of the Architect of the Capitol, for this publicc well as for information regarding the Franzoni desc still living in the United States today.)
14.	Congressional Record, 1930, p. 2.
15.	Sellers, Peale, p. 333.	.
16.	Richard R. Borneman, "Franzoni and Andrei Sculptors in Baltimore, 1808," The William and Mary Q Third Series, 10, no. 1 (January 1953), pp 108-H. > Craven, Sculpture in America, pp. 58-9.
17.	Fairman, Art and Artists, p. 452.
18.	Lorado Taft, American Sculpture (New York: M Co., 1924), p. 568.
Article 37
THE NEW ETHNICITY
Michael Novak
The word "ethnic" does not have a pleasing sound. The use of the word makes many people anxious. What sorts of repression account for this anxiety? What pretenses about the world are threatened when one points to the realities denoted and connoted by that ancient word? An internal history lies behind resistance to ethnicity; such resistance is almost always passional, convictional, not at all trivial. Many persons have tried to escape being "ethnic," in the name of a higher moral claim.
There are many meanings to the word itself. I have tried to map some of them below. There are many reasons forresistance to the word "ethnic" (and what it is taken to represent). Rather than beginning with these directly, 1 prefer to begin by defining the new ethnicity.
The definition 1 wish to give is personal; it grows out of personal experience; it is necessitated by an effort to attain an accurate self-knowledge. The hundreds of letters, reviews, comments, invitations, and conversations that followed upon The Rise of the Unmeltdble Ethnics (1972) indicate that my own gropings to locate my own identity are not isolated. They struck a responsive chord in many others of Southern and Eastern European (or other) background. My aim was and is to open up the field to study Let later inquiry descern just how broadly and how exactly my first attempts at definition apply. It is good to try to give voice to what has so far been untongued and then to devise testable hypotheses at a later stage.
The new ethnicity, then, is a movement of self-knowl-e 8e on the part of members of the third and fourth deration of Southern and Eastern European inuni-^ts in the United States. In a broader sense, the new e hnicity includes a renewed self-consciousness on the M of other generations and other ethnic groups: the / the Norwegians and Swedes, the Germans, the and Japanese, and others. Much that can be said of these groups can be said, not univocally but speaL^5^' Qthers. In this area, one must learn to aii multiple meanings and with a sharp eye for resemMCeS detail. (By "analogous" I mean "having cal" i but also essential differences"; by univocal a generalization that applies equally to all
My sentences are to be read, then, analogously
Further Reflections On Ethnicity (Jednota	permission.
 	----  	 	<07^ hu Michael Novak. Repnnreo uy hv
not univocally; they are meant to awaken fresh perception, not to dose discussion. They are intended to speak directly of a limited (and yet quite large) range of ethnic groups, while conceding indirectly that much that is said of Southern and Eastern Europeans may also be said, mutatis mutandis, of others.
I stress that, in the main, the "new" ethnicity involves those of the third and fourth generation after immigration. Perhaps two anecdotes will suggest the kind of experience involved. When Time magazine referred to me in 1972 as a "Slovak-American," I felt an inner shock; I had never referred to myself or been publicly referred to in that way. I wasn't certain how I felt about it. Then, in 1974, after I had given a lecture on ethnicity to the only class in Slavic American studies in the United States,* at the City College of New York, the dean of the college said on the way to lunch, "Considering how sensitive you are on ethnic matters, the surprising thing to me was how American you are." I wanted to ask him, "What else?" In this area one grows used to symbolic uncertainties.
The new ethnicity does not entail: (a) speaking a foreign language; (b) living in a subculture; (c) living in a "tight-knit" ethnic neighborhood; (d) belonging to fraternal organizations; (e) responding to "ethnic" appeals; (f) exalting one's own nationality or culture, narrowly construed. Neither does it entail a university education or the reading of writers on the new ethnicity. Rather, the new ethnicity entails: first, a growing sense of discomfort wit! the sense of identity one is supposed to have universalist "melted," "like everyone else"; then a growing appreda tion for the potential wisdom of one's own gut reaction (especially on moral matters) and their historical roots;. growing self-confidence and social power; a sense c being discriminated against, condescended to, or care lessly misapprehended; a growing disaffection regardin those to whom one had always been taught to defer; an a sense of injustice regarding the response of liber; spokesmen to conflicts between various ethnic group especially between "legitimate" minorities and "illegit
*This Slavic American course-in a happy symbol of the ne ethnicity is housed in the Program of Puerto Rican Stud  through^ the generosity of the latter.
