Review - American Jewish Archives

204 American Jezuish Archives
and group culture is supported by an extensive institutional frame-
work, but the impact of these commonalities in culture and experi-
ence continues to be felt well beyond the second generation.'
It is this model, whose most well-known proponents include
Glazer and Moyruhan (1970); that inspires much of this book's orien-
tation. In analyzing the distinct experience and social positioning
of each group, the authors place particular emphasis on such fac-
tors as the cultural traits and occupational experiences of the group
upon arrival, motivation for migration and the rate of return mi-
gration, economic opportunities available to the group at the time
of settlement, and their areas of initial residence. They also give a
detailed account of the social and cultural matrix of ethnic commu-
nal life, singling out neighborhood, religion, fraternal societies, the
foreign language press, unions, taverns, theater, and festivals as
structures and institutions that supported and heightened the sense
of ethnic solidarity.
The overall chronological orientation of the book is traversed by
a number of recurring patterns, some of which, according to Binder
and Reimers, already emerge during the days of colonial New York.
The fierce commercial, social, and cultural competition between the
Dutch and English in the first decades of English control resulted
in strong ethnic tensions and political battles fought along ethnic
lines initiated a pattern of interethnic competition, which tends to
be most pronounced between those on the bottom of the social lad-
der. By the early 1700s, however, Dutch political and economic
dominance had decreased to such an extent that the Dutch, while
professing a deep allegiance to Dutch culture, gradually adopted
English language and customs out of social and economic neces-
sity. This adaption prepared the ground for increasing contact and
inter-marriage between the two groups and increasing assimilation
of the Dutch into English culture. This pattern of initial bicultural-
ism and ethnic allegiance, followed by acculturation, was to charac-
terize the trajectory of many future minority groups.
Already in the colonial years, Binder and Reimers note, varying
degrees of ethnic allegiance and acculturation between different
immigrant groups occurred. Comparing the rapid assimilation of
Huguenots into English culture with the continuous existence of
Jews as a separate community, residential pattern, social and eco-