The Sound of Ethnic America: Prewar “Foreign-Language” Recordings & the Sonics of Us Citizenship
THE SOUND OF ETHNIC AMERICA: PREWAR “FOREIGN-LANGUAGE” RECORDINGS & THE SONICS OF US CITIZENSHIP Mathew R. Swiatlowski A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of American Studies in the College of Arts & Sciences Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: Jocelyn R. Neal Sharon P. Holland Timothy Marr Michael Palm Andrea Bohlmam © 2018 Mathew R. Swiatlowski ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Mathew R. Swiatlowski: The Sound of Ethnic America: Prewar “Foreign-Language” Records and the Sonics of US Citizenship (Under the direction of Jocelyn R. Neal) This dissertation explores the juncture of sound and citizenship to consider how the boundaries of nation are maintained at both geospatial and cultural borders. Specifically, the project concerns “foreign-language” recordings made by US recording companies prior to World War II (hereafter, prewar). With the onset of war in Europe in 1914, “foreign-language” recordings were increasingly cut domestically, featuring vernacular performers of the Great Wave of immigration that brought Hungarian, Syrian, Ukrainian, Turkish, Polish, Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese peoples, alongside a host of other nationalities, to the US beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Initially marketed to specific immigrant populations in the US, these recordings eventually became the province of postwar record collectors and the reissue music market by the 1970s. The narrative of the project draws much of its power by connecting their discrete moments of circulation with the political realities that shaped their audition. As such, the project examines the interplay between, what I call, the “national vernacular imaginary” and state policy in regards to immigration and citizenship.
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