Swedish Emigration to America and Oregon after World War II

L a r s N o r d s t r o m

wedish emigration to the United States following World War II is not a widely studied subject, perhaps for the simple reason that it involves a relatively small number of individuals, and perhapsS also because, in comparison to the foreign immigration to Sweden during the last couple of decades, this group is small indeed. If we want to understand the two distinct communities that have emerged in the United States during the last thirty years or so— the Swedish-American community and the scattered groups of utlandssvenskar (expatriate Swedes)— it is helpful to take a broad look at the main currents in modem Swedish emigration. Relying on various statistical sources and earlier research, this article surveys the general character of Swedish emigration following the end of World War II and attempts to answer the following ques­ tions: Where have Swedes emigrated to during this period? How many individuals make up this migratory- flow? What is really meant by the temi “a Swedish emigrant”? How reliable are official statistics in describing the fluid patterns of individuals moving from one coun­ try- to another? What are the proportions between Swedes and Swed- ish-Americans in the state of Oregon today, and what is the size of Swedish immigration compared to other immigrant groups? The second part looks into the main causes behind modem .Swedish emigration to the United States. Perhaps a bit surprisingly, it finds that today it seems just as common to emigrate because one has

LARS NORDSTROM is a freelance writer, translator, historian of the Swedes in Oregon, and grower of grapes. A migrant himself, he holds his B.A. from Portland State University and a Ph.D. from Uppsala University (in American literature). Fora list of some of his publications and the work of the organization he has helped to develop see: http://wiviv.sivedishrootsinoregon.org/. 136 fallen in love with an American as it is because one dreams of better opportunities and a higher standard of living. The third part of the article contains some personal observations on the nature and needs of the Swedish-American community in a state like Oregon, and compares them to those of the modem Swed­ ish immigrants. It also describes how radically the Swedish immigrant experience in the United States has changed during the last thirty years, and how it has redefined what it means to be a Swede living in America.

For almost a century, the United States of America was the unquestioned destination for more than a million Swedish emigrants. But the great wave of Swedes seeking new lives in the New World began to subside noticeably after 1924, when the United States Congress passed the Immigration Act, which contained what are commonly known as “the quota laws” that restricted immigration to a limited number of individuals from each country. The diminished flow was also due to improving conditions in Sweden. In 1930, as the Depression set in, the migratory flow suddenly reversed. Throughout that entire decade, more people moved back to Sweden than emi­ grated to the United States. The year 1932 represents the peak of the reversal, when only 474 individuals emigrated to the U .S. while 5,654 moved back to Sweden. Then, during the years of Word War II, emigration shrank to its lowest point since at least 1851— in 1944 only 30 individuals emigrated (and 71 returned.)1 Following the war and up through the end of the twentieth century, emigration never regained the momentum it had once had. Having been spared the ravages of World War II, conditions rapidly improved in Sweden, making it a prosperous nation by the early 1960s. Even though a broad range of cultural impulses in music, film, and lifestyles from the United States were embraced by many young Swedes during the 1950s and 1960s, there was also a parallel trend of growing criticism of the United States. This ranged from internation­ ally acclaimed intellectuals, such as Gunnar and Alva Myrdal, to the growing opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. The political left in Sweden also raised increasingly vociferous objections to what they saw as “American financial and cultural imperialism,” 137 causing anti-American sentiments that might have influenced migra­ tion negatively. The fact that a noticeable number of young Ameri­ can men chose to come to Sweden rather than serve in the Vietnam War might also have influenced migration trends. During the period following World War II, an average of 1,500 to 2,000 Swedish citi­ zens has emigrated annually to the United States. (During the Swed­ ish economic crisis of the 1990s, emigration rose slightly.) Statistics compiled in Sweden also show that slightly more women than men have emigrated after 1970.2 Many of these individuals have remigrated to Sweden, and a slight majority in this group of returnees has been women as well. Statistician Åke Nilsson states that “a nile of thumb is that two out of three Swedish-born emigrants return to Sweden. The percentage of returnees is higher among indi­ viduals with both parents bom in Sweden. In this group four out of five return. K [However], individuals who move to North America retunt to a lesser degree than persons who emigrate to our Nordic neighbors and Asia.”3 Since 1970, the annual net migration to the United States has fluctuated between 300 and 1,400 individuals4— meaning that this is the number of Swedes remaining in the United States once the returnees have been deducted from the number of emigrants.5 One should keep in mind, however, that numbers are numbers and emigrants are individuals, and some are not perhaps what we think of when we casually say “a Swedish emigrant.” Definitions are sometimes elusive. For example, in the decade following World War II, a number of individuals who ended up in the statistics were naturalized refugees, some Jewish and some from the Baltic coun­ tries.0 Take the example of Axel Lindström, who was bont into the Swedish-speaking farming community of Ormsö (Wormsi) off the Estonian coast, an island where Swedes have lived continuously since the late Viking period. Lindström escaped to Sweden by way of Finland in 1944, and in the mid-1950s he emigrated from Sweden to the United States. Statistically, he was counted as a Swedish emi­ grant, even though he really was an Estonian-Swede, akin to the Swedish-speaking Finns in Finland/ Another similar example would be a Jewish friend’s father, Michael Kastan, who was bont in Radorn, 138

