Nase Novine, May 05, 1982

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WRITINGS OF LOUIS ADAMIC
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Prof. Dr. Vladislav — Bata Tomovidje na$
dugogodiSnii specijalni saradnik. On je
redovni profesor druStvenih nauka na
Brock University u St. Catharines.
Njegove aktivnosti u druStvenom
kultumom tivotu jugoslovenske etnidke
zajednice na ovom kontinentu veoma su
zapaiene. Narodito je znadajna funkcija
sekretara koju obavlja u "Nikola Tesla
Memorial Sociaty".
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Excluding Dr. Henry A. Christian
who did a Ph. D. Thesis on
Adamic, there are no known per-son
to me who had complete
knowledge of the writings of
L. Adamic. It was my pleasure to
have a student of mine Jacqueline
Carroll who registered during the
1980 in my sociology of literature
course and accepted my suggesti-on
that the theme of the course be
the complete works of L. Adamic.
We were to look at the main and
the common features in writings of
this great man in American litera-ture.
Our joint findings is presen-ted
in the following essay. It is
exclusively written for the "Nase
Novine". My thanks are due to my
student for a great job done and
my congratulations go to her for
the excellent grade she has recei-ved
in mastering the literature of
L. Adamic and for the positive
knowledge gained about the cultu-re,
tradition and history of the
Slavic peoples of the Balkan. We
all are thankfull to L. Adamic for
having so much good to say about
the Yugoslav peoples to the inter-national
readership who would
otherwise have little knowledge
about the great South Slavs and
their ancestry.
INTRODUCTION
This paper explores the predominant
themes in the writings of Louis Adamic It
is possible to use the extrapolated themes
and form a kind of paradigm about
Adamic's main streams of social conscio-usness.
The objective of this paper Is to
illuminate as closely as possible the
philosophical and social position held by
Adamic on the issues of his time.
The need for this analysis becomes
much greater if one knows that Adamic
has been unfairly labelled and stigmatized
by those who never approached him or his
writings in a thorough and objective
manner. It is now (30 years after his death)
that the need for this kind of scrutiny has
arisen.
Based on such books as Dynamite, Two
Way Passage, Dinner at the White House,
etc. it seems reasonable to name the
following three catagories of social struc-ture
which are present in almost every one
of his books. By volume of writing in a
descending order comes: immigrants,
labour and humanism. In this order we will
try to point out specific concerns expre-ssed
by Adamic. It is of importance to
minimize interpretations of Adamic's ideas
in favouring his own alloquently expressed
views on those three main themes of his
life-lon- g preoccipation.
IMIGRATION
Being an immigrant himself, Adamic is
fascinated with the situation an immigrant
finds himself in upon arriving in a new
country. Beginning with his initial encoun-ter
with a Slovenian newspaper in New
York in 1914 and up to the time of his death
(1951) this intellectual preoccupation ne-ver
left him. In short, his main concern
about immigrants was that the immigrants
will never be able to better themselves
socially unless the old-stoc- k Americans
change perception toward their new coun-try
men. On this subject he left us several
books and a pamphlet America and the
Refugees (1939). The best known books
are: From Many Lands (1940), Two Way
Passage (1941), What is Your Name (1941),
and Nation of Nations (1942).
In the book From Many Lands his views
on social processes in America were so
vividly discribed that the Carnegie Corpo-ration
which funded his writings wished to
be disassociated from the opinions found
therein. In this book Adamic talks about
the economic or social reasons or whate-ver,
for emigration, where they settled in
the United States and why, how they fared
and how well they did. The idea that seems
to run through all these stories is that the
United States is made up of certain
groups of people. They have no deep tap
roots and cultural paths to give them
stability. For him, the melting pot has
melted the pot in the United States. He
goes on to talk about when immigrants
arrive in the United States and how they
usually have very menial jobs, usually
working as labourers. The second genera-tion
is better educated, they hopefully will
go into a profesion. There is a tendency for
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the second generation to change their
names. The book is made up of personal
biofraphies of immigrants, their attitudes,
what they anticipate they will receive in the
United States and if and how their goals
are realized. It is easier for certain groups
to be assimilated into the already existing
American culture and how difficult it is for
other groups. The Eastern Europeans and
first of all, the English, Scottish and Irish
aic accepted. He talks about the diffi..J';
of the Oriental people. They are forced to
ban together to survive, because there is
such prejudice against them. He also talks
about the problem of anti-semantis- m in
the United States, Jew versus Gentile and
about the desgree of inter-marriag- e. He
gives the history of the Steinberg family in
the slaughterhouse business, whose son
becomes a doctor and marries a Gentile
woman and the problems that they
encounter. The reoccurring theme in this
book is the prejudice toward immigrants,
the quicker you change your name, learn to
speak English well until there is barely a
trace of an accent, the better your chances
are of success in the United States. Again
he brings out the problem of unequal
distribution of wealth. In seems from these
stories, how much better it is for the
second generation because they have
already been Americanized, they speak
English. The problem of the second
generation is them being caught between
two cultures, especially with the Oriental
people, he found that this was a real
problem with children born in the United
States — one foot in the old world, one
foot in the new. This kind of thinking about
the dual loyalty of the immigrants led
Adamic to a more systematic analysis of
the social processes in the United States
involving the "old" and the "new" stock.
As a young immigrant boy he perceives the
great American metropolis as a jungle, and
the old jungle lav of the survival of the
fittest is certainly in effect. The great
beasts of the jungle (the weathy) live from
the small and weak (mostly immigrant
labourers).