DOCURENT RESUME ED 165 186, CS 204 681 AUTHOR Singer, *Rosanne g TITLE Ethnic Newspapers in the United States. PUB DATE. Aug 78 NOTE 30p.; Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the,' Association for Educhtion in Journalism (61st, Seattle, Washington, August 13-16, 1978) IIEDRSPRICE ,MF-$0.83 Hc-$2.06 Plus POstage. DESCRIPTORS Acculturation; Cultural Differences; Cultural - Pluralism; *Ethnic Groups; *Ethnicity; Financial Problems; *Journalism; Media Research; *Newspapers; Political Attitudes ABSTRACT Defining ethnic newspapers as those published in a foreign language. or in English that address themselves to a national group., this paper presents an overview of suchpaperscnrrently published in the United-States. The paper is" organized into three sections. The first deals with the functions served by ethnic papers, including. aiding,in assimilation, helping to preserVe ethnicity, filling news gaps, serving as 'Watchdogs of foreign governments, .and contributing to the diversity of political and social thought in the ,United St tes. The second section covers the drawbacks of ethnic .papers, s ecifically their. high mortality rate, increasing financial difficulties,r and the problem they face of incurring criticisms that -. they are anti-American if they attempt to be outspoken, organs in their communities. The third section discusses the fUture of the ethnic press and concludes that the current emphasis on exploring cultural roots and learning second languages will affect its role.. (FL) .4 C. ,. , _J **************44*****************************4c************************* * Reproductions supplied bf`BDRS are the best that can be made * * D from the original document. * ***********************4**************************************4******** 4 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION & WELFARE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ti EDUCATION THIS DOEUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO- DUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZ*TION ORIGIN- ATING IT POINTS OF. VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE- SENT OFFICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MAC EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. Ethnic Newspapers in the United States by Rosanne Singer Master's Candidate Journalism Department, Michigan State UniVersity- PERMISSItIl TO REPRODUCE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY Rosanne Singer TO THE EDUCATIONAL RF.SOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) AND USERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM. a Presented to the Minorities and Communication Division, ''. Association for Education in Journalism Annual Convention, Seattle, Washington, Audilst 1978 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. HISTORICAL CONTEXT 1 II. FUNCTIONS ETHNIC PAPERS SERVE AID ASSIMILATION 'PRESERVE ETHNICITY 0 FILL NEWS GAPS OBSERVE FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS EXPAND UNITED STATES THOUGHT. III. DRAWBACKS OF ETHNIC PAPERS 14 HIGH MORTALITY AND FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES. -DIVISIVENESS AND LOSS OF POWER IV. FUTURE OF ETHNIC PAPERS 21. V. BIBLIOGRAPHY 26 (11 -1- I. HISTORICAL. CONTEXT The first English-language newspaper in Aierica, Publick Occurrences,appeared in 1690 in Boston.. Banned by British authorities afterthe firat issue, it was not until the Boston Newsletter in 1704 that a paper.was.publiShod with any regularity. lbe In 1732, as American-language newspapers were still. intheir forming.stages Benjamin Franklin published first foreign :languagenewspaper in the United (---. States. Titled the Philadelphia Gazette (PhiladelphischeZeitung),it !Jas written entirely in German by a native Frenchman inFranklin's service Massive immigration beciMe characteristic of Americansociety in its colonial period. On the eve of the American Revolution, GerManscomprised About one-third the populationaPennsylvania orbetimen 110,000 and 125,000 people.Pennsylvania .German is the oldest immigrant language still in daily use in the5UnitedStates., . In the years follOwing, political, religious andeconomic causes droVe millions of immigrants to America. The 1848 German Revolution and HungarianKossuth Revolt resated in She immigration of thousands of refugees. The lastquarttr of the nineteenth century marked a timeof extensive immigration. Large scale emigrations from southern and easternEurope (ItalYCzechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland)*curred. ,The Italianmigration in that period has been termed 2 a mass movement. In the decade from 1880 to 1890 ga many asone million GerMans per year 1Edward Hunter, In Many Voices - Our FabulousForeign - Language Press (Norman Park, Georgia: Norman College Publishers,1960), p. 78. o n 2JerzyZubrzycki, "The Role of the ForeignvLanguagePress in Migrant Integration," Population Studies 12 (1958/1959): v.75. I, -2- ir _ Millions of