Invisibility and selectivity. Introduction to the special issue on Dutch overseas migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century
Marlou Schrover and Marijke van Faassen
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Invisibility and selectivity. Introduction to the special issue on Dutch overseas migration in the nineteenth and twentieth century
The contributors to this special issue describe the emigration of people from the Netherlands to the most important overseas destinations (the usa, Canada and Australia) in the nineteenth and the twentieth century. Part of the Dutch (overseas) emigrants formed strongly separated communities. Dutch emigrants were also rather invisible. In North America we see a combination of separateness and invisibility, in Australia mainly invisibility. Both in the nineteenth and in the twentieth century, migration was highly selective (with differences according to religion, class, ethnicity and gender). Only in the twentieth century (and especially after 1945) there was a strong influence of government policy on migration. In this issue, the comparison of emigration from one country – the Netherlands – to several destinations and the comparison over time show the influences of the societal context of the country of origin on the formation of Dutch emigrant communities.

Imagining a new Identity. The Dutch American immigrant community, 1847-1875
Michael J. Douma
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Imagining a new Identity. The Dutch American immigrant community, 1847-1875
National and transnational studies of migration define borders within a political framework and try to explain ethnic group identity ultimately through migrants’ relationships to national identities. But the Dutch American community formed in the nineteenth century Midwest defined itself to a significant degree through non-political spatial and cultural relationships. The Dutch American community was a matrix of associations originating in the process of migration itself and in the struggles of the American Civil War. In settlements across the American Midwest, Dutch Americans sought belonging among their own and drew mental maps connecting their kind. They concentrated where possible, showed concern for establishing links between settlements, and by keeping ‘Yankees’ at arm’s length, retained cultural habits carried over from the Netherlands. The result was a unique and persistent Dutch American ethnic subculture.

There was work in the valley: Dutch immigration to New Jersey, 1850-1920
Robert Schoone-Jongen
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There was work in the valley: Dutch immigration to New Jersey, 1850-1920
Dutch immigration to the Passaic Valley of New Jersey began in the late 1840s. This particular group of Dutch Americans remained unusually isolated from their compatriots in the Midwest. But they also were influenced by the presence of the descendents of the Dutch colonists who came to the Hudson Valley in the seventeenth century. By 1910 some of the new Dutch immigrants achieved social, economic, and political prominence in the area. In particular the Dutch established themselves as significant actors in the textile, construction, and food production that drove the area’s rise to the status of a very important industrial centre. But prominence came at a price, and after 1913 the region’s Dutch Americans’ influence retreated into the confines of their own neighbourhoods. This particular group of Dutch immigrants developed a character that distinguished it from the colonists who lived in the larger western enclaves. These peculiarities reflected the links in their chain migration from the Netherlands, their physical separation from the Dutch Americans in the West, and their relationship both to the old Dutch colonial presence in place when the first new immigrants arrived in the late 1840s and with the other immigrant groups that arrived in the Passaic Valley in the subsequent decades.

Aanpassen and invisibility: being Dutch in post-war Australia
Nonja Peters
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Aanpassen and invisibility: being Dutch in post-war Australia
This article reflects on the mass influx of Dutch migrants into Australia after the Second World War from the vantage point of the now rapidly ageing Dutch. It compares their experience to that of their children who are also fast approaching retirement age. It locates Dutch Australians’ adaptive strategies within the context of the historic, socio-economic and cultural expectations generated at the point of departure by both the relinquishing and receiving societies. It shows the strategies as further influenced by ethnicity, generation, gender, social class and religion. Its central thesis contends the compelling and sometimes dissimilar imperatives driving the Australian and Dutch governments post-war emigration/immigration programs coalesced to fashion ‘aanpassen and invisibility’, the strategies now viewed as the ‘hallmark’ of Dutch resettlement in Australia.

The Indisch Dutch in post-war Australia
Joost Coté
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The Indisch Dutch in post-war Australia
This article considers how the Indisch Dutch related to post-war Australia. After establishing the definitional and statistical identity of Australia’s Indisch Dutch, the discussion draws attention to the geographical proximity of what were once two European colonial settler communities inhabiting the southeast corner of the Asian hemisphere. Although a mere hours flying from their former pre-war locations, almost all Indisch Dutch who migrated to Australia came via the Netherlands. Despite the geographical proximity of their past and present lives, they are in fact separated by a dramatic history. This paper considers what if anything the histories of two European communities had in common and what this may have meant to both Indisch migrants and their Australian hosts in the 1950s and 1960s.

For the next generation. Dutch Protestant church commemorations in North America, 1960-1980
David Zwart
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For the next generation. Dutch Protestant church commemorations in North America, 1960-1980
In this article I describe congregational commemorations of Dutch immigrants and descendants living in the United States and Canada in the 1960s and 1970s. I propose that these commemorations served to pass on the faith and migration stories to the next generation. The concern of the writers of the commemorative books reflects this desire and less an effort to faithfully retell the story of the congregation. By looking at congregations on both sides of the border with clear differences in setting and developments, it provides a way to understand the commonalities of the denominations as ethno-religious communities as well as see the diversity across the border.