Michael Novak. Originally appeared in Center MagszM
1
7. THE ETHNIC LEGACY
mate" ones. There is, in a word, an inner conflict between one's felt personal power and one's ascribed public power: a sense of outraged truth, justice, and equity.
The new ethnicity does, therefore, have political consequences. Many Southern and Eastern European-Ameri-cans have been taught, as I was, not to be ethnic, or even "hyphenated," but only "American.' Yet at critical points it became clear to some of us, then to more of us, that when push comes to shove we are always, in the eyes of others, "ethnics," unless we play completely by their rules, emotional as well as procedural. And in the end, even then, they retain the power and the status. Still, the stakes involved in admitting this reality to oneself are very high. Being "universal" is regarded as being good; being ethnically self-conscious raises anxieties. Since one's whole identity has been based upon being "universal," one is often loathe to change public face too suddenly. Many guard the little power and status they have acquired, although they cock one eye on how the ethnic "movement" is progressing. They are wise. But their talents are also needed.
The new ethnicity, then, is a fledgling movement, not to be confused with the appearance of ethnic themes on television commercials, in television police shows, and in magazines. All these manifestations in the public media would not have occurred unless the ethnic reality of America had begun to be noticed. In states from Massachusetts to Iowa, great concentrations of Catholics and Jews, especially in urban centers, have been some of the main bastions of Democratic Party politics for fifty years. The "new politics," centered in the universities, irritated and angered this constituency (even when, as it sometimes did, it won its votes). Thus there is a relation between the fledgling new ethnicity and this larger ethnic constituency. But what that relationship will finally be has not yet been demonstrated by events.
Those who do not come from Southern or Eastern European backgrounds in the United States may not be aware of how it feels to come from such a tradition; they may not know the internal history. They may note "mass passivity" and "alienation" without sharing the cynicism learned through particular experiences. They may regard the externals of ethnic economic and social success, modest but real, while never noticing the internal ambiguity  and its compound of peace and self-hatred, confidence and insecurity.
To be sure, at first many "white ethnics" of the third generation are not conscious of having any special feelings. The range of feelings about themselves they do have is very broad; more than one stream of feeling is involved. They are right-wingers and left-wingers, chauvinists and universalists, all-Americans and isolationists Many want nothing more desperately than to be considered "American." Indeed, by now many have so deeply acquired that habit that to ask them point-blank how thev are different from others would arouse strong emotional resistance.
For at least three reasons, many white ethi becoming self-conscious. As usual, great forces outside the self draw forth from the s< responses. First, a critical mass of scholars, artis writers is beginning to emerge the Italians, for e> are extraordinarily eminent in the cinema. Secoi prevailing image of the model American the "b the brightest" of the Ivy League, wealthy, suai powerful has been discredited by the mismana of war abroad, by racial injustice at home, and tudes, values, and emotional patterns unworthy < lation internally. The older image of the truly c American is no longer compelling. Many, theref thrown back upon their own resources.
Finally, the attitudes of liberal, enlightened con tors on the "crisis of the cities" seem to fall into tra patterns: guilt vis-a-vis blacks, and disdain for the Bunkers of the land (Bunker is, of course, a class) American name, but Carroll O Connor is in app undisguisably Irish). The national media presen public a model for what it is to be a "good An which makes many people feel unacceptable betters, unwashed, and ignored. Richard He wrote of "the anti-intellectualism of the peop another feature of American life is the indifferenc hostility of many intellectuals to Main Street. Ir then, many people respond with deep conte experts, educators, "limousine liberals," "radio "bureaucrats" a contempt whose sources an those of class ("the hidden injuries of class") an those of ethnicity ("legitimate" minorities and u able minorities). The national social class that pri< on being universalist has lost the confidence c Votes on school bond issues are an example of resistance to professionals.
In my own case, the reporting of voting among white ethnic voters during the Wallace ca of 1964 and 1968 first aroused in me ethnic self-cc ness. Descriptions of "white backlash" often blame inaccurately I came to see upon Slavs a Catholic groups. The Slavs of "South Milwaukt singled out for comment in the Wallace vote in IA in 1964. First, South Milwaukee was not distil from the south side of Milwaukee. Then, it was r that the Slavic vote for Wallace fell below his s average. Then, the very heavy vote for Wallace in German and British American areas was not poi Finally, the strong vote for Wallace in the wealtl eastern suburbs of Milwaukee was similarly ig seemed to me that those whom the grandfatht hunkies" and "dagos" were now being called fascists," and "pigs," with no noticeable gain tion. Even in 1972, a staff advisory in the Shn book for a congressional district in Pittsburgh < district "Wallace country," though the Wallace vc district in 1968 had been twelve per cent, and t phrey vote had been fifty-eight per cent. I ot
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