Poland. He came to Sweden in 1946 and became a naturalized Swedish citizen. In 1961 he left Sweden and a few years later contin­ ued to the United States, where he eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen (and where he passed away).8 This general category of Swedish emigrants with a foreign background might be growing again today. During the last thirty years, there has been a rapidly increasing segment of naturalized citizens in Sweden (in 2000 approximately 12 percent of the country’s population of nine million was bom abroad). Some of these new “Swedes” might be following a multi-step migra­ tion pattern in which Sweden turned out to be just one country along a multi-nation route. Then there are cases like my oldest son, who was bom in Sweden but “emigrated” with us at the age of six months. He is a Swedish citizen (as well as an American citizen), fluent in Swedish, has visited Sweden a number of times, and knows a fair amount about the country’s history, culture, and geography. But he has grown up in the United States and has had his identity shaped primarily by his peers and by American culture. Nevertheless, in the Swedish statistics, he is counted as an emigrant. Of course, not all young children who have emigrated as members of families have been able to preserve their native language, or maintained an active contact with Sweden; nevertheless, statistically they too are considered Swedish emigrants and are counted as utlandssvenskar (Swedes living abroad). The United States is still an attractive destination for Swedes seeking a life abroad, but it has lost its leading position to another Nordic nation. Since the beginning of the 1970s, Norway has been the country receiving the highest number of Swedish emigrants every' year, even though the total number of Swedes in Norway is not yet as high as the total number of Swedes in the United States. There are many reasons for this including Norway’s strong oil economy, the open and visa-free Nordic job market, the geographical proximity to Sweden, and a similar language and culture. More recently, due to the open European Union (which Sweden joined in 1995), migra­ tory patterns have changed again. Since the turn of the new millen­ nium Great Britain and Ireland have received roughly the same number of Swedish immigrants as America.9 Since 1990, the annual migratory flow out of Sweden has been around 2,000 to the United 139

States, 5,000 to the Nordic countries, and 5,000 to the first 15 European Union nations.10 Today the international Swedish organization Svenskar i Världen (Swedes around the world), estimates that there are 400,000 Swedes (4-4 percent of the population) living outside their native country.11 However, the exact number is difficult to pin down for several rea­ sons. First of all, what do we mean by “living abroad” ? The Swedish Bureau of Statistics defines “living abroad” as a residency that contin­ ues for longer than a year (so that most students, au pairs, and short­ term project workers are not included), and estimates the number Swedes living abroad at 300,000. The discrepancy is probably mostly due, however, to the fact that an estimated 75,000 Swedes living abroad have never formally left Sweden, even though they are settled in another country.12 A consequence of these “double residencies” is that they distort the figure for the number of Swedes residing in foreign countries, since they get counted twice—once by Sweden and then by the new country. One must therefore take some of the migration statistics with a grain of salt.13 For Swedes living in other European countries in the year 2000, the Swedish Bureau of Statis­ tics gives the following numbers for the four largest groups: 32,000 in Norway, 28,000 in Finland, 22,500 in Great Britain, and 19,000 in Denmark.14 The Bureau readily admits that (for a number of rea­ sons) the official number of Swedes in Great Britain must be substan­ tially under-represented— the Swedish embassy in Fondon estimated the Swedish population in that city alone to approximately 25,000.15 Farge numbers of Swedes are currently also residing in Spain, Ger­ many, and Belgium. In addition to these places, many Swedes have found new lives in Asia and Australia. Keeping the nature of the migratory flow from Sweden to the United States during the post-war period in mind, how many Swedes were there in America at the beginning of the new millennium? According to the Swedish Bureau of Statistics, there was a total of 54,435 Swedes who had moved to the United States up to the year 2000,16 but the simple fact that some individuals have emigrated more than once will skew the statistics. 1 belong to this category myself. In 1978 I acquired an immigration visa to the United States, but got homesick and decided to move back to Sweden once I had 140 completed my university studies and obtained my bachelor’s degree. A few years later I wanted to return to the United States. So I emigrated yet again and have been here since. At this point in my life, statistically speaking, 1 represent two emigrated Swedes and one returned Swede. A Swedish friend in Portland has immigrated to the United States three times!17 What happens once a Swedish citizen leaves his native country is not tracked by any Swedish government agency either. I know of at least one individual who had won an immigrant visa to the U.S. in the so called “green card lottery,”18 but who stayed only a few years before moving on to Australia. Another Swedish immigrant I knew in Oregon ended up marrying a woman from the United Kingdom and moving back to England with her. It is difficult to say how common this “nomadic” pattern really is, and to what extent cases like these alter the statistics. The 2000 U.S. Census lists the number of individuals bom in Sweden residing in the United States at 49,724,19 down from 53,676 in 1990; 77,157 in 1980; and 127,070 in 1970.20 In other words, since 1970, the Swedish-born group has declined by 61percent. The millennium figure is also corroborated by another question that the 2000 U.S. census asked about the use of language: “Does this person speak a language other than English at home?” Because the Scandi­ navian presence in the United States is so low today, the U.S. Cen­ sus gathers speakers of a “Scandinavian language” into a single group that includes Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. (For the sake of simplicity, I will exclude the Faroese and Icelandic language groups because of their relatively small size.) If one assigns percentages of the three major language groups based on current European population figures (Denmark 5.5 million, Norway 4-4, and Sweden 9.0), one gets the following breakdown of speakers: 29 per­ cent Danish speakers, 24 percent Norwegian, and 47percent Swed­ ish. The Modem Language Association has compiled an interesting language map of the United States based on the responses to that U.S. census question, and according to these statistics, there are 162,252 Scandinavian language speakers in the United States.21 If one applies the national percentages based on European population figures, there should be some 76,258 Swedish speakers in the entire United States. 141

