Amish

The year 1993 marked the existence of 300 years of Amish life. Extinct in their European homeland, today they live in more than 200 settlements in 22 states and the Canadian province of Ontario. The Amish are one of the more distinctive and colorful cultural groups across the spectrum of American pluralism. Their rejection of automobiles, use of horse-drawn farm machinery, and distinctive dress set them apart from the high-tech culture of modern life.

HISTORY

Amish roots stretch back to sixteenth-century Europe. Impatient with the pace of the Protestant Reformation, youthful reformers in Zurich, Switzerland, outraged religious authorities by baptizing each other in January 1525. The rebaptism of adults was then a crime punishable by death. Baptism, in the dissidents' view, was only meaningful for adults who had made a voluntary confession of faith. Because they were already baptized as infants in the Catholic Church, the radicals were dubbed Anabaptists, or rebaptizers, by their opponents. Anabaptism, also known as the Radical Reformation, spread through the Cantons of Switzerland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
The rapid spread of Anabaptist groups threatened civil and religious authorities. Anabaptist hunters soon stalked the Reformers. The first martyr was drowned in 1527. Over the next few decades, thousands of Anabaptists burned at the stake, drowned in rivers, starved in prisons, or lost their heads to the executioner's sword. The 1,200-page Martyrs Mirror, first published in Dutch in 1660 and later in German and English, records the carnage. Many Amish have a German edition of the Martyrs Mirror in their homes today.
The Swiss Anabaptists sought to follow the ways of Jesus in daily life, loving their enemies, forgiving insults, and turning the other cheek. Some Anabaptist groups resorted to violence, but many repudiated force and resolved to live peaceably even with adversaries. The flames of execution tested their faith in the power of suffering love, and although some recanted, many died for their faith. Harsh persecution pushed many Anabaptists underground and into rural hideaways. Swiss Anabaptism took root in rural soil. The sting of persecution, however, divided the church and the larger society in Anabaptist minds. The Anabaptists believed that the kingdoms of this world anchored on the use of coercion clashed with the peaceable kingdom of God.
By 1660 some Swiss Anabaptists had migrated north to the Alsace region of present-day France, which borders southwestern Germany. The Amish came into the picture in 1693 when Swiss and South German Anabaptists split into two streams: Amish and Mennonite. Jakob Ammann, an elder of the Alsatian church, sought to revitalize the Anabaptist movement in 1693. He proposed holding communion twice a year rather than the typical Swiss practice of once a year. He argued that Anabaptist Christians in obedience to Christ should wash each others' feet in the communion service. To promote doctrinal purity and spiritual discipline Ammann forbade fashionable dress and the trimming of beards, and he administered a strict discipline in his congregations. Appealing to New Testament teachings, Ammann advocated the shunning of excommunicated members. Ammann's followers, eventually called Amish, soon became another sect in the Anabaptist family.

SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES

Searching for political stability and religious freedom, the Amish came to North America in two waves—in the mid-1700s and again in the first half of the 1800s. Their first settlements were in southeastern Pennsylvania. Eventually they followed the frontier to other counties in Pennsylvania, then to Ohio, Indiana, and to other Midwestern states. Today Amish settlements are primarily located in the mid-Atlantic and the Midwest regions of the United States. Very few Amish live west of the Mississippi or in the deep south. In Europe, the last Amish congregation dissolved about 1937.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Flowing with the rising tide of industrialization in the late nineteenth century, some clusters of Amish formed more progressive Amish-Mennonite churches. The more conservative guardians of the heritage became known as the Old Order Amish. In the twentieth century some Old Order Amish, hankering again after modern conveniences, formed congregations of New Order Amish in the 1960s. The small numbers of New Order Amish groups sometimes permit their members to install phones in their homes, use electricity from public utilities, and use tractors in their fields.
At the turn of the twentieth century the Old Order Amish numbered about 5,000 in North America. Now scattered across 22 states and Ontario they number about 150,000 children and adults. Nearly three quarters live in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana. Other sizeable communities are in Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New York, and Wisconsin. A loose federation of some 900 congregations, the Amish function without a national organization or an annual convention. Local church districts—congregations of 25 to 35 families—shape the heart of Amish life.

