I read once that the general 19th / early 20th century fascination that many Scandinavian Americans had with the thought of ancient Norsemen reaching way further inland on Turtle Island than they ever really did, manifested in things like the Kensington Runestone hoax... That all of that was basically in order to assert that the Scandinavian settlers had more of a "right to the land" than the Anglos, who saw the Scandinavians basically as weird foreigners.
Now I'm not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant and from looking like Anglos, yet Scandinavians' deviation from the hegemonic Anglo core, most obviously in language, still created tension. This tension as I see it never really fully disappeared, it just became a lot less obvious: like, I have been called "not a real American" for being Norwegian before — but the difference between myself and the average self-identified Norwegian American is that I actually live in Norway, speak Norwegian, and generally have a meaningful connection to Norway.
I feel like Scandinavian Americans were historically much more of a mixed bag, with both your Joe Hills and Knute Nelsons, but the thorough assimilation of Scandinavians by today makes modern Scandinavian Americans much more consistently Seppo-ish.
Now I'm not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant
Early America has A LOT of anti-Catholic brainworms, the Puritans were constantly fretting about "Popish Conspiracies", there were tons of nativist anti-Catholic political parties and gangs. A lot of German immigrants were Catholic, and basically all Irish were, it was probably a bigger contribution towards hostility towards them than ethnic tensions.
I read once that the general 19th / early 20th century fascination that many Scandinavian Americans had with the thought of ancient Norsemen reaching way further inland on Turtle Island than they ever really did, manifested in things like the Kensington Runestone hoax... That all of that was basically in order to assert that the Scandinavian settlers had more of a "right to the land" than the Anglos, who saw the Scandinavians basically as weird foreigners.
Now I'm not an expert by any means, even though this is my own family history so I really should know a lot more; but my impression is that Scandinavians had privileges in the USA from being protestant and from looking like Anglos, yet Scandinavians' deviation from the hegemonic Anglo core, most obviously in language, still created tension. This tension as I see it never really fully disappeared, it just became a lot less obvious: like, I have been called "not a real American" for being Norwegian before — but the difference between myself and the average self-identified Norwegian American is that I actually live in Norway, speak Norwegian, and generally have a meaningful connection to Norway.
I feel like Scandinavian Americans were historically much more of a mixed bag, with both your Joe Hills and Knute Nelsons, but the thorough assimilation of Scandinavians by today makes modern Scandinavian Americans much more consistently Seppo-ish.
Early America has A LOT of anti-Catholic brainworms, the Puritans were constantly fretting about "Popish Conspiracies", there were tons of nativist anti-Catholic political parties and gangs. A lot of German immigrants were Catholic, and basically all Irish were, it was probably a bigger contribution towards hostility towards them than ethnic tensions.
Absolutely, absolutely.