“Very Welcome Home Mr. Swanson”: Swedish Americans Encounter Homeland Swedes

Abstract

This article examines different patterns of interaction between Swedish Americans and the homeland, and my interest is in the significance and consequences of these encounters. The mass emigration of some 1,3 million Swedes in the 19th and early 20th centuries was a fundamental event in Swedish history, and as a result a separate social and cultural community—Swedish America—was created in the U.S. and a specific population group of Swedish Americans emerged. Close to a fifth of these Swedish Americans returned to Sweden, and in their interaction with the old homeland they were seen as a distinct group in Sweden and became carriers of a specific American experience. Swedish Americans thus became a visible sub-group in Sweden and it is the significance of this population that I am interested in. The article looks at both material and immaterial effects of the return migration and at the larger significance of Swedish America and Swedish Americans for Sweden.