set of techniques maintaining the dynamic relationships between humans (individual and groups) with other humans (including real, imagined or virtual communities) in certain time(s) and space(s)/place(s). In short, tradition is a specific set of techniques for cultural reproduction.

The specific character of the United States’ cultural space provides us with an almost perfect setting to test and better apply this basic understanding of the cultural process because of its unique cultural history and its present-day ethnic and cultural diversity.

3. Ethnicities and Cultures in New Jersey

New Jersey is considered one of the most culturally diversed states in the U.S. There are about 60 well-established ethnic communities and many others that are not yet in the public eye. There are about 220 languages and dialects spoken at people’s homes as registered by the ESL (English as a Second Language) programs of the State Department of Education. And of course, before the first immigrants came from Europe there were many different tribes in the area of what is now New Jersey.

Immigration History and Cultural Maps:

The first Europeans who established settlements in this land were the Swedes, the Dutch and the English in the 1600s. Around that time the Quakers and other English, German and Scandinavian Protestants settled down. There was a steady increase of immigrants in 1700s and 1800s, but the real mass immigration began in 1850 and continued until 1930. The years 1910 to 1920 were the high point of Italian immigration. Between 1880 and 1924 was a mass immigration of people from Eastern and Southern Europe, as well as Asia, Russia, Italy and Japan. In the same period a huge number of Jews entered the country. In 1924 quatas were set for European immigrants and The National Origins formula was established in 1929. The Displaced Persons (DP) Act of 1948 finally allowed displaced people of World War II to start immigrating. And after 1965, after the revision of the immigration law with “Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments” that abolished the system of national-origins quatas, a new mass immigration began. It was mostly “chain immigration” where recent immigrants sponsor their relatives. At that time many Koreans, Germans, Italians, Mexicans and others immigrated. After 1975 a new wave of refuges came mostly from Vietnam, Korea, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and from the Philippines. In 1986 the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed and a mass immigration of Mexicans began. From the late 1900s till present there is a steady immigration from all over Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, China, India, East Asia and West Africa. Mexicans, Indians and Turkish are among the fastest growing communities in the state.

It is not the point of this article to mention all immigrant groups in the state of New Jersey, but to name just a few that have participated and still participate in the complex interethnic and intercultural relationships that create the specific cultural context for each of these groups’ activities while at the same time shape in a certain way each community’s culture. Some of the New Jersey cultures have longer histories than others, but they all have been part of the constantly changing ethnic and cultural maps of New Jersey.

The only way to understand the present-day cultural face of New Jersey is to consider each community’s culture in historical perspective and in comparison to the others in the area as well as to the cultural macrostructures of the country and its political efforts through the history to use individual culture’s elements in the nation building process.

I have chosen to review three types of communities in order to illustrate the way we need to approach the complexity of the cultural diversity in New Jersey. My focus will be mostly on communities residing in the southern part of the state.

4. Native Americans in New Jersey: The “Keepers of the Land” in Need of Cultural Re-Construction and Public Recognition

The present-day culture of the Native Americans could not be considered without references to the history of the U.S. and to the specific changes in the political and inter-cultural relationships that have significantly influenced the cultural process.

Historical Background:

There were different Lenape tribes residing in the land of nowadays New Jersey, which were later called by the European settlers “Delawares” meaning all people who lived along the Delaware River, and the river in turn was named after Lord de la Warr, the governor of the Jamestown colony. The name Delaware later came to be applied to almost all Lenape people. In the Lenape language, which belongs to the Algonquian language family Native Americans call themselves LENAPE, which means "The People." The Lenape ancestors were among the first Native Americans to come in contact with the Europeans (Dutch, English, & Swedish) in the early 1600s. The Lenapes were also called the "Grandfather" tribe because it was respected by other tribes as a peacemaker since Lenapes often served to settle disputes among rival tribes.

The Lenape people signed the first Indian treaty with the newly formed United States Government on September 17, 1778. Nevertheless, through war and peace the Lenape had to continue to give up their lands and move westward (first to Ohio, then to Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, and finally, Indian Territory, now Oklahoma). This process was extremely intensified after the Indian Removal Act, which was passed in 1830. People still remember the story about the “trail of tears”. One small band of “Delawares” left the group in the late 1700s and through different migrations is today located at Anadarko, Oklahoma. Small contingents of “Delawares” fled to Canada during time of extreme persecution and today occupy two reserves in Ontario - The Delaware Nation at Moraviantown and The Munsee-Delaware Nation. Many of the Lenape people chose to stay, but they had to suffer other policies of the U.S. Government in the 1800s and early 1900s, like for instance the Americanization of the Native Americans. The Indian Citizenship Act was passed in 1924 and for the first time Native Americans were accepted as citizens of the U.S. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed much later, in 1978. This act was a turning point in the Native American cultural process and changed drastically its character.

