Abstract
This paper attempts to explain why Polish immigrant farmers who came to the Pioneer Valley around the turn of the century assimilated more fully into the dominant culture and achieved on average greater economic success than Puerto Rican immigrant farmers who engaged in similar work in the same region roughly fifty years later. I begin by reviewing American Studies literature on assimilation dynamics to develop a framework for qualitatively evaluating how both groups changed over time. The evaluation is thereafter based on local newspaper articles and secondary ethnographic and historical literature from throughout the twentieth century, as well as interviews with the descendants of immigrants and personal accounts from local Massachusetts historians. In the vein of theoretical perspectives developed by scholars Sanchez, Bodnar, and Spickard, I conclude that the disparate outcomes experienced by the two groups is due in large part to the structural forces of postcolonial racism against Puerto Ricans in the context of global capitalism, specifically mid twentieth century urban deindustrialization. However, there is also a significant component to the disparity that I attribute to individual decision-making informed by shifting cultural values and behaviors.
Recommended Citation
Proia, Gabriel S. (2024) "Poles and Puerto Ricans: Immigration and Assimilation in the Pioneer Valley," Swarthmore Undergraduate History Journal: 5 (2), 162-196. https://works.swarthmore.edu/suhj/vol5/iss2/6
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