Acculturation and Assimilation

The Amish have been able to maintain a distinctive ethnic subculture by successfully resisting acculturation and assimilation. The Amish try to maintain cultural customs that preserve their identity. They have resisted assimilation into American culture by emphasizing separation from the world, rejecting higher education, selectively using technology, and restricting interaction with outsiders.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

The word Amish evokes images of buggies and lanterns. At first glance Amish groupings across North America appear pressed from the same cultural mold. A deeper look reveals many differences among Amish groups. Some affiliations forbid milking machines while others depend on them. Mechanical hay balers widely used in some areas are taboo in others. Prescribed buggy tops are gray or

This photograph, taken in 1986, features an Amish family from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. They are harvesting corn so that they may feed their livestock during the winter months.

black in many affiliations but other groups have white or yellow tops. Buttons on clothing are banished in many groups, but acceptable in others. The dead are embalmed in one settlement but not in another. Some bishops permit telephones in small shops, but others do not. Artificial insemination of livestock is acceptable in one district but not in another. In some communities virtually all the men are farmers, but in others many adults work in small shops and cottage industries. In still other settlements Amish persons work in rural factories operated by non-Amish persons. Practices vary between church districts even within the same settlement. Diversity thrives behind the front stage of Amish life. Several distinctive badges of ethnic identity unite the Old Order Amish across North America: horse-and-buggy transportation; the use of horses and mules for field work; plain dress in many variations; a beard and shaven upper lip for men; a prayer cap for women; the Pennsylvania German dialect; worship in homes; eighth-grade, parochial schooling; the rejection of electricity from public utility lines; and taboos on the ownership of televisions and computers. These symbols of solidarity circumscribe the Amish world and bridle the forces of assimilation.
Amish life pivots on Gelassenheit (pronounced Ge-las-en-hite), the cornerstone of Amish values. Roughly translated, this German word means submission, yielding to a higher authority. In practice it entails self-surrender, resignation to God's will, yielding to others, self-denial, contentment, and a quiet spirit. The religious meaning of Gelassenheit expresses itself in a quiet and reserved personality and places the needs of others above self. It nurtures a subdued self, gentle handshakes, lower voices, slower strides, a life etched with modesty and reserve. Children learn the essence of Gelassenheit in a favorite verse: "I must be a Christian child, / Gentle, patient, meek, and mild, / Must be honest, simple, true, / I must cheerfully obey, / Giving up my will and way."
Another favorite saying explains that JOY means Jesus first, Yourself last, and Others in between. As the cornerstone of Amish culture, Gelassenheit collides with the bold, assertive individualism of modern life that seeks and rewards personal achievement, self-fulfillment, and individual recognition at every turn.
The spirit of Gelassenheit expresses itself in obedience, humility, and simplicity. To Amish thinking, obedience to the will of God is the cardinal religious value. Disobedience is dangerous. Unconfessed it leads to eternal separation. Submission to authority at all levels creates an orderly community. Children learn to obey at an early age. Disobedience is nipped in the bud. Students obey teachers without question. Adults yield to the regulations of the church. Among elders, ministers concede to bishops, who obey the Lord.
Humility is coupled with obedience in Amish life. Pride, a religious term for unbridled individualism, threatens the welfare of an orderly community. Amish teachers also remind students that the middle letter of pride is I. Proud individuals display the spirit of arrogance, not Gelassenheit. They are pushy, bold, and forward. What non-Amish consider proper credit for one's accomplishments the Amish view as the hankerings of a vain spirit. The Amish contend that pride disturbs the equality and tranquility of an orderly community. The humble person freely gives of self in the service of community without seeking recognition.
Simplicity is also esteemed in Amish life. Simplicity in clothing, household decor, architecture, and worship nurtures equality and orderliness. Fancy and gaudy decorations lead to pride. Luxury and convenience cultivate vanity. The tools of self-adornment—make-up, jewelry, wrist watches, and wedding rings—are taboo and viewed as signs of pride.