There are several Native American tribes in present-day New Jersey: Powhatan-Renape, Ramapo Mountain People and Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape. My focus is on the Nanticoke-Lenni Lenape tribe of New Jersey.

Lenni-Lenape’s Cultural Re-Construction after 1978

In this section of the paper I would like to present the recent cultural process from the perspective of the community members. The majority of them speak about the year of 1978 as a critical dividing marker for their social and cultural identity. “Before” means before 1978 and “after” is after 1978. “Before” they could not identify themselves as Native Americans in public and they could not practice their religion or follow their traditional cultural patterns, but “after” they started to “bring back” the broken pieces of their cultural identity and to search for the means of expressing it. All they had in 1978 was the collective memory of who they were, but in the long history of political and cultural assimilation nothing had left that would help them maintain their cultural unity. No one knew about the “traditional ways” for they were all gone.

First Step: In search for Native American Ways

It was around that time when the elders of the tribe realized that they needed to re-learn their own culture and to find ways to re-connect the broken chain of the cultural transmission. They needed the essential techniques of the cultural reproduction and the wisdom to find the “Native way”. For the identification of the “Native way” was the first step for their individual and community’s identity construction. This was the way which was not the one of the “whites” and not the one of the “blacks”.

Their initial search for knowledge coincided with the time when a man from the Lakota tribe named Fools Crow was traveling along the East Coast with the idea to share his knowledge and experience in the “Native ways” with the eastern tribes before it was “too late”. The story says that he had a vision and realized that it was his mission to help his brothers and sisters on the East Coast of the continent to regain their Native identity and cultural practices. So, he started to teach them the basics that would give them the means to start re-learning and re-constructing their culture. That is how the people from the Lenni-Lenape tribe began to learn some of the Lakota’s old beliefs and legends, religious ceremonies and rules for organizing their social life.

There were four people chosen (two elders and their children) to be ordained as spiritual leaders of the Lenape tribe. These four people were the first ones to learn the basic concepts of the Native American culture and to pass them on to the other tribal members. And I say “Native American Culture” because at that time it did not matter to them that it was not their own Lenni-Lenape culture as long as it was a Native American one.

So, they learned the “Lakota ways” to conduct ceremonies such as naming ceremony, wedding and funeral ceremonies, sweat lodge ceremony, pipe ceremony, tobacco offering ceremony, thanks giving ceremony, sun dance and others. They learned how to organize the seasonal Spiritual Gatherings of the tribe, how to understand many of the native stories and legends such as the World creation story, the legend about the origin of the Piece pipe, etc. They learned how to explain the meanings of the four directions (North, South, East and West) and of the colors representing them. They began to re-introduce in practice some of the traditional crafts such as beadwork, pine-needle basket making, flute making, regalia (traditional garb) making, dance accessories making, woodcarving and wood-burning techniques, wigwam construction and interior design, and many others. They learn how to organize their Tribal Council according to the Native American concepts of social relations within the tribe and how to approach the state and the federal government for state and federal recognition of the newly re-constituted tribe.

Thus, the first step of the cultural reconstruction was based upon the need to find the Native American Connection, which would provide them with those concepts and practices that would consolidate the tribal identity in contrast to the ones of the “whites” and of the “blacks”, i.e. the beginning of the Lenape’s cultural reconstruction was based on racial differences rather than on ethnic ones.

Second Step: In search for Lenape Ways

The second step was taken in the beginning of the 1990’s when the Lenni-Lenape community re-established its connections with other Lenape communities residing in Oklahoma state and in the Ontario province of Canada. This connection led to another phase of the tribal culture reconstruction. Tribal members began to “bring back” their own “Lenape ways”. At this point they started to learn cultural practices that were different from the other Native American tribes and began to strengthen their specific Lenape identity. This changed once again the nature of the tribal relationships with other Native American tribes and with non-Native groups in residing in the immediate area around them in New Jersey.

