Page 231 - Contribution To Phenomenology

224 STANFORD M, LYMAN & LESTER EMBREE

Probably the highest degree of this autonomy, a virtual community
self-government, did arise in the old Chinatowns of the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries." The lowest degree occurred, probably, for
German and Dutch areas of settlement in the United States. Of course,
the Amish provide another example of such autonomy.
Would you say that the degree of autonomy correlates to the number
of different ethnic characteristics, the most when the language, religion, etc.,
are all different from those of the adjacent majority and the least when
there are the fewest differences, including say, linguistic ones that are hardly
more than dialectical, such as among I think, uneducated English and
Dutch in the 18th Century, which practically disappear in perhaps only one
or two generations? They are all Protestant, all Northern Europeans
ethnically, speak Germanic languages, and on and on, and are thus well on
the way to merging into the WASPS, A Chinatown would be different in
almost every way, especially if there was continual immigration.
Of course, change comes via the inter-generational process and its
sociological effects. By the time one reaches the third, fourth, and fifth
generations, there has usually occurred an economic mobility that also
becomes geographic, taking these later generations out of the ghettos or
enclaves of then* forbears and into the middle class neighborhoods of
the larger city and the suburbs. Such movements break down ethnic
group solidarity. At this point in socio-cultural expression, other types of
symbols remain. My guess is that at that point you get a leap in the
frequency of inter-ethnic marriage. Yes. There is good evidence for
inter-ethnic marriages in a study carried out of three generations of New
England inhabitants in the 1940s. Marriage Ucenses from that period
show that in the third generation intermarriage among the various
European peoples was very high, but inter-religious marriage was very
low, so that "Catholic," "Protestant," and "Jew" become the "holding
companies" of ethnicity.^^

" Stanford M. Lyman, Chinatown and Little Tokyo: Power, Conflict, and
Community among Chinese and Japanese Immigrants in America (Millwood, N.Y.:
Associated Faculty Press, 1986), 109-224).
^^ Ruby Jo Reeves Kennedy, "Single or Triple Melting Pot? Intermarriage
Trends in New Haven, 1870-1940," American Journal of Sociology, 49:4 (January,
1944), 331-339; and "Single or Triple Melting Pot? Intermarriage in New Haven,
1870-1950," American Journal of Sociology 58.1 (July 1952), 56-59.