A Dissipating Echo: The Latvian Ethnic Newspaper Amerikas Atbalss, 1920-1922

• In Event: Making Sense of the Media: Now and Then

Abstract

Published between August 1920 and September 1922, the weekly Latvian ethnic newspaper Amerikas Atbalss (American Echo) positioned itself as a nonpartisan and secular voice that would defend the interests of the new Latvian state and promote the nation's renewal in the wake of the First World War. The newspaper also represented a geographical and generational shift in power away from the early Latvian immigrants who had settled in Boston over to younger professionals based in New York and Philadelphia — a new ethnic elite. The primary audience for Amerikas Atbalss was the Latvian community in the United States, but the paper also featured regular contributions from non-Latvians writing in English. My research examines the cultural and political role of Amerikas Atbalss, and suggests that the newspaper’s short run was related as much to the achievement of a diplomatic goal — de jure recognition of Latvia by the U.S. — as to the failure of the publication to adequately serve the ethnic community itself.

Short Bio

Andris Straumanis is an associate professor of journalism in the Department of Communication and Media Studies at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His research areas include the history of the Latvian immigrant and ethnic press in America before the First World War; the history of the exile press; and diasporic media.

Author

• Andris Straumanis, University of Wisconsin-River Falls