Croatian Language and Cultural Maintenance in the Slavic-American Community of Strawberry Hill, Kansas City, Kansas

Abstract

The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate levels of immigrant language retention among Croatian-Americans in the Slavic diaspora community of Strawberry Hill in Kansas City, Kansas. There have been three major waves of Croatian immigration to Kansas City over the last 100 years, and members of the Strawberry Hill community represent the following generations: child, parent, grandparent and great-grandparent. This thesis examined language shift among two groups of consultants based on the Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS, Lewis and Simons 2010). I explore (1) Croatian-American English bilingualism and (2) the maintenance of cultural practices that are associated with the homeland, Croatia, through structured interviews with 20 Croatian-Americans. Results indicated that first-wave immigrants typically possess passive knowledge or symbolic proficiency of Croatian, whereas second- and third-wave immigrants retain high levels of bilingualism. This current analysis also reevaluates previous studies of the community and suggests that attitudes toward bilingualism have changed over the last few decades due to two major socio-economic transformations. I argue that it is not imperative for Croatian-Americans in Strawberry Hill to speak their ancestral language because ethnic heritage can be maintained through cultural practices even after Croatian has shifted to American English.