When immigrants from certain more “expressive” European countries would move to America circa 1921, the prevailing culture of the U.S. forced them to bottle up their emotions.

In the old countries art was the outlet for emotions — not, as with us, a thing that you put in a frame or on a talking machine. When the peasant feels emotion he sings. He sings when he is glad and he sings when he suffers. He sings when he worships.

…

Who has ever heard the Italian or Hungarian or Pollack peasant sing at the top of his lungs as he walks past Macdougal Street? Probably, if he did, he would be arrested for “disorderly conduct.” In America we don’t do street singing unless we happen to be drunk.

But in Europe the history of the emotions and experiences of its peoples are written in its folk songs — a history that now is locked behind the lips of the newcomers.

Then again, other European nations can make the U.S. seem incredibly expressive by comparison.

Americanization by Addition

Published: Sunday, February 13, 1921