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E Pluribus Unum

From Groningen and Overijssel they came 鈥� Hollanders, Bentheimers and Friesians joined the trek. Whether they were fleeing religious restrictions or seeking economic opportunity, intrepid and idealistic mid-nineteenth-century emigrants from the Netherlands headed west, anticipating a new beginning. Braving the vagaries of the Atlantic Ocean in questionable barques, they must have wondered what awaited them in North America.

One transformation they may not have expected was that, upon landing in their adopted homeland, they would be morphed into an amalgam called 鈥淒utch鈥� people. This singular identity was their first step into the 鈥渕elting pot鈥� of American culture that proclaimed, 鈥淥ut of many, one.鈥� Linguistic, cultural and religious particularities fought that amalgam, of course, but the story of Dutch immigration to North America is one of the weaving of an identity and then the gradual unraveling of that fabric.

The accounts in this volume give lively testimony to this fabrication, its inevitable unraveling and the lingering efforts to cling to its memory. Whether on an individual scale 鈥� as in microhistories 鈥� or a more community-wide scale 鈥� as in the record of internal migrations 鈥� the tale is one of the enduring hallmarks of Dutchness amid the larger, homogenizing flow of the American and Canadian cultures.

These essays were initially presented at the Twenty-Fourth Biennial Conference of the Association for the Advancement of Dutch American Studies (AADAS), held at Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, Illinois, June 29鈥揓uly 1, 2023: 鈥淲ho is Dutch in North America?鈥