Peasant maids, city women

In concise social histories of four European rural cultures, the authors emphasize the crucial effects of gender. They explore the contrast between each regional culture of origin and the urban experience of ethnic communities in Chicago. The concept of assimilation, they suggest, involves two different dynamics. In the initial phase, adaptation, the new environment demands major changes of incoming immigrants to meet basic needs.

The second dynamic, acculturation, involves changes for immigrants and also for the new culture with which they interact.