Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
1989
Abstract
Early European settlement patterns on the Canadian and U.S. prairies had many common features. Diverse peoples settled side-by-side, though often in distinct ethnic concentrations, and heritage cultures and languages persisted for several generations, even as significant assimilation to the dominant culture simultaneously occurred. Interaction and assimilation were not always harmonious, however, for intra-ethnic disagreements about heritage loyalty versus assimilation and friction with the dominant or another culture consumed many energies. Periods of war or economic crisis brought out xenophobic suspicions among the dominant and fully assimilated groups, suspicions that sometimes led to attempts at oppressive legislative measures that were later challenged in the courts. Linguistic and cultural influences rioted back and forth in a fashion remarkably similar in both societies, whether the national myth was of the "melting pot" of the United States or the "cultural mosaic" of Canada. 1
Comments
Published in Great Plains Quarterly [GPQ 9 (Summer 1989): 139-155] .Copyright 1989 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska—Lincoln.