Jews,predominantlyHussianiarrived imrisrated'to the UnitedStates. , lived in / . By 1917,' ab many as oneand a half million / h .in America inthe late 1800s. thepopulation.3 New York City alone,comprising one-fourthof Quota taws were passed,immigration Until the 19203,when'the Immigration itisestinated that theSpanish-,speakin&popula- occurred unchecked. Ewen today, preserit total of approXimatelytwenty tion grows by about400,000 per year with a 4 includes Spanish - speakingCubans andSpanish- million in the country. Thia group of Chicago has experienced arecent influx speaking Mexican's orChicanos':' . , population of. under500,000 predominantly Chicanos,bringing its Spanish-speaking 5 clOse to one million., Arabs, many ofLebanese-Christian origin, In 1970,. approximatelyone million Recentimmigrations of Palestinians have lived in the UnitedStates and Canada. special allegiance to one increased that Figure:andintroduced a group with no at.200,1T,_ 6 in the United Statesis estimated Arab country. The Korean.community 7 . the last seven years. -most. ofwhom.have settledin the country within all from HongKong, enterthe Each year, more than20,000 Chinese; almost perMits no more than20,000 The MdClellanImmigration Act of 1955 ° United States. the United States. The Act also imnigranisper year from any cnecountry to:enter .13 with relatives alreadyliving in,the vakes special provisionfor these immigrants 3Hunter, In Many Voices, p. 108. 4 Even As GenerationsShia," ,George Dickstein,"Secorci, Language Thrives, Lt/Aas.dloAsTelevisiotXXV (Novem1 r.1977): 5 Ibid., p. Editor & 6 in fieedomof Press," Spyridon Granitsas,"Arab Papers Believe Publisher, 12 December 1970, p. in UnitedStates," Editor & 7Tae Guk Kim, "KoreanDaily Newspapers Compete Publisher, 3 August 1976, p26. o -a- United States and-those with needed special skills. Both provisions benefit Chinese immigration. In addition to the Hong Kong immigrants, about 8,000 Chinese per year, predominantly froM Taiwan, arrive in the Untted States on student visas. Only 2.percent return after completing their education.8 Filipinos comprise the largest growing Asian minority in the United States, and since 1968 have led all Asian countries-in-the-number-of immigrants arriving in this country. As of the 1970 census there were over 335,000 Filipinos in America, the majority living in the west.9 Some ethnic populations have stabilized but others. continue to increase. Whether the immigrants arrived in America in the.1700s or within the last decade, one of their first actions upon arrival was to start a newspaper. The majority of these papers have been printed in the ethnic. group language.Others 6 have been printed completely in English or are bi-lingual to varying degrees. They range from daily publications to weeklies to bi-monthlies. As a group, they are termed ethnic newspapers, defined as those papers published in a foreign language IO or in English addressing themselves to a national °group. In their history, thpse newspapers have served various functions. t. 8 Andy McCue, "Evolving Chinese Language Dailies Serve Immigrants in New York,City," Journalism Quarterly 52 (Summer 1975):.p. 272. 9 Donn V. Hart, "The Filipino-American Press in the United States: A Neglected Resource," Journalism Quarterly 54 (Spring 1977): 135-139. .1 °Granitsas, "EthnicPress Alive and Well; 440 Published in the U.S.," Editor & Publisher, 28 November 1970, p. 12. 01" 3 II. A. AID ASSIMILATION Lthnic ne4Bpaperslume.historically performed the primary function of-aiding immigrant assimilation into American society. .9ibeter's New World. Dictionary of the American Language published in 1970 defines assimilation as: the cultural absorption of a-minority group into the main cultural group. Unly recently have increasing numbers of immigrants entered this country with some knowledge, of English. Eves then, there are language inadecivacies and unfamiliarities.- These people have relied 0 on ethnic newspapers to explain. America to them: to interpret its social, political 11 and economic systems. The ethnic press elucidates American laws and encourages ) 0 hew to become naturalized. The papers act as intermediaries between the & ,.. immigrant's homeland and America, making his or her gradual adjustment possible. Through ethnic papers the immigrant meets those people in the United. States experiencing the same shock of moving. Robert Park stated in 1922 that ethnic papers'in America often belped the immigrant establish the reading'habit for the first time. PreeOminantly membus of, the peasant class, immigrants often arrived illiterate and from repressive societies where exchange of information was tightly controlled. The ethnic press 12 in America encouraged a raising of the intellectual level of the immigrant. For perhaps the first time, the immigrant.took an active interest in issues and in a community that invited'histher participation. During World War I, there was widespread distrust of foreigners,