This was the time when they started to “bring back” Lenape songs, Lenape social dances vs. powwow dances, Lenape patterns for the traditional crafts, the Algonquian language and elements of the ceremonies that would replace some of the Lakota ones. The nature of this specific connection with other Lenape groups is most often described in the following way: “We are the keepers of the land and they are the keepers of the culture. When they come here they feel home and give us back our culture…”[15]

In the late 1990s and beginning of 2000 the Lenape people had enough of their identity and culture re-constructed which gave them the means to start projecting the image of the tribe to “the others”, meaning non-Native groups. They started to actively participate in exhibitions, performances, and educational programs for school students and other activities of cultural presentation aimed to change old attitudes towards Native Americans and Lenape’s, in particular.

There are many generational differences within the tribe that create another layer of complexity to this dynamic cultural process. There are also some disagreements between tribal members actively involved in the Methodist church and the so called “traditionalists” who accept only the sacred circle as a true Native American temple. Different members of the tribe are differently involved in political issues on national level and participate in virtual Internet communities fighting for the Native American identity and cultural rights.

The complex relationships within the tribe and between the tribe and other Lenape communities in the U.S. and Canada as well as with the ones with the local “others” and the “imagined” others on national level[16] shape the specific character of their present cultural reconstruction, presentation and dynamic change that need further observation and in-depth analysis.

5. Old Immigrant Communities in New Jersey: “Hyphenated” Americans[17] and the Meaningful Changes of the Two Ethnic Identity Markers

Some of the immigrant communities in New Jersey already have three or four generations born and raised there as Americans. Interestingly enough they identify themselves as Japanese-Americans, Estonian-Americans, Irish-Americans, Polish-Americans, Russian-Americans, Italian-Americans, Greek-Americans, Ukrainian-Americans, etc. The first identity component obviously designates ancestry and ethnic relationship, while the second one provides the connection to all other communities residing in the U.S. People with double identity claim to bridge two worlds – the one that have provided them with the unique ethnic origin and distinct cultural experience related to a certain homeland (the “old country” in their vocabulary) and the one that make them equal to all who have shared the social and cultural transformations which have made them Americans. Some people see “the American culture” as a “melting pot” for cultures and identities, others - as a multicultural amalgam or a cultural “salad bowl”, but what ever is the perception of “the American” one thing is clear – each ethnicity and culture who have become part of the “American way” for the last 300 years had to go through dramatic cultural transformations that have resulted in unique cultural forms related to neither the “old country” nor to the other communities living in the U.S.

So, why and how do they still keep the additional ethnic component of their American identity and also how does this double identity[18] influences the complex character of their communities’ cultural process?

Let us take the Italian-Americans for example. “Strangely enough, mass migration of Italians to American began only after the diverse regions of Italy were united to form one country. Unification produced severe economic hardships and “Italians” came to American because of those reasons. Hence, when they arrived, they had no reason to give up their language, or customs, or religion and become “American.” They were often reluctant immigrants that loved their country and their culture. So, as they adapted and bent their ways to survive in a land that was strange to them, even if it offered enormous opportunity, they tried to maintain as much of their heritage as possible. They often expected their children to do the same, speaking their native language at home, and insisting that the costums, religion, and social ties remained the same as that of their native regions. They were the Italian Italians.

But the children, torn between parents, home, and community outside, still had to deal with a broader reality: that of school, “American” classmates, public holidays, and other social elements that were far removed from the culture of their homes. These children grew up to be Italian Americans. Their children were even more removed from the cultural experience of their grandparents, and easily accepted much of the “American Way.” They became American Italians and even American Americans.

But a strange thing happened some fifteen or twenty years ago. These Americans have become more and more conscious of their heritage and more interested in learning of their roots. These people started to again think and speak about themselves as Italian Americans or even Italians. Now we can meet people who identify themselves as Italians, Americans or Italian Americans and it is all related to the very complex community dynamics and awareness of the ethnic cultural heritage within a multicultural context.”[19]

It is not that simple as it is in the description above, but it gives as an idea how many of the present-day Italian-Americans think about their identity changes. Their double identity provides them with specific relationships (real or imagined) with other local communities in the immediate area, with communities that have the same ethnic component (other Italian-Americans in the U.S.) and with “the old country” (Italy). And it is true for all others who identify themselves in the same “hyphenated” way. So, when trying to trace the cultural processes related to such communities, it is important to us to focus on several major topics:

A.                 Immigration waves and ways of early cultural resistance/adaptation

B.                 Reproduction/Change of old ethnic patterns in new social context.

C.                 Family practices for cultural perpetuation and maintenance of traditional values

D.                 Religious temples and ethnic organizations as sites for cultural reproduction

E.                  Periods of active “bringing back” of their ethnic cultural experience

F.                  Travels back to “the old country” for identity re-confirmation and learning

G.                 Types of cultural presentations for “others” (locally and regionally)

H.                 Involvement in cultural activities of the imagined ethnic/national community (nationally and internationally)

As I mentioned in the beginning of the paper I am not going into in-depth analysis, but I would like to mention some examples illustrating the importance of these topics to our better understanding of the cultural process. I will again use the experience of the Italian-American and also the Greek-American communities in South Jersey as such examples.

