Safeguarding Danishness? Ethnicity, Religion and Acculturation among Danish Americans in Three Danish Spaces in the U.S.

Abstract

This paper examines and compares patterns of ethnic safeguarding across the generations in three Danish spaces in the US Midwest. Investigating the extent to which ‘Danishness’ has continuously been practised and preferred among descendants of the Danish immigrants who settled there at around the turn of the 20th century, it argues that there is a variety in the level to which Danish ethnic identity has historically been safeguarded in the three spaces. Consequently, this is echoed by variations in the extent to which later generations of immigrants seem to have relinquished Danishness as the defining part of their identities. The interviews indicate that a late 19th century dispute within the Danish church in America regarding the relation between religion and ethnicity, manifested in self-perceptions and life practises among Danish American families, echoed through the generations and impacted the acculturation processes to this very day.