This suggests that there are some 26,000 Swedish-speakers in the United States who are not Swedish emigrants. Many may not even have a Swedish-American background. My American-born wife would be one of them— having lived in Sweden for five years, she is fluent in Swedish. I could think of many other Americans as well, of many different ethnic backgrounds, who— for a number of reasons, usually involving a longer residency in Sweden— also speak Swedish. I have been unable to unearth the exact number of Swedish- bom individuals who live in Oregon from the 2000 U.S. Census. But if one looks at the MLA language map for Oregon, which is based on that same census, one discovers that there are 3,276 “Scandinavian speakers” in Oregon. Similarly, if Swedes make up 47 percent of this group, there would be 1,540 Swedish-speakers in Oregon, and since the ratio between non-Swedish Swedish-speakers and Swedish-bom Swedish-speaking individuals appears to be roughly 1:2, there should be approximately 1,000 Swedish immigrants in the state. (By com­ parison, using the same formula, one arrives at the figure that there are some 4,600 Swedish-speakers in the state of Washington, and 12,300 in California.) If one enlarges the scope of one’s study of the MLA language map of Oregon, a state with a total population of 3.6 million, one also quickly discovers how small the Scandinavian-bom community is today compared to other ethnic immigrant groups. In the list of foreign language speakers, Scandinavians (counted as a single group) come as number eleven. The largest foreign language group is Span­ ish with 217,000 speakers, followed by German (18,400), Vietnam­ ese (17,800), Russian (16,300), Chinese (15,500), French (11,800), and Japanese (9,000). In short, there is a very interesting mix of Hispanic, Asian, and European languages and cultures in Oregon today. As these figures clearly show, the Swedish immigrant experience in the United States has changed radically in a hundred years. Around 1910, when the U.S. population had reached 91 million, there were between 1.2 and 1.3 million Swedes in America. The 50,000 Swedes living in the U.S. today only constitute a fraction of the earlier emigrant population— to be more specific, less than 4 percent when compared to the Swedes who lived in America a hundred years ago. 142

At the same time, the U .S. population has grown more than three­ fold and has now reached 300 million. Of these, more than 31 million were bom abroad. The Swedes thus only make up 0.17 percent of the foreign-bom population, or 0.017 percent of the en­ tire U.S. population, and their presence in American culture is more or less on a “molecular” level. In short, there are very few Swedes walking on the streets of America today and random encounters are rare indeed.22 It must be added here that in contrast, in terms of numbers, the Swedish-American contingent in the United States is quite large. According to information in the 2000 U.S. Census, approximately 4-4 million individuals in the United States considered themselves Swedish-American. It should perhaps also be said here that it was in 1980 that the U.S. Census introduced “ancestry group” as a new category, where an individual was offered the opportunity to state his or her preferred ethnic identification. One’s Swedish “ancestry” was accepted without regard to what generation Swedish-American one was, or what percentage of “Swedish blood” one had. Technically, just feeling “Swedish-American” is sufficient to be included in this category. “Ancestry group” is, in other words, an elective category that does not have to meet certain criteria or require any specific qualifications. Many Americans choose several ancestry groups. In­ terestingly, according to historian Dag Blanck, only 7 percent “chose to identify their ancestry as ‘United States’ or ‘American.’”23 When it comes to Oregon, the 1990 U.S. Census revealed that there were some 125,000 in the state who chose Swedish as their ancestry group.24 Finally, the geographical distribution of Swedish-American de­ scendants (many of whom are Midwestern small town residents) and the modem Swedish immigrants (most of whom are, or are married to, urban professionals in other regions of the U.S.) no longer matches.25 As David E. O ’Connor puts it, “Among the Swedish-bom population in America the preference for residence in urban areas is even more pronounced A (86 percent) have opted to live in urban areas. » 7 zo 6 143

W h y L ea v e S w e d e n f o r A m e r ic a T o d a y ?

