Finnish Americans on the Road to Becoming American Citizens

Because of their differing political and societal views, the Church Finns and the Red Finns had different beliefs on bringing up and educating children as citizens. While acknowledging their heritage, the Finnish Americans’ different aims, models, and processes of civic education should be considered alongside the prevailing American values.

Through naturalisation, an immigrant received American citizenship with its full political, economic, and social rights. Therefore, the debate on naturalisation became a topical and complicated issue by the end of the nineteenth century, when mass migration, especially the increasing flow of Asian people, began. Politicians and scholars argued over who was suitable to be naturalised and what the required criteria were for applicants. Naturalisation procedures were first enacted in the Constitution and were completed with supplemental acts during the following decades. The criteria and the procedure for naturalisation became stricter over time; for example, in 1906 an immigrant had to demonstrate skills in spoken English, but in 1926 he/she had to pass an exam related to American history, civic society, and culture.9

Naturalisation was linked to the issue of immigration. There was no federally governed immigration policy in the US until 1875, when the Supreme Court ruled that state immigration laws were unconstitutional. Federal immigration policy was seen as necessary because of the constantly increasing number of immigrants from different continents. Just like state immigration policies, the federal policy was restrictive in character.

Many Finnish Americans wanted to integrate themselves and other Finnish immigrants into American society. The first step was to pass the naturalisation test. Several organisations urged immigrants to apply for their citizenship papers; to study English, American history, and civic studies; and to finally take the naturalisation test. American educational bureaus and authorities facilitated naturalisation by establishing Citizenship Schools, offering education, and distributing textbooks. The first Citizenship School in St. Louis County (MN) was opened in January 1921; by the following year, there were 46 schools and 368 students (Ala-Jääski 1993; Barnes 1922; Warren 1922, 6–8). Helmi’s family was fully American; her mother was American-born, her father was naturalised in the 1910s, and all their children were born in the USA. Even Grandpa Lempia had passed the naturalisation test before the regulations tightened in 1906 (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 17, 60).

Finnish-American socialist organisations encouraged immigrants to study; already in the 1910s, they organised lessons in English, history, and civic studies for adults so that they could pass the naturalisation test. All the students of the Work People’s College decided to acquire naturalisation documents before the peak of Americanisation. The labour movement wanted its members to be naturalized; become active citizens; and exercise their citizens’ rights, such as the right to vote. Oscar Corgan was a good example of such a socialist immigrant. He studied English at night school and civic studies and politics at a Marxist school in Hancock to pass the test.10

The policy of Americanisation was the realisation of naturalisation and immigration policies and acts in American society.

Americanisation was promoted by parties and pro-Americanisation organisations. Politically, Finnish Americans were mostly either conservatives or radicals, and the former became active during the most intense period of Americanisation. For example, in February 1919, 300 participants in Negaunee (MI) established a local Republican unit: the Marquette County Finnish Republican Club. It promoted American citizenship and living as a good American, emphasising loyalty to the government and discouraging socialism.

The Americanisation project utilised newspapers to mould public opinion—both of Americans and immigrants—to advance its aims. For example, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Daily Mining Gazette launched an Americanisation campaign in 1919. First, it conflated Bolshevism and anarchism with the American labour movement, which was described as a threat to American society. Then it reported widely on the aims, forms, and activities of Americanisation (Daily Mining GazetteJanuary 7, 1919; January 15, 1919; February 28, 1919; March 23, 1919). In the winter of 1919, news on the establishment and meetings of the local Citizenship Leagues and Americanisation Clubs in the Upper Peninsula were common (Daily Mining GazetteFebruary 9, 1919; February 26, 1919). Public discussion steered interpretation of the ‘good American’ and defined eligibility for full membership of American society. The discussions inevitably carried over into immigrant families, communities, and organisations.

People around Helmi referred to socialists as traitors in her hometown of Vermillion. She learned very early on that socialism was not favoured at home, either, although her father always said that ‘America is a free country’ and people had the right to their political opinions. Her father even liked Mr Juntunen, a socialist called ‘Red Johnny’, because he was omanpaikkanen—from the same village in Finland. However, he drew the line when his own son Victor turned to communism. When Victor and his father argued, Helmi learned that the words ‘communist’, ‘Red’, ‘worker’, and ‘Bolshevik’ had a threatening air. She learned to connect those words to Finns whose opinions and habits differed from their own: ‘they rant about the capitalists and read Tyomies’. On one occasion, Victor’s father yelled at his son: ‘Poika [son], as long as you sit at my table and eat the bread I sweat for, you talk to me respectfully. I’ll never allow that Red paper [Tyomies] in this house’. When Helmi’s grandfather tried to break the ice by talking about the news concerning landownership in the Soviet Union that he had read in Tyomies, Helmi’s father become even angrier and said ‘Tyomies is a komunisti paper … It’s not private land at all, not like our homestead here’ (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 19–20). Obviously, Helmi’s parents were politically closer to the Republican Party than the Democrats. They assumed the Republican candidate Herbert Hoover would win the presidential election of 1928 and probably voted for him, as did the majority of voters in St. Louis county (Hiltunen Biesanz 1989, 107; 1928 Presidential General Election Results—Minnesota).