Cultures en contact. La communaute polonaise de blossburg, pa usa
Institution:
Paris 3Disciplines:
Directors:
Abstract EN:
A group of polish immigrants settled in the 1860s in blossburg, a small mining town of northern pennsylvania. Their minority statuts, both in absolute numbers and in their economic and cultural position, brought changes to their cultural identity as they adapted to their new envcironment. The fourth generation no longer uses the polish language as a communication tool, exogamy is the rule, and the polish is less and lees distinct. As the level of education rises, people move out of area, reducing the size of the communauty and endangering its survival. Memories of the immigration period, retold as a myth origins in the founding texts of the community, are still alive older people and for the standard-bearers of polishness, but of little relevance to the younger generation. The maintenance or revival of a "symbolic ethnicity," defined as "feeling polishamerican rather than being so," can be seen in the "invention" of some old customs and the use of prestigious cultural symbols from contemporary poland (the pole, solidarity) in a search for distinction. Today the bolssburg poles are no longer discriminated against because old prejudices have mellowed. They are well adjusted and bring some cultural diversity to the local area.
Abstract FR:
L' etude de l' evolution de l' identite culturelle d' une communaute polonaise installee depuis les annees 1860 dans une petite volle miniere du nord de la pennsylvanie montre comment, en position dominee, tant sur le plan demographique qu' economique et culturel, les polono-americains de blossnurg ont du s' adapter pour survivre. A la quatrieme generation, la langue polonaise n'est plus pratiquee, du moins comme outil de communication, l'exogamie est dominante et la specificite de la paroisse polonaise s'emousse. L'augmentation du niveau de capital scolaire est accomp-agnee d'une mobilite sociale et geographique accrue qui accentue l' erosion demographique du groupe et questionne ses chances de survie en tant qu' unite distincte. Le souvenir de l' immigration, reformule en recit des origines dans les textes "memoire" de la communaute et encore vivant a travers les histoires de famille chez les porte-parole de la polonite, s' estompe chez les plus jeunes. On peut noter cependant le maintien ou la renaissance d' une "ethnicite symbolique", fondee sur un sentiment d'appartenance a la communaute polono-americaine, manifiste dans la revalorisation volantarisye de la tradition polonaise par la reappropriation ( reinvention) de certaines vieilles coutumes et de symboles culturels prestigieux venus de pologne (le pape, solidarite) qui produisent un profit de distinction. Au present, difference ne veut plus dire discrimination, les prejuges ont perdu de leur virulence passee, et la communaute polonaisebien integree, apporte un element de diversite a l'identite locale.