The Persistence of Ethnicity: Dutch Calvinist Pioneers in Amsterdam, Montana

Immigration and ethnicity have long been staples of American history and literature, yet ethnicity has rarely been explored as the complex process of acculturation and adaptation that it is. In an adept combination of theoretical analysis and narrative, Rob Kroes presents the story of Amsterdam, Montana, a small, century-old village in the Gallatin Valley. Through extensive use of archival material, interviews with community members, and several months of first-hand experience living there, Kroes depicts the village's struggles for survival, its development as an "American" community, and, most important, its ability to maintain a strong Dutch ethnicity and culture through its ties to the Christian Reformed church.
The reader sees the community as a whole as it moves through time, developing its many forms of accommodation to the surrounding American environment. There is a pervasive sense of the religion-based internal stratification and strife which, in the end, have served to draw the community more closely together as a solidly ethnic enclave. Amsterdam, Montana, is in America, but not quite of it.