Although there was a constant immigration of Italians and Greeks to the U.S. for at least 150 years, we can distinguish several major waves of immigration when huge numbers of them came and settled in U.S. and New Jersey in particular: end of 19 and beginning of 20 c, after the World War II, after 1965 and recent (although much less in number) immigrants of the last 10-15 years.

The connection of the cultural process with the immigration history explains an important aspect of the heterogenic character of the Italian (or Greek) community and it confirms that the above description of the identity change is perhaps true in part only for people whose ancestors immigrated to the U.S. with the first two waves. In practice the Italian-American and the Greek-American Communities in South Jersey are comprised of members who represent all of the above mentioned immigration waves, which means they have different knowledge and experience with their ethnic cultures in terms of language, family and community customs, folk narratives and musical traditions. Very often they bring old ethnic and regional models of relationships to the new country, such as the regional Italian ones – North vs. South, Italy vs. Sicily, but sometimes they become simply Italians. In almost every home we will find people speaking about their traditional food ways and about their love for the extended family. We will find there corners decorated with souvenirs or craft objects that provide the visual connection to the “old country” and its traditional culture. But the story and vision will differ depending on the generation and its specific relation to “the old” world and to “the new” one. For some of the community members their ethnic culture is only the mental connection with the past, while for some others - this is the only living culture. Every time when the community members want to revive some cultural elements that are about to vanish they find help from recent immigrants or bring people from Italy or Greece to teach them folk dance, music or various traditional crafts.

It is very interesting for me to observe how the churches have expanded their roles in these communities far beyond their religious ones and have become primary cultural centers where most of the community’s cultural activities take place. Many of them have community halls and properties big enough to hold a variety of cultural events. It is very often easy to identify the ethnic connections of the churches in the area by their names: Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, St. Anthony of Padua, Our Lady of Pompeii, St. Padre Pio Parish (for the Italians) or St. Anthony Greek Orthodox Church, St. Demetrios Church, St. Fanourious Church (for the Greeks). Members of the church committees are very involved in organizing one of the most popular forms of ethnic cultural presentation – the festivals. For example, St. Padre Pio Parish of Vineland hosts an annual Italian Festival in September while the St. Anthony Church hosts the Greek Festival every May again in Vineland. Festivals usually include a religious ceremony (with procession for the Italians), exhibits and demonstrations of a variety of traditional crafts, music and dance performances and ethnic food. Some of the cultural activities for the community or for “the others” could be organized by ethnic organizations. For example, The Sicilian-American Club of South Jersey organizes a series of annual events such as Carnevale in February or St. Josef Celebration in March, and the “Hellenic Dancers” who celebrated their 35 Anniversary in the spring of 2007 serve as not only a place where people go to dance, but as organizers of various events featuring Greek folk music and dance.

Travels to the homeland have different meanings to the community members. Some of them experience the travel as a form of pilgrimage, for some others it could be discovery or re-discovery. Over the last 15-20 years the connections with the home land have become more intensive and people travel both ways.

There are many National (meaning American) Italian or Greek organizations that help with building up the ethnic organizations’ infrastructure and strengthening the individual relationships with the imagined ethnic community on national and international levels. And I speak about an ethnic community because the national community is the American one.

In general I would say that some of the old immigrant communities in the U.S. are in a similar to the Native American ones’ process of cultural reconstruction and in many ways they are in a similar search for some basic techniques of cultural perpetuation. Only the process is even more complicated because of the more layers of relationships that influence their choices and changes their values. That is not only because of the “outside” source of the homeland and because of the different immigration histories, but also because of the shift from the racial to the ethnic peculiarities of their cultures and because of the fast changing ethno-maps of the territories they inhabit. One thing is common though, and it is the obvious need of their members to identify tangible community connection within the modern global world and to re-discover the means of producing locality in the fast changing cultural spaces.