AMISH SURVIVAL

The Amish do not actively evangelize. They do welcome outsiders, but few make the cultural leap. Membership in some settlements doubles about every 20 years. Their growth is fueled by a robust birth rate that averages seven children per family. The defection rate varies by settlement, but is usually less than 20 percent. Thus, six out of seven children, on the average, remain Amish.
Beyond biological reproduction, a dual strategy of resistance and compromise has enabled the Amish to flourish in the modern world. They have resisted acculturation by constructing social fences around their community. Core values are translated into visible symbols of identity. Badges of ethnicity—horse, buggy, lantern, dialect, and dress—draw sharp contours between Amish and modern life.
The Amish resist the forces of modernization in other ways. Cultural ties to the outside world are curbed by speaking the dialect, marrying within the group, spurning television, prohibiting higher education, and limiting social interaction with outsiders. Parochial schools insulate Amish youth from the contaminating influence of worldly peers. Moreover, ethnic schools limit exposure to threatening ideas. From birth to death, members are embedded in a web of ethnicity. These cultural defenses fortify Amish identity and help abate the lure of modernity.
The temptations of the outside world, however, have always been a factor in Amish life. Instead of forbidding contact outright, the Amish tolerate the custom of rumschpringen , or running around. This custom allows Amish teenagers and young adults to flirt for a few years with such temptations as drinking, dating, and driving cars before they accept baptism and assume their adult responsibilities within the Amish community. Though such behavior is, for the most part, relatively mild, in recent years it has included more extreme activities. In 1998, for example, two Amish men in Lancaster County were charged with selling cocaine to other young people in their community. And in 1999, as many as 40 Amish teenagers turned violent after a drinking spree and seriously vandalized a Amish farmstead. While community elders express increasing concern about such events, they stress that most youthful behavior does not exceed reasonable bounds.
The survival strategy of the Amish has also involved cultural compromises. The Amish are not a calcified relic of bygone days, for they change continually. Their willingness to compromise often results in odd mixtures of tradition and progress. Tractors may be used at Amish barns but not in fields. Horses and mules pull modern farm machinery in some settlements. Twelve-volt electricity from batteries is acceptable but not when it comes from public utility lines. Hydraulic and air pressure are used instead of electricity to operate modern machines in many Amish carpentry and mechanical shops. Members frequently ride in cars or vans, but are not permitted to drive them. Telephones, found by farm lanes and shops, are missing from Amish homes. Modern gas appliances fill Amish kitchens in some states and lanterns illuminate modern bathrooms in some Amish homes.
These riddles of Amish life often baffle and, indeed, appear downright silly to outsiders. In reality, however, they reflect delicate bargains that the Amish have struck between their desire to maintain tradition while enjoying the fruits of progress. The Amish are willing to change but not at the expense of communal values and ethnic identity. They use modern technology but not when it disrupts family and community stability.
Viewed within the context of Amish history, the compromises are reasonable ways of achieving community goals. Hardly foolish contradictions, they preserve core values while permitting selective modernization. They bolster Amish identity while reaping many benefits of modern life. Such flexibility boosts the economic vitality of the community and also retains the allegiance of Amish youth.

CUISINE

Food preferences among the Amish vary somewhat from state to state. Breakfast fare for many families includes eggs, fried potatoes, toast, and in some communities, commercial cereals such as Corn-flakes and Cheerios. Typical breakfast foods in Pennsylvania also include shoofly pie, which is sometimes dipped in or covered with coffee or milk, stewed crackers in warm milk, mush made from corn meal, and sausage. Puddings and scrapple are also breakfast favorites. The puddings consist of ground liver, heart, and kidneys from pork and beef. These basic ingredients are also combined with flour and corn meal to produce scrapple.
For farm families the mid-day dinner is usually the largest meal of the day. Noontime dinners and evening suppers often include beef or chicken dishes, and vegetables in season from the family garden, such as peas, corn, green beans, lima beans, and carrots. Mashed potatoes covered with beef gravy, noodles with brown butter, chicken potpie, and sauerkraut are regional favorites. For side dishes and deserts there are applesauce, corn starch pudding, tapioca, and fruit pies in season, such as apple, rhubarb, pumpkin, and snitz pies made with dried apples. Potato soup and chicken-corn-noodle soup are commonplace. In summer months cold fruit soups consisting of strawberries, raspberries, or blueberries added to milk and bread cubes appear on Amish tables. Meadow tea, homemade root beer, and instant drink mixes are used in the summer.
Food preservation and preparation for large families and sizeable gatherings is an enormous undertaking. Although food lies beyond the reach of religious regulations, each community has a traditional menu that is typically served at large meals following church services, weddings, and funerals. Host families often bake three dozen pies for the noontime meal following the biweekly church service. Quantities of canned food vary by family size and preference but it is not uncommon for a family to can 150 quarts of apple sauce, 100 quarts of peaches, 60 quarts of pears, 50 quarts of grape juice, and 50 quarts of pizza sauce.
More and more food is purchased from stores, sometimes operated by the Amish themselves. In a more progressive settlement one Amishwoman estimates that only half of the families bake their own bread. The growing use of instant pudding, instant drinks, snack foods, and canned soups reflects growing time constraints. The use of commercial food rises as families leave the farm and especially as women enter entrepreneurial roles.