Migration scholars often divide the underlying emigration causes into a combination of “push” and/or “pull” factors. “Push” is defined as various kinds of hardships—such as religious, ethnic, political, or economic persecution by a ruling class in the emigrant’s native coun­ try, or as a condition of extreme poverty or even starvation. “Pull” is primarily defined as an economic attraction: in a situation character­ ized by scant employment or financial opportunity (sometimes ex­ pressed as an inability to advance due to a rigid class structure), there is the promise of a better standard of living in the new country. Then, as an emigration movement develops, additional “pull” factors come into play. Ethnic enclaves in the new country become magnets that attract others belonging to that group, and members of divided families seek to reconnect with each other. Additional and more recent factors such as climate, livability, and “community values” also belong to the “pull” category, even if attractions like “commu­ nity values” cart be elusive and difficult to quantify. The historical “push” causes can certainly be found behind most of the great migration of Swedes to the New World between 1840 and 1925. But in the second half of the twentieth century they are not forces of the same magnitude, even though the economic “pull” of the United States still clearly is a determining factor for some emigrants, especially in certain professions. In the post-World War II period, Sweden emerged as an increasingly wealthy nation where hunger, poverty, and social injustice were mostly eliminated. Swedish citizens were offered a free and decent education (including univer­ sity studies), universal healthcare, and decent working conditions including statutory’ vacations, maternity leave, and many other workers’ rights; and they had the opportunity to exercise a number of per­ sonal freedoms. Almost all could find employment, and even if one could not, there was a social safety net that fed, housed, and clothed such citizens. If conditions in one’s homeland are good, it is only natural to ask why people decide to emigrate. In a recent study commissioned by the organization Svenskar i Varlden, in which 1,099 Swedish emi­ grants were interviewed, the largest group claimed that it was “the 144 culture and quality of life in the new country [drat] tempted [them].”27 These are quite clearly “pull” factors, and many Swedish immigrants to the United States during the last thirty or forty years have obvh ously been motivated by them. In ways they merge with economic considerations as well. Swedes are aware that professionals (such as entrepreneurs, high tech engineers, doctors, lawyers, and researchers) are paid better in the United States and that taxes are lower, and this translates into a higher “quality of life.” According to the same study, the second biggest cause for emigration was “the high level of taxa­ tion I the tax system in Sweden.”28 Obviously, this can be defined as a “push” factor that appears to be linked to ideological objections to the socialist policies of the Social Democrats, who have dominated Swedish politics for much of the postwar period.29 Finally, the third most common reason “was being offered a job abroad.”30 Some in this last category might not have intended to settle in the United States initially, but their working assignment gradually evolved into an emigration. (Perhaps their staying was due to unfavorable work- related changes in Sweden while working abroad, an appreciation of the quality of life in America, or a marriage to an American.) For others the emigration might have been an escape from something, or a desire for adventure (by those who found Sweden a bit too focused on security, stability, and predictability).31 There may also be subtle and unconscious reasons behind an emigration, such as fulfilling un­ realized emigration dreams of a parent who, for a number of reasons, never had the opportunity to pursue it. It may seem a frivolous argument to claim that people emigrate simply to live in a warmer and sunnier climate, but there are indications that sun and warmth are at least part of the equation of where to live, especially among retirees. Referring to the Modem Language Association map again, we see that there are approximately 13,000 Swedish speakers in California, and almost 5,000 in Florida.32 On the other hand, Swedes do not exactly flock to Alaska, where the latitude, seasons, climate, and flora and fauna are very similar to that of Sweden, suggesting that today’s Swedish immigrants to the United States do not seek those particular familiar elements from home. (Today, there are only about 300 Swedish speakers in Alaska!) But the emigrant discussed above, the person (or family) who 145 actively leaves Sweden, whether “pushed or pulled,” might still not be typical of the majority of the Swedes living in the United States today. A larger group is clearly made up of individuals who fall in love with an American and simply “end up living” in the United States.33 They are what could be called “tag-alongs.” H. Arnold Barton claims that “after career opportunities the main motive for emigration would appear to be quite simply love. Widespread travel and study abroad among young people— together with the numerous [Swedish] an pair girls living in American families— have created far broader international contacts than ever before, often leading to romance and marriage. As the couple most typically settles in the husband’s country, this has resulted in a considerable number of Swedish-born wives of Americans living in the United States.”34 (As discussed earlier, the statistics confirm that there is a female majority among Swedish emigrants.) It should perhaps also be said that it is easier for a woman—both financially and ideologically— to stay home as a full-time mother in the Unites States than in Sweden, if that is an important value to her. In his analysis of the 1990 Census, David E. O’Connor states “that of the 53,676 Swedish-bom Americans, the West claimed the highest number with 18,954 (35.3 percent).”35 Of the three western states, Oregon ranked last after California and Washington—but then it also has the smallest population of the three (California has ap­ proximately 34 million, Washington 6 million, and Oregon 3.6 mil­ lion inhabitants). Even though Oregon in many respects is a Janus­ faced culture both looking east, back toward Europe, and west, across the Pacific toward Asia, it is a place where Swedes seem to feel at home. Some aspects of the natural environment (snowy mountains, forests, rivers, and a long coastline) are reminiscent of those in Swe­ den, and it has four distinct seasons. It is also an area where Swedes (and Scandinavians) have played a noticeable role in the local his­ tory, and where certain Swedish traditions like Midsummer and St. Lucia celebrations are still being observed. Oregon is also known to be (at least from an American point of view) a relatively liberal and progressive state. 146

Be in g S w e d ish in O r e g o n 1978-2007: S o m e Pe r s o n a l R e f l e c t io n s

