a central ethnic issue? By what criti 'mPortance and preferential protect ethnic group vis-^-vis another group?
What lessons can be learned from the immig settlement experiences of Eastern and Southern I
188
UNIT 7
189
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. T.n. What Sorts of rePressi n 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 Ues behind resistance to ethnicity; such resistance is almost always passional SSXb	persons have tried to
clS 8 mC' m the name of a higher moral There are many meanings to the word itself. I have tried to map some of them below. There are many reasons nrefX in t R hu ^S^g with these directly I P Th ?Abe m by defininS new ethnicity Y
background. My aim was anH   t ^P6311 (or other) studyLet later ^XXcXusTh  T UP fidd exactly my first aErts at TJ 1 h W broadly and how try to Uotc^^^	  W to
then .o devise tesuble
The n^w ethnicity, then is a ater Sta e  edge on the part of members of ^third	H  T 1'
generation of Southern and Eastern	fourth
grants in the United States In a bro^EW Pean ethnic indudes a
part of other generations and other ethnic gi Irish, the Norwegians and Swedes, the Gen Chinese and Japanese, and others. Much that c of one of these groups can be said, not univ analogously, of others. In this area, one mus speak with multiple meanings and with a sha differences in detail. (By "analogous" I mear resemblances but also essential differences"; b cal I mean a generalization that applies equ cases.) My sentences are to be read, then, an not univocally; they are meant to awaken fres tion, not to close discussion. They are intended directly of a limited (and yet quite large) range groups, while conceding indirectly that much tl of Southern and Eastern Europeans may also mutatis mutandis, of others.
I stress that, in the main, the "new" ethnicity those of the third and fourth generation af gration. Perhaps two anecdotes will suggest of experience involved. When Time magazine re ^^2 as a "Slovak-American," I felt an inne a never referred to myself or been publicly rc m that way. I wasn't certain how I felt about it.
z after I had given a lecture on ethnicity to , ass Slavic American studies in the United S the City College of New York, the dean of the col on the way to lunch, "Considering how sensitive  n ethnic matters, the surprising thing to me  
American course-in a happy symbol o thrnnJt^n.18 h used in the Program of Puerto Rica  ugh the generosity of the latter.

1977. Originally from Center magazine.
190
The new ethnicity is a fledgling movement, not to be confused with the appearance of ethnic themes on television commercials, in television police shows, and in magazines.
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 ethnidty entails: first, a growing sense of discomfort with the sense of identity one is supposed to have universalist, "melted," "like everyone else"; then a growing appreciation for the potential wisdom of one's own gut reactions (especially on moral matters) and their historical roots; a growing self-confidence and social power; a sense of being discriminated against, condescended to, or carelessly misapprehended; a growing disaffection regarding those to whom one had always been taught to defer; and   sense of injustice regarding the response of liberal spokesmen to conflicts between various ethnic groups, especially between "legitimate" minorities and "illegitimate ones. There is, in a word, an inner conflict between ones 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, at when push comes to shove we are always, in the eyes 0 others, "ethnics," unless we play completely by their eS/ ^motional as well as procedural. And in the end,  hen, they retain the power and the status. Still, the es involved in admitting this reality to oneself are bein	"universal" is regarded as being good;
*^8 ethnically self-conscious raises anxieties. Since "e s whole identity has been based upon being "univer-d ' one is often loathe to change public face too sud-ac y Many guard the little power and status they have   Tu^ed, although they cock one eye on how the ethnic tai  Veinent" is progressing. They are wise. But their ^ts are also needed.
to bp6  eW ethnicity, then, is a fledgling movement, not confused with the appearance of ethnic themes on
37. New Ethnicity
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 they are different from others would arouse strong emotional resistance.
For at least three reasons, many white ethnics are becoming self-conscious. As usual, great social forces outside the self draw forth from the self new responses. First, a critical mass of scholars, artists, and writers is beginning to emerge the Italians, for example, are extraordinarily eminent in the cinema. Second, the prevailing image of the model American the "best and the brightest" of the Ivy League, wealthy, suave, and powerful has been discredited by the mismanagement of war abroad, by racial injustice at home, and by attitudes, values, and emotional patterns unworthy of emulation internally. The older image of the truly cultured American is no longer compelling. Many, therefore, are thrown back upon their own resources.
Finally, the attitudes of liberal, enlightened commentators on the "crisis of the cities" seem to fall into traditional patterns: guilt vis-a-vis blacks, and disdain for the Archie Bunkers of the land (Bunker is, of course, a classy British American name, but Carroll O'Connor is in appearance undisguisably Irish). The national media present to the public a model for what it is to be a "good American" which makes many people feel unacceptable to their
191
7. ETHNIC LEGACY
38. Ne
betters, unwashed, and ignored. Richard Hofstadter wrote of "the anti-intellectualism of the people, but another feature of American life is the indifference even hostility of many intellectuals to Main Street. In return, then many people respond with deep contempt or experts, educators, "limousine liberals," "radical chic " "bureaucrats" a contempt whose sources are partly those of class ("the hidden injuries of class") and partly those of ethnicity ("legitimate" minorities and unacceptable minorities). The national social class that prides itself on being universalist has lost the confidence of many. Votes on school bond issues are an example of popular resistance to professionals.
In my own case, the reporting of voting patterns among white ethnic voters during the Wallace campaigns of 1964 and 1968 first aroused in me ethnic self-consciousness. Descriptions of "white backlash" often put the blame inaccurately I came to see upon Slavs and other Catholic groups. The Slavs of "South Milwaukee" were singled out for comment in the Wallace vote in Wisconsin in 1964. First, South Milwaukee was not distinguished from the south side of Milwaukee. Then, it was not noted that the Slavic vote for Wallace fell below his statewide average. Then, the very heavy vote for Wallace in outlying German and British American areas was not pointed out. Finally, the strong vote for Wallace in the wealthy northeastern suburbs of Milwaukee was similarly ignored. It seemed to me that those whom the grandfathers called "hunkies" and "dagos" were now being called "racists," "fascists," and "pigs," with no noticeable gain in affection. Even in 1972, a staff advisory in the Shriver "trip book" for a congressional district in Pittsburgh called the district "Wallace country," though the Wallace vote in that district in 1968 had been twelve per cent, and the Humphrey vote had been fifty-eight per cent. I obliged the staff member to revise his account and to call the district "Humphrey country." It is one of the most consistently liberal districts in Pennsylvania. Why send this constituency the message that it is the enemy?
Jimmy Breslin was once asked by an interviewer in Penthouse how, coming out of Queens, he could have grown up so liberal. Actually, next to Brooklyn, there is no more liberal county in the nation. A similar question was put to a liberal journalist from the Dorchester area, in Boston. The class and ethnic bias hidden in the way the word liberal" is used in such interviews cries out for attention.
One of the large social generalizations systematically obscured by the traditional anti-Catholicism of American elites is the overwhelmingly progressive voting record in America s urban centers. The centers of large Catholic population in every northeastern and north central state have been the key to Democratic victories in those states since at least 1916. The hypothesis that Catholics have been, second only to Jews, the central constituency of successful progressive politics in this century is closer to the facts than historians have observed. (Massachusetts,
192
that most Catholic of our states, stayed with 1 1972.) The language of politics in America mainly Protestant, and Protestant biases perception. Protestant leadership is given morality and legitimacy, Catholic life is descr of negatively laden words: Catholic "powei politics," etc.
 Become like us  is an understai strategy, but in a nation as plura the United States, it is shortsightt
There are other examples of odd perceptio of American elites with respect to Catholi ethnic populations. The major institutions life government, education