6. New Immigrant Communities: Old Identities, New Citizenship

People who were born outside the U.S. and have immigrated to the country in the recent years form new immigrant communities. They do not identify themselves with a hyphen, because they remain who they were ethnically and culturally before the immigration. They may adopt local customs, but the adoption does not change the core elements of their cultures. And very often they create ethnic versions of American holidays like Thanksgiving, Columbus Day and others. A large number of New Jersey residents belong to this group such as Mexicans, Indians, Columbians, Dominicans, West Africans, Filipinos, Bulgarians, Turks, Serbians, Romanians, Vietnamese and others.

These are the people who are often considered as Diaspora and their cultures are described as a version of the one in the homeland. This is only true in part because even the old culture changes quickly in an ethnic community built up of people who do not belong to same regional versions of the ethnic cultures in the home country.

Life within the community

If we consider some the same topics as for the old immigrants we can say that the new ones tend to be much more closely connected within the community because of limited knowledge about the new country, limited language skills or nostalgia for the social and cultural life “at home” – “We meet mostly with Bulgarians. It is as if we are back home. They understand us, and I do not mean only the language, but they understand how we feel, how we think. Americans are very different. It is not the same with them…”[20]

Intensive relationships with the homeland

The new immigrants travel much more frequently home and maintain intensive relationships with relatives and friends there – social, economical, political and cultural. Most of the Bulgarian and Turkish interviewees, for example, visit their home country every year, their children spend their vacations there with relatives; they always have information about current political and economical changes and very firm opinions about them. Internet connections, accessibility to TV and Radio programs in the homeland, newspapers published specifically for them in the U.S. add to the maintenance and preservation of their identity and culture. And they usually want to keep it because they feel foreigners in the U.S. regardless of the years spent in the new country. “Our relatives are there, our friends are there; we need to know what is happening there. It is part of our lives. We can not just forget it. It is who we are after all…We do not feel home here (meaning she and her family – I.P.). Well, we have a house, and we met new friends here, but still, something is missing, something is not the same…We always want to go back. It is just that we do not have long vacations and time is never enough to see everybody there, you know how it is…”[21]

The frequent travels not only maintain relationships with relatives and friends in the homeland, no provide missing information about cultural traditions they want to keep alive in the new country. They bring back books, films or object needed for home decoration or for practice of one or another traditional ceremony.

Adaptation without acceptance

The new immigrants celebrate the National Holidays of the home country that becomes an important means for building a sense of community whose members were born in different parts of their respective countries. Like for instance, Bulgarians from all over South Jersey could be seen together on March 3 (Independence Day) or on May 24 (St. Cyril and Metodious - The Day of the Slavic Alphabet and Literature). Sometimes they celebrate traditional holidays trying to find the most popular versions of them or accepting the one chosen by the natural community leaders. For example, the Celebration of January 8 (The day of the Old Midwife) happens in whatever regional version is known to the host of the celebration. Similarly to the old immigrants they often re-produce ethnic patterns in group communications. A good example in this respect provides the relationship between the Bulgarians and the Bulgarian Turks who came from the region of Kurdjali and settled close by each other in South Jersey. As previously good neighbors they continue to exchange visits for Christmas, Easter, Ramadan and Kurban Bayram and to move in the same social circles.

It is much easier for the community to maintain certain cultural patterns when the majority of them have immigrated from one and the same region in the old country. This is the case with the Turks in New Jersey. The great majority of them came from the region of Giresun, near Black Sea. They have created Turkish organization in one of the southern counties and organize Turkish events for their own people featuring traditional singing and dance, karagoz and marionettes’ performances, storytelling and Turkish cuisine.[22]

For cultural presentations aimed for “other” communities the new immigrants rely much more on guest-artists from their home countries than on local musicians, dancers or craftspeople. Their main resource for cultural and identity reproduction remain their own cultural memories as well as the additional information related directly with the home land. This information again could be found in person while traveling back home or on Internet discussion forums, ethnic TV and Radio stations as well as newspapers published specifically for them in the respective native languages.

Patterns for re-creating the “old country” in a new cultural space

Similarly to the first Italians who immigrated to the U.S. and founded Little Italys all over the country, the new immigrants want to find a cultural space for their “old” cultures without having to become yet an integral part of the American cultural space. A good example in this respect are the small ethnic clubs all decorated with traditional craft objects, portraits of national heroes, national flags, etc. symbols of the old country, where they spend time together sharing their own traditional meals and/or celebrating different holidays. They are trying to adapt the American culture to their own ethnic one (typical example is the Thanksgiving Dinner with ethnic meals)[23] and thus keeping still well outlined boundaries between their old cultural identity and the new cultural context of its expressions. And this is just another way of community, culture and locality search in the modern global world.

