My husband was born and raised in an Ohio Valley steel town where immigrants from Poland, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, from pretty much all over western and eastern Europe - and African-Americans, too - settled to work in the mills and raise their families. (All four of my husband's grandparents, of Serbian heritage, came to the US from present-day Croatia).
They never ignored or lost their ethnic heritage. In fact, the town regularly held "international day" festivities, where they sang the songs, danced the dances and prepared the foods of their homelands. But above all, every day of the year, they were Americans first. That was the the strength - that their first loyalty was to the country that gave them opportunities. They gave up their old homeland for the new one. That's not happening now.