TRADITIONAL COSTUMES

The Amish church prescribes dress regulations for its members but the unwritten standards vary considerably by settlement. Men are expected to wear a wide brim hat and a vest when they appear in public. In winter months and at church services they wear a black suit coat which is typically fastened with hooks and eyes rather than with buttons. Men use suspenders instead of belts.
Amish women are expected to wear a prayer covering and a bonnet when they appear in public settings. Most women wear a cape over their dresses as well as an apron. The three parts of the dress are often fastened together with straight pins. Various colors, including green, brown, blue, and lavender, are permitted for men's shirts and women's dresses, but designs and figures in the material are taboo. Although young girls do not wear a prayer covering, Amish children are typically dressed similar to their parents.

HOLIDAYS

Sharing some national holidays with non-Amish neighbors and adding others of their own, the Amish calendar underscores both their participation in and separation from the larger world. As conscientious objectors, they have little enthusiasm for patriotic days with a military flair. Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and the Fourth of July are barely noticed. Labor Day stirs little interest. The witches and goblins of Halloween run contrary to Amish spirits: pumpkins may be displayed in some settlements, but without cut faces. And Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday slips by unnoticed in many rural enclaves.
Amish holidays earmark the rhythm of the seasons and religious celebrations. A day for prayer and fasting precedes the October communion service in some communities. Fall weddings provide ample holidays of another sort. Amish without wedding invitations celebrate Thanksgiving Day with turkey dinners and family gatherings. New Year's Day is a quiet time for family gatherings. In many communities a second day is added to the celebrations of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. The regular holiday, a sacred time, flows with quiet family activities. The following day, or second Christmas, Easter Monday, and Pentecost Monday, provides time for recreation, visiting, and sometimes shopping. Ascension day, the day prior to Pentecost, is a holiday for visiting, fishing, and other forms of recreation.
Christmas and Easter festivities are spared from commercial trappings. Families exchange Christmas cards and gifts. Some presents are homemade crafts and practical gifts, but are increasingly store bought. Homes are decorated with greens but Christmas trees, stockings, special lights, Santa Claus, and mistletoe are missing. Although eggs are sometimes painted and children may be given a basket of candy, Easter bunnies do not visit Amish homes. These sacred holidays revolve around religious customs, family gatherings, and quiet festivities rather than commercial trinkets and the sounds of worldly hubbub. Birthdays are celebrated at home and school in quiet, pleasant ways, with cakes and gifts. Parents often share a special snack of cookies or popsicles with school friends to honor a child's birthday.

