Stubborn and silent Finns with 'sisu' in Finnish-American literature

This study examines indices of Finnishness in the production of second- and third-generation Finnish-American authors. Its aim is to analyse the common ethnic traits of Finnishness proposed by ethnographic research in relation to the literary texts presented by the selected authors. The research is literary in nature, investigating both societal and social arguments that are depicted in the central works of the chosen authors: namely, Lauri Anderson’s Heikki Heikkinen And Other Stories of Upper Peninsula Finns; Mary Caraker’s Growing Up Soggy and Elina, Mistress of Laukko; Joseph Damrell’s Gift; Lynn Laitala’s Down from Basswood; and Paula Robbins’s Below Rollstone Hill.
One of the most important disciplines within the field of Comparative Literature - where the function of critical scrutiny is to examine the cultural identity, and various cultural models - has been imagological literary research. For the purposes of the present thesis, the theoretical basis of this research has been taken as the cognitive theory of cultural meaning in Comparative Literature, with its imagological approach. Raija Taramaa’s theoretical model of Finnishness provides a supportive framework which helps to analyse Finnishness in the works of the five selected writers (who have no developed ability in the Finnish language). Through these means it is hoped that the present research will open up to its readers a deeper understanding of the cultural models describing Finnishness in the production of the second- and the third-generation Finnish-American authors, leading them into a detailed exploration of the ways in which the ethnic indices of Finnishness have remained in the cultural memories of these chosen authors.
The research has indicated that cultural indices endure from generation to generation in an unfamiliar environment even at the time when the identity of the person in question has been changed during the former generation, for example, with respect to his or her native language. The study also reveals that a number of the indices representing the original culture have become simplified over the years, and that the cultural cohort of individuals exhibiting those traits has developed certain stereotypes that have faded in past decades but not yet disappeared. The ethnicity of a minority group of Finnish Americans surrounded by several other more dominant ethnicities has developed into symbolic ethnicity with limited commitments to ethnic cultural activities. The ethnic activities of the symbolic identifiers are likely to have an occasional character and to be acceptable in a multiethnic setting.