When you arrive as an immigrant you have two major tasks ahead of you. First, you work to leant as much as possible about your new environment while trying to maintain some kind of umbilical cord to the family, friends, and culture you have just left behind. Then, as time goes by and you start becoming familiar with your new life, you start paying attention to— or looking for— any little Swedish nugget you might find that can confirm and support your identity. The Swedish-American community is a natural first place to turn. What you usually find is a group of active Swedish Americans who nurture the ethnic heritage of earlier Swedish immigrants to the United States. They keep an evolving variety of organizations, lodges, festivals, and congregations going, but they usually involve activities (with the exception of the genealogists) that rarely translate into a meaningful, continuous contact with Sweden. Many of the partici­ pants in these ethnic pursuits are older, often retired.36 To most Swedes who have immigrated to the United States as adults during the last thirty years, the majority of these second-, third-, and fourth- generation Swedish Americans often appear considerably more Ameri­ can than Swedish. What they have preserved are traditions and activities that have long since disappeared from contemporary, main­ stream Swedish society and culture, or that have mutated into some­ thing new. Many of these activities are less relevant or interesting to Swedish-bom immigrants, and the gap between the two cultural sets is fairly wide. For example, many Swedish-Americans are active in a Lutheran congregation— often with Scandinavian roots— and in the social life associated with the church, an activity that is not often shared by the mostly secular Swedes. Or take traditional Swedish folk music and folk dancing, which is almost always a part of Swedish-American events. Both certainly exist in Sweden today, but they are rarely what contemporary Swedes engage in when they go out dancing. If they are young, they dance to whatever the current music trend is (rock, country, disco, punk, techno, hip hop, and so on), and if they are older, it could be a number of music styles inspired by something like 147 swing, jazz, or Latin music that attracts them. Folk costumes, fiddle and accordion music, and some traditional foods like lutefisk or potato sausage—or coffee as a dinner beverage—would all fall into the category of contemporary cultural discrepancies as well. Less than 1 percent of all Swedish Americans speak Swedish.37 Without Swedish language skills it is more difficult to stay informed about developments in Sweden, even though there is a fair amount of infonnation available in English.38 It takes a while to realize that few actually seem to pay much attention to contemporary Swedish politics or culture, and a very small number have developed a iiu- anced view of modem Sweden, or of Sweden in the context of the emerging European Union. Swedish Americans and Swedes do not, as a rule, discuss their favorite Swedish authors, films, comedians, or societal and cultural changes. Many Swedish Americans also often express political, religious, or moral values that would be considered uncommon or even extreme in today’s Sweden. In general, the strong socialist influence in twentieth-century Swedish politics and the power of Swedish unions (with over 80 percent of the work force union­ ized) have created a very1 different political discourse in Sweden— one that Swedes take for granted. Specifically, one could point to such topics as paid maternity leave and vacations, or the general acceptance of high taxation to pay for universal health care, educa­ tion, and pensions. In the realm of religion, Sweden has become a predominantly secular society where a very small group of the popu­ lation (less than 5 percent) regularly attend church services. The social life associated with American congregations is in Sweden in­ stead found in secular organizations. Examples of moral differences can be found in divergent views on the death penalty, abortion, sexuality/nudity, and marriage/partnership. In general, most Swedish Americans appear to be more inter­ ested in being Swedish Americans among their fellow Americans, than in cultivating an earnest interest in Sweden or actively following contemporary Swedish issues—somediing which can become an ob­ session with a Swede living abroad. Swedish-American author Don Lago sums this up rather succinctly when he states that “for Ameri­ cans, to celebrate ethnicity is to accent what distinguishes one Ameri­ can from another. But to outsiders, our ethnic diversity is what makes 148

us most American.”39 They have become, to use H. Arnold Barton’s phrase, “a folk divided.” This is not to say that there is not, in spite of these differences, an overlap of shared interests between the two groups. Swedes and Swedish Americans still work together in a number of organizations to keep Swedish traditions and customs alive, especially if they are celebrated in a manner that feels somewhat authentic. But beyond that, my impression is that the Swedish Americans and the Swedes have different needs and interests, and do not— to any great extent at least— mingle in the same organizations and groups. Wiren I first immigrated to Oregon in the late 1970s, it turned out to be very difficult to keep in touch with family and friends, as well as to stay informed about the political, social, and cultural developments back home. There was no surviving local Swedish community or meaningful organization where a recent Swedish im­ migrant could turn for support, a chance to speak his native lan­ guage, or obtain news from home. As months turned to years, it remained extremely difficult to break this sense of isolation. Sweden was practically never mentioned in the U.S. news media, unless some headline event occurred, such as the 1986 assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme in downtown Stockholm. There was also no obvious place in the United States where one could easily turn to learn how to obtain news and information. Portland had a Consulate where a Swedish citizen like me could vote, renew a passport and a Swedish driver’s license, or register the birth of a child, but it did not cater to recent Swedish immigrants by providing links to Sweden. Making telephone calls was very expensive— too expensive to just call a friend and chat about one’s daily life. Aimiail letters trav­ eled fairly slowly, and if one was lucky, one got art answer in two to three weeks. Subscribing to Swedish newspapers was also costly and slow. For someone living abroad, one problem with the Swedish newspapers was that they dedicated a great deal of space to foreign news (which, after a week in the mail, seemed mostly passe). Sub­ scribing to a major Swedish daily for a few days a week had other complications—many stories often appeared too detailed to make sense, since they were based on the assumption that one had been following a particular story from its inception, which one had not. 149

