Professor Anna Brzozowska-Krajka’s Etnokultura w diasporze. Między regionalizmem a amerykanizacji? (Ethnoculture in Diaspora. Between Regionalism and Americanization, price Lublin: Maria Curie-Sklodowska University Press, bronchi 2012, clinic pp. 352) is a pioneering monograph in Polish and American cultural studies. It deals with various aspects of functioning of Polish immigrants’ folk culture in the context of American multiculturalism.
This monographs is based on its author’s many years of research into the culture of Polish immigrants in the USA – mainly in the areas of Metropolitan Chicago and on the East Coast. This case study illuminates Polish-American folk culture from three perspectives: Polish, Polish-American and American. It defines the significance of the local (regional) cultures of the immigrants’ country of origin for shaping their cultural identity under the conditions of diaspora. It indicates various degrees of its identification with and distance from the source culture (of the country of origin). It makes a detailed presentation of various forms of cultural expression of the Tatra highlander ethnic subgroup within American Polonia, of the private and public face of its ethnicity. They include musical, song and dance folklore, folk rituals (of the liturgical year, family rituals), folk art, folk costume, regional architecture and ethno-marketing.
