Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-29T03:14:04.443Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Integration or separation? Nationality groups in the US and the Republican Party's ethnic politics, 1960s-1980s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Ieva Zake  and
Graham Gormley
Ieva Zake
Affiliation:
Sociology, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ, USA. Email: zake@rowan.edu
Graham Gormley
Affiliation:
Political Science, Villanova University, Villanova, PA, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using examples of American Latvians, Estonians and Ukrainians in the states of Minnesota, New Jersey and New York this article explores the ambiguous nature of integration of nationalities groups inside the Republican Party during the 1960s-1980s. Based on the analysis of available archival information, it is shown that the Republican Party intentionally brought in the ethnics during the discussed period and created the Nationalities Sections within specific electoral campaigns, Nationalities Divisions inside the state party organizations and the National Republican Heritage Groups (Nationalities) Council within the Republican National Committee in order to recruit the ethnics and engage in the partisan struggle with the Democrats. Consequently, the nationalities were given a sense of importance, but little real power to actually influence the internal processes inside the party. At the same time, the nationalities eagerly responded to the invitation to join the Republican national and state-level organizations specifically designed for the ethnics. Yet in doing this they perceived themselves primarily as ethnics with a distinct, mainly anti-communist, agenda and only secondarily thought of themselves as Americans dedicated to Republican politics. Consequently, the Republican political strategy of creating Nationalities Sections and Divisions seemed to integrate the ethnics on the surface, while in reality intensifying political separation and even ghettoization of the ethnics in American politics. This research initiates a larger project, which will compare the Republican and Democratic strategies of directly involving ethnic groups and minorities inside the party organizations in the second part of the twentieth century.

Keywords

Republican Partynationalities groupsparty structuresethnic politicsUS
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , July 2010 , pp. 469 - 490
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