There was a weekly newspaper specifically produced for Swedes liv­ ing abroad, Sverige-Nytt, but not very many even knew of its exist­ ence.40 There were daily short wave radio news broadcasts in Swed­ ish, but the transmissions with good reception occurred sometime after midnight—not a particularly convenient time for most people to listen to the news.41 Video recordings of Swedish films and television programs were problematic since they required either a costly conversion between the incompatible Swedish PAL and the American NTSC television systems, or a special video and TV unit capable of playing both video formats. DVD’s today still have similar compatibility issues, even though they are of a different technical nature, and require a special DVD player. Swedish films almost never played in local movie theaters— except a couple of showings of a film or two once a year at the Portland International Film Festival— and few were available in video rental places. (It is still difficult to find Swedish or Scandina­ vian films locally.) Magazine subscriptions worked well, but Swedish books were hard to find, even though browsing through the odd, random volumes in the “Foreign Books” section of used bookstores occasionally yielded some interesting discoveries, especially of books printed in Swedish in the United States a long time ago. Developing social interaction with other Swedes was not easy either. Portland no longer had a neighborhood of Swedes with a Swedish store or restaurant, so ethnically it meant that everyone lived in a vacuum. Any gathering required traveling. It was also difficult to meet other Swedes since there was no organized group in existence. Usually, contacts were established through one’s American friends, who would know someone who would know another Swede and offer to bring the two together. The Swedes one randomly ran into on the street or in a restaurant were few indeed. In a small expatriate community, other challenges repeatedly present themselves as well. Take the simple pleasure of being able to speak and joke in one’s native language. For example, since many Swedish American couples are not functionally bilingual, there are many situations where everyone is not a Swedish speaker (even though the majority is), and the conversation—for reasons of polite­ ness— must be held in English. Inevitably, this affects the conversa­ 150 tion both in temis of subject matter and tone. Finally, it should perhaps be added that ethnicity by itself is never a key to friendship; just because two people are Swedish in America does not mean that they will automatically become friends. They will certainly have things to talk (or argue) about, but since all friendships ultimately are based on personality, mutually held values, shared perspectives, interests, and life styles, it might not develop if these prerequisites do not exist. It is also my observation that many Swedish immigrants are often drawn to other immigrants from Scandinavia and Europe. Obviously, these relationships are not built on a shared ethnic background, but on finding similar points of view that come from the experience of having lived in two cultures. With a past from somewhere else and a deeply rooted connection to another culture, all immigrants recog' nize this basic feeling of being “outsiders,” of speaking English with an accent, of somehow being observers of— rather than fully integrated participants in—American culture. (And it is not a question of feel­ ing discriminated against—few Swedes in Oregon have had that ex­ perience.)42 Perhaps this feeling is stronger among many of those twentieth-century Swedish immigrants who did not become Ameri­ can citizens because, by doing so, they would have had to renounce their Swedish citizenship. (Norwegian citizens living in the U.S. to­ day are still in this category7.) When Sweden changed its law in 2001, allowing dual citizenship, most Swedish citizens did become U.S. citizens and received, among other things, the right to vote. The outsider perspective might also grow out of identifying with certain commonly held “European values” involving a complex set of issues such as the entire science versus religion debate, labor conditions, and public policies, many of which are distinctly different from con­ temporary American policies43 This provides a common “foreigner’s perspective” where it becomes possible to compare different sets of values, priorities, and ways of life. In other words, immigrants from different countries do not necessarily have to agree on what they prefer, but they are always able to discuss and compare the two. During the 1980s there was a steady trickle of Swedes to Oregon, and especially to the Portland metropolitan area (where about a third of the state’s inhabitants live), and something of a cohesive 151

Swedish-speaking community started to develop. Swedish women started meeting informally every month to speak Swedish and ex­ change news, books, and magazines. Some Swedish men played golf together or met for lunch. Holiday gatherings or summer picnics were arranged. By 1996 there were enough Swedish families with children in the Portland area that a Swedish Saturday school came into existence. The goal of the school was to “develop the students’ ability to comprehend, speak, read and write Swedish” and teach “cultural heritage through songs, traditions, geography, history, and literature.”44 Several book clubs that read and discuss Swedish books (in the original) are now also active. The latest addition is a Swedish pub night the last Friday of every month. In the early 1990s a great technological revolution got underway that has completely transfomted one’s ability to stay infonned about Sweden while living abroad. Ever decreasing telephone rates ushered in the era of “the global village.” Calling Sweden became affordable, making it possible to call family and friends on a regular basis. Fax machines started appearing, speeding up written communication con­ siderably. A letter— or any type of document— could be sent across the planet in seconds.45 Correspondence that used to take several weeks was suddenly cheap and instant. Admittedly, faxing was not free from complica­ tions. Sometimes the machine would run out of paper in the middle of a multi-page transmission, print quality was not always good, and flimsy thermal paper had little aesthetic quality to it and poor archi­ val quality, but it could certainly convey information quickly. By the mid-1990s, the Worldwide Web, the Internet, came into existence, and it was suddenly possible to send e-mails across the world in a matter of seconds. Various kinds of “instant messaging” possibilities also developed where a dialogue with someone on the other side of the planet could be typed in real-time. It was a remark­ able thing. Old friendships that had languished earlier were resur­ rected and more easily maintained. There was also an easy-going informality that emerged with e-mailing, where the old rules of spell­ ing, capitalization, and grammar were often more or less ignored, making e-mail correspondence casual and easy. And because e-mail delivery was so fast, letter writing changed character and often be­ 152 came briefer. During the course of a workday one could exchange three, four, or five brief e-mails with the same person in Sweden, making it more of a slow dialogue than traditional letter-writing. Increasingly, the Internet has also become the vehicle for telephone services, making global calling very, very cheap. For the Swedish immigrant, the Internet has grown into a phe­ nomenal and unlimited source of Swedish news, information, and entertainment. From a shortage of news a mere decade or two ago, there is now so much information available that there are not enough hours in the day to take it all in. A computer has become a Swedish radio or television that broadcasts twenty-four hours a day. There are Swedish newspapers, businesses, government sites, organizational sites, weather reports, shops, cartoons, bloggers, and so on. One can down­ load applications, government fonns, do one’s banking and shopping, peruse air, bus, train, and ferry schedules, compare hotels— in short, locate almost any information one could possibly need for an up­ coming visit. Sweden has come a great deal closer, and it is possible to be an active participant in the flow of Swedish news. One result of the “global village” has been that local Swedish-American organiza­ tions in America are no longer needed as disseminators of this sort of information, and their role has become increasingly social. For the immigrant, the rise of the Internet also contains a touch of something bittersweet: So much of Sweden has come infinitely closer, and can be called up onto your computer screen instantly. Yet its very closeness only makes the distance to the real Sweden so much more keenly felt. Finally, it is very interesting to note that many Swedes who live pemianently in the United States today, and who have no specific plans for moving back to Sweden, still do not consider themselves emigrants. There appears to be a resistance to admitting that one “has emigrated.” Why? The American Heritage Dictionary defines the word “to emigrate” simply as “to leave one country or region to settle in another,” and this is surely what these contemporary Swedes have done. The argument has been made that one reason todays Swedes resist being grouped together with the larger ethnic groups that are always referred to as immigrants, such as the Hispanics or Asians, and who seem to accept the term, is that so many characteristics separate 153

