ASURVEY of the literature on American ethnic reveals a dearth of material dealing with either the cultures or the acculturation of these groups. The sociologists have been studying these intensively for at least two generations, but the sociological interest for the most part has been in the field of minority groups and race relations; that is, the interest has been in prejudice, discrimination, and other aspects of what is termed intergroup relations. Thomas and Znaniecki (1927) and Stonequist (1937) are among the exceptions to this generalization. This dominant sociological interest is reflected in textbooks in this field. With the exception of Schermerhorn (1949), who is interested in the ancestral cultures of ethnic and in the fate of these cultures in the process of acculturation, the textbook writers are interested not so much in the cultures as in the social status of ethnic groups, not so much in acculturation as in the social consequences of minority-group membership (cf. Berry 1951; Marden 1952). Despite its interest in anthropology has not attempted to fill this lacuna in our knowledge. Indeed some of the best research in this field has been conducted by nonanthropologists: the study of the Poles by the sociologists Thomas and Znaniecki, of the Italians by the psychologist Child (1943), and of the Irish by the historian Handlin (1941). Although as early as 1920 Wissler wrote that have been itching to lay their hands on Europeans and their and suggested that they begin with the foreign colonies in America (1920:7), a search by this writer was able to discover less than thirty publications written by anthropologists on the cultures or the acculturation of ethnic groups. This is exclusive, of course, of the literature on Japanese relocation (cf. Leighton 1945) and its aftermath (cf. Bloom and Riemer 1949) which is not concerned with cultural behavior, and of acculturation in noncontinental America, such as Burrows' study of acculturation in Hawaii (1947). The twenty-odd titles discovered by the writer do not, most probably, exhaust the anthropological bibliography in this field, but he is reasonably certain that they comprise the great bulk of the published research. It seems that Wissler exaggerated the extent to which our hands have been itching. This apparent lack of concern with ethnic is particularly interesting in the light of the interest of American anthropology in acculturation. In an important paper, published early in the history of acculturation research, Herskovits argued that acculturation is a powerful technique for the study of the nature and mechanisms of culture, for, among other reasons, when traditions are in conflict, the readjustments within a culture . . . can throw