Instead of a conclusion I would just say that the overview offered in this paper is but a small first step towards presenting the complex character of intra- and inter-cultural relationships of the communities residing in New Jersey. An in-depth research will bring data sufficient enough to allow adequate analysis of the elaborate nature of their cultural dynamics and the role of the folklore in the process of the cultural continuity and change. The paper also presents a summary of some of the most relevant research topics, which are related to the different types of communities and which can become analytical pillars for future studies.

References Cited

Anderson, B. 2006. Imagined Communities (Revised Edition), Verso

Appadurai, A. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Univ. of Minnesota Press;

Baron, R. and N. Spitzer (eds.) Public Folklore, 1992. Smithsonian Institution Press

Ben-Amos D. and L. Weissberg (eds.) 1999. Cultural Memory and the Construction of Identity, Wayne State Univ. Press

Ben Amos, D. 2000 Toward a Definition of Folklore in Context – In: Toward New Perspectives in Folklore (A. Paredes and R. Bauman, eds.), 2000. American Folklore Society (First publ in 1972), pp 3-19

Bendix, R. 1997. In Search of Authenticity: The Formation of Folklore Studies, Univ. of Wisconsin Press

Bourdieu, P. 1984. Homo Academicus. Paris:Minuit

Bourdieu, P. &L. Wacquant. 1991. Introduction à une anthropologie réflexive. Paris

Brunvand, J. 1998. The Study of American Folklore, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

Cohen, A. 1992. Self-Conscious Anthropology. - In: Okely, J. & H. Callaway (eds.). Anthropology and Autobiography. London: Routledge, 221-241

Čapo, J. 1999. “We are the Better Croats than they are!”: Perception and Management of Cultural Differences within a National Commuity. Paper, presented on the 6^th Mediterranean Ethnological Summer School. Piran, Slovenia, 20th-26^th September

Chambers, E. 2006. Heritage Matters, Maryland Sea Grant College

Čolović, I. 1997. Politika Simbola. (Politics of Symbols) Beograd, “Radio B92” Publishing House, 25-32; 64-73;

Čolović, I. 1998. Kosovo - Zlatna grana srpske politike (Kosovo - the Golden Bough of the Serbian Policy) - In: Danas (Today), 14.09.1998

Del Negro G. and H. Berger. 2004. New Directions in the Study of Everyday Life: Expressive Culture and the Interpretation of Practice – In: H. Berger and G. Del Negro. Identity and Everyday Life: Essays in the Study of Folklore, Music and Popular Culture, Wesleyan Univ. Press

Dundes, A. 1989. Defining Identity through Folklore. – In: Folklore Matters, The University of Tennessee Press

Folklore Forum, 1975. N 12.

Hobsbaum E. and T. Ranger 1983. The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge Univ. Press

Kuper, A. 1985. Anthropology and Anthropologists. The Modern British School. (Completely Revised Edition). London: Routledge&Kegan Paul

Marcus, G. 1989. Imagining the Whole: Ethnography’s Contemporary Efforts to Situate Itself - In: Critique of Anthropology, 9,3: 7-30

Moser, J. 1998. Involvement and Detachment in the Fieldwork Process - In: Anthropological Journal on European Cultures. 7/1, 80-89

Narayan, K. 1993. How Native is a “Native” Anthropologist? - In: American Anthropologist, 95:671-686

Powdermaker, H. 1967. Stranger and Friend. The Way of an Anthropologist. London: Secker & Warburg

Sims, M. and Stephens M. 2005. Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Traditions, Utah State Univ. Press

Todorova-Pirgova, I. 2003. Nationalism and Folklore in the Balkans: Proceedings of the RSS Final Conference, CEU Press

Todorova-Pirgova, I. 2001. Langue et Esprit National: Mythe – Folklore – Identite - In: Ethnologie Francaise, N 2, 287-297

Todorova-Pirgova, I. 2001. “Chosen People” in the Balkans - In: MESS, Ljubljana, 45-65

Todorova-Pirgova, I. 1999. Native Anthropologist: On the Bridge or At the Border - In: Anthropological Journal on European Cultures, Vol.8 (Giordano Chr. And Ina-Maria Graverus, Eds. The Politics of “Anthropology at Home”), N2, Hamburg: Lit, 171-191

Toelken, B. 1996. The Dynamics of Folklore, Utah State University Press

Waters, M. 1990. Ethnic Options: Choosing Identities in America, Univ. of California Press