Working-Class Tastes versus Working-Class Leaders' Cultural Agenda in a Diaspora Newspaper

The purpose of this article is to determine the literary-and more broadly, artistic-tastes of working-class Slovene-Americans in the U.S. during the interwar period as compared to the mission of the main working-class Slovene-American newspaper, Prosveta (Enlightenment). 2 We sought to determine whether there was a discrepancy between the two and if so, the reasons for it.To that end, we posited that working-class tastes can be deduced from reports in Prosveta on theatrical performances.The reports were furnished by local contributors across the U.S. The newspaper editors' agenda can be seen in the selection of Slovene-language fiction and translations, which were a staple of Prosveta's contents.We examined reports on theatrical productions and fiction published in the newspaper from 1933 to 1937, when the theatrical performances were particularly numerous and when the paper and its sponsoring organization celebrated several important anniversaries and reflected on the past and founding principles.The results have shown that despite the continuous efforts of the editors to accustom their readers to classical authors, working-class audiences preferred light-hearted entertainment

Diaspora · Globalization · Newspaper · Asian American and Pacific Histories · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity