Last week the Wisconsin State Journal published an article called "Stoughton struggles to keep Norwegian heritage alive" which chronicled the struggles of some people in the town who are trying to, well, keep Norwegian heritage alive there.
It's easy to claim some Norwegian pride this weekend when up to 30,000 people flood Stoughton streets to sample lutefisk and admire rosemaling during the annual Syttende Mai celebration.
But maintaining that heritage the other 51 weeks of the year has been difficult as fewer people in this city south of Madison identify with Norwegian ancestry and local Norwegian groups face declining and aging membership.
As a member of the Polish Heritage Club here in Madison, I can feel their pain.
The PHC and the Norwegian heritage groups in Stoughton start from different positions. There a once majority group is on the outs, so to speak, while Poles and Polish-Americans have never been the predominant ethnic group in these parts and are instead working to carve out their own niche in the greater Madison culture. Still, we are in pretty much the same boat – attempting to promote a minority ethnicity. And we too have an aging membership, although ours is not in decline.
I don't know about Stoughton but I think there are a couple things that make Madison a tough nut to crack. First is the UW which ensures a steady flow of young transients. Young people, generally speaking, don't care much about the traditions of yesterday and transients, by definition, don't stay and don't weave themselves into the community. The second element is that there are few new immigrants. While many Poles and Norwegians emigrated to Wisconsin back in the 19th/early 20th centuries, there are very few now. (Although there are more people from Poland in the Madison area than you'd think.) For the most part, their cultures became absorbed into the mainstream decades ago. In Madison this has led to familiarity breeding contempt to some extent. To state things in an overly simplistic and crude way, Polish and Norwegian (and perhaps German and Scandinavian more broadly too) cultures aren't exotic enough. This is despite, from my experience, anyway, that most people don't seem to know very much about them. They tend to be lumped together into this nebulous blob that doesn't warrant much attention except when you're telling Ole and Lena jokes or making fun of polka. The idea that there's this thing that is Polish culture or Norwegian culture and that it is distinct from American culture and, furthermore, is interesting in its own right is either generally thought of as a joke or a subject fit only for a thesis paper instead of being something worthy of playing out in the larger cultural milieu – out on the streets and in the lives of people generally.
I also assume, from reading the article, that the Norwegian groups in Stoughton have similar internal problems to those of the PHC, namely, trying to answer the question "What traditions should we promote?" in such a way as to overcome external obstacles. As the piece notes, Stoughton was inundated with Norwegians in the 1870s and was 75% Norwegian within 30 years. I get the impression that Norwegian heritage groups there consider the traditions of those people as the ones that need preservation and promotion.
The PHC's mission statement is to not only preserve and pass down traditions, but to also promote Polish culture generally. Unfortunately we get bogged down in the past a lot of the time. As seems to be the case in Stoughton, we often tend to view the traditions and practices from the time when Polish immigrants arrived here in Wisconsin as being "Polish culture". They are overly romanticized and conceptions of Polish culture become static. In my opinion, for a small ethnic cultural organization to lapse almost entirely into atavism means it won't be around much longer.
Going back to the article, it mentions rosemaling (decorative floral painting) and has pictures of people dressed in 19th century costume preparing to party like it was 1899. There's nothing wrong with these things but it is reasonable to assume you can attract large numbers of people away from all the other things in their lives purely on the basis of wallowing in traditions from which they are generations removed? There was Norwegian culture before any Norwegians set foot in Wisconsin and the culture continued to change after Norwegian immigrants became assimilated. Focusing on a small period of time and its attendant traditions is to ignore the fact that culture is not static but dynamic. For a similar (but much more excoriating) take on the Polish side of things, read this post by Nina Camic.
As far as the PHC goes, we still tend to organize events around the Big 4: 19th century folk traditions, Chopin, Poland during World War II, and the Solidarity movement. However, things are changing albeit slowly. We sponsor various events that are firmly rooted in the present like the Polish Film Festival and some concerts, the most recent of which was Klezmafour at the High Noon Saloon. There is momentum in the club to do other things but there's a few decades of inertia to overcome.
While I don't know how to expand our membership or even get more people to attend events, I am convinced that ethnic heritage organizations like the PHC need to:
1) Broaden its horizons so that it is not the equivalent of a hyper-specialized chapter of the SCA.
2) Leverage online resources. Get a webpage if you don't already have one and do some social networking as well. E.g. – get a Facebook page.
3) Throw social events so members can simply get together instead of having to raise funds or explicitly promote the club.
I'm a Polish-American, not a Pole. Personally, I think the PHC works best when it engages Polish culture on a variety of levels. This allows me to establish my own identity as a Polish-American instead of being told what that identity is. For instance, while most Poles and no doubt a huge percentage of Polish-Americans are Catholic, I'm not. I'm not even a Christian. And so traditions relating to Easter, Christmas, and anything else to do with religion hold minimal interest for me. I'm much more keen on watching Polish films, listening to Polish music, eating Polish food, and socializing with my fellow members.
If you're not a member of some kind of ethnic cultural organization, then riddle me this: what can a group like the Polish Heritage Club do to grab your interest? I don't necessarily mean for you to become a dues paying member, but what kind of event could we organize to get you to dedicate some time and perhaps money to get a taste of Polish culture? Polish films? Polish music groups? Polish food? Lectures? Dancing? Plays? Books?
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