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InLithuanians in MichiganMarius Grazulis recounts the history of an immigrant group that has struggled to maintain its identity. Grazulis estimates that about 20 percent of the 1.6 million Lithuanians who immigrated to the United States arrived on American shores between 1860 and 1918.While first-wave immigrants stayed mostly on the east coast, by 1920 about one-third of newly immigrated Lithuanians lived in Michigan, working in heavy industry and mining.With remarkable detail, Grazulis traces the ways these groups have maintained their ethnic identity in Michigan in the face of changing demographics in their neighborhoods and changing interests among their children, along with the challenges posed by newly arriving \"modern\" Lithuanian immigrants, who did not read the same books, sing the same songs, celebrate the same holidays, or even speak the same language that previous waves of Lithuanian immigrants had preserved in America. Anyone interested in immigrant history will findLithuanians in Michigansimultaneously familiar, fascinating, and moving.

Because of the low economic status of Lithuanians, they centered their social lives on the one thing they knew: culture. Lithuanian culture was focused on the Roman Catholic Church. If you go to Lithuania, the old Roman Catholic Churches are in the center of town. The local parish gave a sense of unity and, in many cases, defiance against the tsarist regime. The parish priest was considered a community leader and many times led the defiance, especially when the time came to smuggle in Latin alphabet Lithuanian books (many published in the United States by émigrés). The priest led the

The first wave of Lithuanians coming to Michigan in the late 1800s did not have a concept of sports. In their cultural history, Lithuanians did not have sports as we know them today. No wonder the first wave of Lithuanian immigrants did not organize sports teams or worry about sports prowess. Survival on the farm in the old country and survival in the city in the new world was much more important. Sports did matter to the second-generation Lithuanians and to the next two waves of immigrants. The 1920s and 1930s saw the first Lithuanian-American sports stars like Jack Sharkey

On March 11, 1990, the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic declared its independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Recognition was not forthcoming from the USSR or the rest of the world. The failed Soviet coup in August 1991 led to Western recognition and finally a Soviet ratification of independence in September 1991. Lithuania S.S.R. was now the Republic of Lithuania. This event was earth shaking to the Lithuanian émigrés abroad, including those in Michigan. For Lithuanians of the third wave, recognition of Lithuanian independence by the United States had a “Where were you when Lithuania got its independence?” affect.⁸⁵

The first wave of Lithuanian immigrants came to the United States beginning in 1860. This wave ended in 1918, near the end of World War I, with the creation of the Lithuanian republic. The difference between the first and second waves of Lithuanians coming to the United States and Michigan is slight. The emigrating agent changed from tsarist Russian to independent Lithuanian, meaning the cultural reasons for leaving Lithuania disappeared. However, the economic reasons for leaving Lithuania continued. Therefore, the first and second waves of Lithuanian immigration will be generally treated as one and the same in this study. Genealogists

To understand the variables impacting Lithuanian immigration to Michigan in the 1860s, one must understand the geopolitical realities of Lithuania in medieval Europe. Geographically, Lithuania has generally held its ethnogeographic boundaries since the year 1000. Without the port of Klaipėda (Memel in German), its fifty-mile coast on the Baltic Sea would be reduced to a handful of miles. Besides its small coast, in medieval times Lithuania was landlocked by huge, dense forests. With only one waterway, the Nemunas River (the Nieman River, in German), leading inland and no valuable resources, the country was not considered by invaders to be worth

The cultural dissonance between the third and fifth immigrant waves has resulted in a cooperative development in one Michigan community. Union Pier, on the far southern end of Lake Michigan, has been home to a small Lithuanian community since the late 1950s that has gone through patterns of growth and decline. Today the Union Pier Lithuanian community is in a period of growth, with both third-wavers and fifth-wave immigrants moving in. Before Union Pier became a Lithuanian community, it was a Jewish summer community. Jews had owned many of the homes since the 1920s. In the late 1950s they started

The Lithuanian community in Michigan will survive in Detroit for some time to come, as long as economic opportunity and Lithuanian priests exist. Some older Lithuanian immigrants have their doubts, however. One older immigrant believes that Lithuanians in Detroit will not last much longer than 2015. This person’s prophecy is based on the prediction that the Lithuanian parishes will lose membership, lose their Lithuanian priest, and close. Another immigrant predicts that within twenty years the church will become geographic and fall under total local episcopal control and this will be the end of the Lithuanian influence on the community. This

The third wave of Lithuanian immigration came immediately after the upheaval of World War II. This new wave of Lithuanians had no way to reach the United States while the destroying armies of the Allies and Axis crisscrossed Europe. Between the Displaced Persons Act of 1948 and the Refugee Act of 1953, 30,300 Lithuanians immigrated to the United States.⁶⁰ Three thousand of those came to the Detroit area. The displaced persons (DP’s, ordipukaiin Lithuanian) were worlds apart from the first- and second-wave Lithuanians. This was because the third wave of Lithuanian immigration was a forced political exile of