Swedes from these groups. In general, language skill, level of educa- tion, religious affiliation, cultural familiarity, and identification with different push and/or pull factors are all part of this difference. In addition, many Hispanics and Asians may also have a different view of the governments and social conditions of their native countries. The Swedish ambivalence might also be related to the high rate of remigration mentioned earlier, and, for most, “emigrant” might simply sound too definitive. Instead, they are much more at ease with expressions such as “having moved” and being an utlaiidssverisk, a Swede living abroad. In one way or another they have just “ended up” in the United States, they live here “for the time being,” and they have decided to “wait and see.”46 As a Swedish entrepreneur, Malin Hammar, says, “1 have lived outside Sweden for twenty-one years 'A in eight countries all over the world. A I have never really looked upon myself as an emigrant, more as a nomad.”47 Clearly, there is an increasing number of people in this nomadic category. Many have also, since Sweden changed its law in 2001 allowing dual citizenship, become U .S. citizens. And just as the old emigrants of a hundred years ago did, these new Swedes living abroad talk ol “going home” when they visit Sweden, even though they obviously have both settled and developed family ties in the United States. Before the arrival of modem air travel, it took about a month to journey from “door to door” between one’s home in Sweden and one’s destination in America. Traveling was cumbersome, and for most immigrants it was expensive. Many never returned, and some only once or twice in their lifetimes. During the last thirty years, no Swedish immigrant has had to come by boat and train and experi­ ence the enormous physical distance the earlier immigrants knew. The United States is only a flight or two away, and is just as far or near as any exotic vacation destination. If you want to emigrate with all your furniture and belongings, it is relatively affordable to fill a container and have it shipped. A month later your Swedish furniture could decorate your American house. Then, even if you get home­ sick, or there is a family reunion, or someone suddenly gets ill, you can still be back in less than twenty-four hours. Traveling has become easy, safe, and cheap. Distance has been annulled and has lost its meaning, and with these developments, perhaps also that sense of 154 inevitable finality that the earlier emigrants often felt is gone as well. Finally, the external pressures to conform— to forget one’s native language, to enter into the melting pot of American society—has also diminished tremendously from, say, the tumultuous time around World War I. Today the United States has, in practice if not in fact, already accepted Spanish as an unofficial second language! The old and officially sanctioned theory that a bilingual upbringing increased the chances for schizophrenia has long since been debunked. Today, even though foreign language education is still mostly absent during the first eight years of public education, there is at least official lip service paid to the recognition that speaking a foreign language is an asset. Furthermore, unlike that earlier time, ethnic groups are not discouraged from celebrating their native holidays. So if the old “melting pot” has been transformed into the new “salad bowl,” there might be even fewer reasons for an immigrant to see him- or herself as one.

E n d n o t e s

1. Lars Ljungmark, Den stora uwandringen, 1965, 180. Hereafter referred to as Ljungmark. 2. Äke Nilsson, Efterkrigstidens invandring och utvandring, Statiska Centralbyrån, 2004, 77. Hereafter referred to as Nilsson. 3. Nilsson, 73-74. 4- Nilsson, 79. 5. There are enough people moving in and out of Sweden to have inspired author Kerstin Gustafsson to write two guide books, Bosättning utomlands and Återflyttning till Sverige, and to found a company called UtlandsBosättning AB. 6. I am indebted to H. Arnold Barton for alerting me to this and for a number of his insightful observations in his excellent article “The Latest Wave: Swedish Immigrants to the United States since World War II,” in Hembygden & Världen: Festskrift till Ulf Beijbom, edited by Lars Olsson och Sune Åkerman, Svenska Emigrantinstitutets Skriftserie 13, 2002, 107. Hereafter referred to as Hembygden & Världen, Barton. 7. See Axel Lindstrom’s charming memoir, Once Upcman Island: Memories of a Swedish Childhood, 2003. Hereafter referred to as Lindström. 8. Personal communication from Michael Kastan’s son, Peter Pagin, Stockholm, Sweden. 9. Nilsson, 76. See table 12.3. 155

10. Nilsson, 67. 11. Axel Odelberg, editor of the membership magazine for Svenskar i Världen, claims that “of the Swedish diaspora of approximately 400,000 individuals, about 155,000 live in North America—some 100,000 in the USA and approx. 55.000 in Canada. Great Britain comes in third place with nearly 50,000.” These numbers are based on a study done by Föreningen Svenskar i Världen. See “Nordamerika förblir den svenska diasporans centrum” in Svenskar i Världen, No. 2, 2004, 10. The study is not described anywhere, and the U.S. numbers are twice as high as those in any public source. 12. Nilsson, 80. 13. In a late 1990s column entitled “Bakvagnen”in VI'Tidningen (unfortu­ nately the specific date is missing), Lars Westman relays the conversation with Kristina Palm, a Swedish consular official in Madrid, Spain, who claimed that there were some 40,000 to 50,000 “snowbirds” living in Spain. Of those, only 6.000 had applied for legal permission to live in Spain. This points to the fundamental problem with official statistics. 14- Nilsson, 83. See table 13.1 1 5. Personal communication with an official at the embassy during a visit in 1999. 16. Nilsson, 83. See table 13.1 17. Bo Lewendahl in West Linn. 18. The green card lottery eligibility requirements include a completed high school education, a financial guarantor, proficiency in English, being ready to leave within three months of receiving the visa, and passing a visa interview. 19. See U.S. Census website, www.census.gov, Table PCT19, “Place of Birth for the Foreign—bom Population.” 20. See David E. O’Connor, “Who Are We? The Swedish-Americans and the 1990 U.S. Census,” The Swedish'American Historical Quarterly, Vol. 48, No.2, April 1997, figure 4, 73. Hereafter referred to as O’Connor. 21. The following information is gathered from the Modern Language As­ sociation website, www.mla.org. 22. As a brief aside, it is interesting to note that there are 26,000 persons “born in North America” living in Sweden today. (See Nilsson, 129, table 2 in the chapter “Tabellbilaga.”) This figure translates into 0.29 percent American- born individuals in the Swedish population, roughly 17 times as many as there are Swedes in the U.S. population. 23. Dag Blanck, “On Being Swedish in America Today,” in Hembygdett & Världen: Festskrift till UlfBeijbom, edited by Lars Olsson och Sune Åkerman, 222. Hereafter referred to as Hembygdett & Världen, Blanck. 24- See Olov Isaksson’s book Utvandrare och invandrare I Sveriges Historia 1846-1996, 136. 156

25. Ljungmark states that by “1950 it was the Norwegians—among the large immigrant groups—who had the lowest number of city dwellers, and as number two from the bottom came the Swedes. In both groups, however, the majority of the immigrants were city dwellers.” See Ljungmark, 132. 26. O’Connor, 80. 27. See Axel Odelberg’s “Kultur och skatter får svenskar att emigrera,” in Svenskar i Världen, No.2, 2004, 11.1 have some trouble interpreting the bar chart since the percentages add up to 184, and I wonder how to approach the figures. Hereafter referred to as Odelberg. 28. Ibid., 11. 29. As Axel Lindström put it: “Gradually, the restrictions of socialized medi­ cine collided with my free spirit and that faraway land that I once dreamed about dominated my thoughts. 1 felt compelled to seek a new beginning. After years of practicing medicine in Sweden, I gathered my family and sailed to America, a land of opportunity for my three boys.” Lindström, 142. 30. Odelberg, 11. 31. See the ten oral histories of Swedish immigrants to the Pacific North­ west in the years following the Vietnam War: Lars Nordström, De nya utvandrarna: Tio svenskar i nordvästra USA berättar, Edition Edda, Uppsala, 2005. 32. According to the MLA Language Map (at www.mla.org), there are 28,653 and 10,467 Scandinavian language speakers in California and Florida respectively. Assuming that Swedes make up 47 percent of the Scandinavians as this group is defined, one gets approximately 13,400 and 5,000 Swedish speak­ ers respectively. 33. According to the study commissioned by Svenskar i Världen, the group that “moved along when my partner was offered a job” is indeed very small, but does not appear to apply to all those Swedes who fall in love with Americans. This category appears to be limited to Swedish couples, clearly a minority among the Swedes in the United States when compared to those in mixed marriages. See Odelberg, 11. 34- Hembygden & Världen, Barton, 109. 35. See O’Connor, 77. 36. Hembygden & Världen, Barton, 112-13. 37. As stated earlier, according to the MLA figures, there are some 76,000 Swedish speakers in the United States, of which 50,000 are Swedish-bom, which means that there are at most 25,000 Swedish speakers (not all of whom are Swedish-American) among the 4-5 million who consider themselves Swedish- American. This translates into less than 1 percent. 38. There are innumerable sources of Swedish news, information, facts, and statistics in English put out by the Swedish Institute, the Swedish Information Service, the Swedish Radio/Television Broadcasting Service, and many others. 157

39. Don Lago, On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America, Univer­ sity of Iowa Press, 2004, 193. 40. I can't remember now how I first learned of its existence, but it was after more than ten years abroad. It now seems to have ceased publication. For an excellent brief history of Sverige-Nytt and its relationship the Swedish-American press, see Burton, 99-103. 41 • This broadcasting service was known as “Radio Sweden International,” RSI, and it published a monthly schedule complete with a 360" map of the world and at what time the broadcasts were beamed in the different sectors. 42. See my book of oral histories, De nya utvandrama. 43. I am basing this statement on two excellent books that explore this subject: Jeremy Rifkin’s The European Dream: Horn Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, 2004, and T. R. Reid's book The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy, 2004- 44- See the Swedish school website, www.swedishschool.org 45. At this tinte, I worked as a technical translator in (.Oregon. At the end of the day I would type up whatever questions I had encountered in the text, make a drawing if I had to, and before going to bed, when the phone rates were the cheapest, I would fax my letter to Sweden. In Oregon 11:00 P.M. corresponded to 8:00 A.M. in Stockholm, just as a new workday started there. During the day, the Swedish company would find answers to my questions, and when I woke up the following day there would be a letter from them waiting in my fax machine. It was very efficient. 46. See my book of oral histories by recent Swedish immigrants to the Pacific Northwest: De nya utvandrama. 47. See Malin Hammar, “Sista Ordet,” Swedish Press, February 2000, 34-