“ABM Safeguard System.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 5.78 (1969): 3. Print.Google Scholar
“Academic Leftist Bias Confirmed.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 7.1 (1971): 8. Print.Google Scholar
Ambrosio, Thomas. Ethnic Identity Groups and U.S. Foreign Policy. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002, Print.Google Scholar
American-Ukrainian Republican Council. Political Roundup. Minneapolis: American-Ukrainian Republican Council, n.d. Print.Google Scholar
American-Ukrainian Republican Council. Why We Are Losing? It is Time to Speak Up for America. Minneapolis: American-Ukrainian Republican Council, n.d. Print.Google Scholar
Balch, Emily Greene. Our Slavic Fellow Citizens. New York: Arno, 1969, Print.Google Scholar
Bean, Louis. “Nationalities and 1944.” Public Opinion Quarterly 8 (1944): 368–75. Print.Google Scholar
Capek, Thomas. The Czechs in America. New York: AMS, 1969. Print.Google Scholar
“Captive Nations and the Republican Party.” GOP Nationalities News 4.7 (1974): 8. Print.Google Scholar
DeConde, Alexander. Ethnicity, Race and American Foreign Policy: A History. Boston: Northeastern UP, 1992. Print.Google Scholar
Dinnerstein, Leonard, and Jaher, Frederic, eds. The Aliens: A History of Ethnic Minorities in America. New York: Appleton, 1970. Print.Google Scholar
Dinnerstein, Leonard, and Reimers, David. Ethnic Americans: A History of Immigration. New York: Columbia UP, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
“Forgotten Ones …”. GOP Nationalities Reporter 5.7-8 (1969): 3. Print.Google Scholar
Gerson, Louis. The Hyphenate in Recent American Politics and Diplomacy. Lawrence: U of Kansas P, 1964. Print.Google Scholar
Greeley, Andrew. Why Can't They Be Like Us? New York: Dutton, 1971. Print.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Brett, and Lorinskas, Robert, eds. The Ethnic Factor in American Politics. Columbus, OH: Merrill, 1970. Print.Google Scholar
Heinaru, Ilmar. The Nixon-Agnew Organization and Campaign Manual for Nationality Groups. Nationalities Division, United Citizens for Nixon-Agnew, 1964. Print.Google Scholar
Heritage News Bulletin Dec. 1975: 2–3. Print.Google Scholar
Holsti, Ole. Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Horowitz, Irving Louis. Foundations of Political Sociology. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Kramer, Michael, and Levy, Mark. The Ethnic Factor: How America's Minorities Decide Elections. New York: Simon, 1972. Print.Google Scholar
Krueger, Brian, Leege, David, Mueller, Paul, and Wald, Kenneth. The Politics of Cultural Differences. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Litt, Edgar. Ethnic Politics in America. Glenview: Scott, 1970. Print.Google Scholar
“Nixon-Agnew: A Winning Ticket.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 4.8 (1968): 1. Print.Google Scholar
Novak, Michael. The Rise of Unmeltable Ethnics. New York: Macmillan, 1972. Print.Google Scholar
NRHG(N) Council. Handbook for Heritage Groups: A Guide for Activity Among Nationality Groups. Washington, DC: NRHG(N)C, n.d. Print.Google Scholar
Perk, Ralph. “The Importance of Ethnic Americans in the Political Process.” GOP Nationalities News 4.7 (1974): 5. Print.Google Scholar
“Polonia Press Conference in Washington.” GOP Nationalities News 4.6 (1974): 2. Print.Google Scholar
“Position of Strength Basic in Dealing with Russia.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 4.6 (1968): 1. Print.Google Scholar
Radzilowski, John. “Introduction: Ethnic Anti-communism in the United States.” Anti-Communist Minorities in the U.S.: Political Activism of Ethnic Refugees, Ed. Zake, Ieva. New York: Palgrave, 2009: 1–24. Print.Google Scholar
Reinhardt, David. The Republican Right since 1945. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 1983. Print.Google Scholar
“Republican National Hispanic Assembly Meets in Washington.” GOP Nationalities News 4.6 (1974): 3. Print.Google Scholar
Rising, George, and Schaller, Michael. The Republican Ascendancy: American Politics, 1968-2001. Wheeling, IL: Harlan, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Schoenberger, Robert, ed. The American Right Wing. New York: Holt, 1969. Print.Google Scholar
Sheldon, James H. Reminiscences from 1972. Columbia University Oral History Research Office Collection, New York.Google Scholar
Skrentny, John. The Minority Rights Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap P of Harvard UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, Tony. Foreign Attachments: The Power of Ethnic Groups in the Making of American Foreign Policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Sowell, Thomas. Ethnic America: A History. New York: Basic, 1981. Print.Google Scholar
“Spotlight on Minnesota.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 5. 7-8 (1969): 5. Print.Google Scholar
Szymczak, Robert. “Hopes and Promises: Arthur Bliss Lane, the Republican Party, and the Slavic-American Vote, 1952.” Polish American Studies 45.1 (1988): 12–28. Print.Google Scholar
Tischauser, Leslie V. The Changing Nature of Racial and Ethnic Conflict in United States History. Lanham: UP of America, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Ubriaco, Robert D. Jr. “Bread Butter Politics or Foreign Policy Concerns? Class versus Ethnicity in the Midwestern Polish-American Community during the 1946 Congressional Elections.” Polish American Studies 51.2 (1994): 5–32. Print.Google Scholar
Balch, Emily Greene. “Giving Credit Where Credit is Due: Cold War Political Culture, Polish-American Politics, the Truman Doctrine, and the Victory Thesis.” Polish Review 51. 3-4 (2006): 263–81. Print.Google Scholar
“When Will the Violence End?” GOP Nationalities Reporter 4.6 (1968): 8. Print.Google Scholar
“Why We Are Republicans.” GOP Nationalities Reporter 1.1 (1965): 7–8. Print.Google Scholar
Zake, Ieva. “The Secret Nazi Network’ and Post-World War II Latvian Émigrés in the United States.” Journal of Baltic Studies 41.19 (2010): 91–118. Print.Google Scholar