HEALTH ISSUES

Contrary to popular misconceptions the Amish use modern medical services to some extent. Lacking professionals within their ranks, they rely on the services of dentists, optometrists, nurses, and physicians in local health centers, clinics, and hospitals. They cite no biblical injunctions against modern health care nor the latest medicine, but they do believe that God is the ultimate healer. Despite the absence of religious taboos on health care, Amish practices differ from prevailing patterns.
The Amish generally do not subscribe to commercial health insurance. Some communities have organized church aid plans for families with special medical costs. In other settlements special offerings are collected for members who are hit with catastrophic medical bills. The Amish are unlikely to seek medical attention for minor aches or illnesses and are more apt to follow folk remedies and drink herbal teas. Although they do not object to surgery or other forms of high-tech treatment they rarely employ heroic life-saving interventions.
In addition to home remedies, church members often seek healing outside orthodox medical circles. The search for natural healing leads them to vitamins, homeopathic remedies, health foods, reflexologists, chiropractors, and the services of specialized clinics in faraway places. These cultural habits are shaped by many factors: conservative rural values, a preference for natural antidotes, a lack of information, a sense of awkwardness in high-tech settings, difficulties accessing health care, and a willingness to suffer and lean on the providence of God.
Birthing practices vary in different settlements. In some communities most babies are born at home under the supervision of trained non-Amish midwives. In other settlements most children are born in hospitals or at local birthing clinics. Children can attend Amish schools without immunizations. Some parents follow the advice of family doctors or trained midwives and immunize their children, but many do not. Lax immunization is often due to cost, distance, misinformation, or lack of interest. Occasional outbreaks of German measles, whooping cough, polio, and other contagious diseases prompt public health campaigns to immunize Amish children. Amish elders usually encourage their people to cooperate with such efforts. In recent years various health providers have made special efforts to immunize Amish children.
Marriages within stable geographical communities and the influx of few converts restricts the genetic pool of Amish society. Marriages sometimes occur between second cousins. Such intermarriage does not always produce medical problems. When unique recessive traits are common in a closed community certain diseases simply are more likely to occur. On the other hand, a restricted gene pool may offer protection from other hereditary diseases.
A special type of dwarfism accompanied by other congenital problems occurs at an exceptionally high rate in some settlements. Higher rates of deafness have also been found. In the late 1980s, Dr. Holmes Morton identified glutaric aciduria in the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Amish community. Unrecognized and untreatable before, the disease is a biochemical disorder with symptoms similar to cerebral palsy. Approximately one in every 200 Amish infants inherits the disease. By 1991, Dr. Morton had organized a special clinic that tested some 70 percent of Amish infants and treated those diagnosed with the disease in the Lancaster settlement.
Another condition, Crigler-Najjar syndrome, occurs more frequently among the Amish and the Mennonites than in the general population. The condition is difficult to treat, and can result in brain damage and early death. The Amish have worked eagerly with researchers who are studying a new type of gene therapy for the treatment of this disease. In 1989, the Amish community united, barnraising style, to build the Clinic for Special Children in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, a facility that treats Crigler-Najjar patients.

Language

The Amish speak English, German, and a dialect known as Pennsylvania German or Pennsylvania Dutch. The dialect is the Amish native tongue and should not be confused with the Dutch language of the Netherlands. Originally a German dialect, Pennsylvania Dutch was spoken by Germanic settlers in southeastern Pennsylvania. The folk pronunciation of the word German, Deutsche, gradually became Dutch in English, and eventually the dialect became known as Pennsylvania Dutch. Even the Amish who live outside of Pennsylvania speak the Pennsylvania German dialect. In Amish culture, the dialect is used mainly as a form of oral communication: it is the language of work, family, friendship, play, and intimacy.
Young children live in the world of the dialect until they learn English in the Amish school. Students learn to read, write, and speak English from their Amish teachers, who learned it from their Amish teachers. But the dialect prevails in friendly banter on the playground. By the end of the eighth grade, young Amish have developed basic competence in English although it may be spoken with an accent. Adults are able to communicate in fluent English with their non-Amish neighbors. When talking among themselves, the Amish sometimes mix English words with the dialect, especially when discussing technical issues. Letters are often written in English, with salutations and occasional phrases in the dialect. Competence in English varies directly with occupational roles and frequency of interaction with English speakers. Ministers are often the ones who are best able to read German. Idioms of the dialect are frequently mixed with German in Amish sacred writings. Although children study formal German in school they do not speak it on a regular basis.

GREETINGS AND OTHER POPULAR EXPRESSIONS

Common Pennsylvania Dutch greetings and other expressions include: Gude Mariye— Good morning; Gut-n-Owed— Good evening; Wie geht's?— How are you?; En frehlicher Grischtdsaag— a Merry Christmas; Frehlich Neiyaahr— Happy New Year; kumm ball widder— come soon again. When inviting others to gather around a table to eat, a host might say Kumm esse.

Family and Community Dynamics

The immediate family, the extended family, and the church district form the building blocks of Amish society. Amish parents typically raise about seven children, but ten or more children is not uncommon. About 50 percent of the population is under 18 years of age. A person will often have more than 75 first cousins and a typical grandmother will count more than 35 grandchildren. Members of the extended family often live nearby, across the field, down the lane, or beyond the hill. Youth grow up in this thick network of family relations where one is rarely alone, always embedded in a caring community in time of need and disaster. The elderly retire at home, usually in a small apartment built onto the main house of a homestead. Because the Amish reject government aid, there are virtually no families that receive public assistance. The community provides a supportive social hammock from cradle to grave.

SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

A church district comprises 25 to 35 families and is the basic social and religious unit beyond the family. Roads and streams mark the boundaries of districts. Members are required to participate in the geographic district in which they live. A district's geographic size varies with the density of the Amish population. As districts expand, they divide.
A bishop, two preachers, and a deacon share leadership responsibilities in each district without formal pay or education. The bishop, as spiritual elder, officiates at baptisms, weddings, communions, funerals, ordinations, and membership meetings. The church district is church, club, family, and precinct all wrapped up in a neighborhood parish. Periodic meetings of ordained leaders link the districts of a settlement into a loose federation.
The social architecture of Amish society exhibits distinctive features. Leisure, work, education, play, worship, and friendship revolve around the immediate neighborhood. In some settlements, Amish babies are born in hospitals, but they are also born at home or in local birthing centers. Weddings and funerals occur at home. There are frequent trips to other settlements or even out of state to visit relatives and friends. But for the most part the Amish world pivots on local turf. From home-canned food to homemade haircuts, things are likely to be done near home. Social relationships are multi-bonded. The same people frequently work, play, and worship together.
Amish society is remarkably informal and the tentacles of bureaucracy are sparse. There is no centralized national office, symbolic national figurehead, or institutional headquarters. Apart from schools, a publishing operation, and regional historical libraries, formal institutions simply do not exist. A loosely organized national committee handles relations with the federal government for all the settlements. Regional committees funnel the flow of Amish life for schools, mutual aid, and historical libraries, but bureaucracy as we know it in the modern world is simply absent.
The conventional marks of modern status (education, income, occupation, and consumer goods) are missing and make Amish society relatively homogeneous. The agrarian heritage places everyone on common footing. The recent rise of cottage industries in some settlements and factory work in others threatens to disturb the social equality of bygone years, but the range of occupations and social differences remains relatively small. Common costume, horse and buggy travel, an eighth-grade education, and equal-size tombstones embody the virtues of social equality.

These Amish families are gathered together to eat a traditional meal.

The practice of mutual aid also distinguishes Amish society. Although the Amish own private property, like other Anabaptists they have long emphasized mutual aid as a Christian duty in the face of disaster and special need. Mutual aid goes beyond barn raisings. Harvesting, quilting, birthing, marriages, and funerals require the help of many hands. The habits of care encompass all sorts of needs triggered by drought, disease, death, injury, bankruptcy, and medical emergency.

GENDER ROLES

Amish society is patriarchal. Although school teachers are generally women, men assume the helm of most leadership roles. Women can nominate men to serve in ministerial roles but they themselves are excluded from formal church roles; however, they can vote in church business meetings. Some women feel that since the men make the rules, modern equipment is permitted more readily in barns and shops than in homes. In recent years some women have become entrepreneurs who operate small quilt, craft, and food stores.
Although husband and wife preside over distinct spheres of domestic life, many tasks are shared. A wife may ask her husband to assist in the garden and he may ask her to help in the barn or fields. The isolated housewife is rarely found in Amish society. The husband holds spiritual authority in the home but spouses have considerable freedom within their distinctive spheres.

SOCIAL GATHERINGS

Various social gatherings bring members together for times of fellowship and fun beyond biweekly worship. Young people gather in homes for Sunday evening singing. Married couples sometimes gather with old friends to sing for shut-ins and the elderly in their homes. Work frolics blend work and play together in Amish life. Parents gather for preschool frolics to ready schools for September classes. Endof-school picnics bring parents and students together for an afternoon of food and games.
Quilting bees and barn raisings mix goodwill, levity, and hard work for young and old alike. Other moments of collective work (cleaning up after a fire, plowing for an ill neighbor, canning for a sick mother, threshing wheat, and filling a silo) involve neighbors and extended families in episodes of charity, sweat, and fun. Adult sisters, sometimes numbering as many as five or six, often gather for a sisters day, which blends laughter with cleaning, quilting, canning, or gardening.
Public auctions of farm equipment are often held in February and March and attract crowds in preparation for springtime farming. Besides opportunities to bid on equipment, the day-long auctions offer ample time for farm talk and friendly fun. Games of cornerball in a nearby field or barnyard often compete with the drama of the auction. Household auctions and horse sales provide other times to socialize. Family gatherings at religious holidays and summer family reunions link members into familial networks. Single women sometimes gather at a cabin or a home for a weekend of fun.

This group of Amish boys is watching a horse and mule auction in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. This annual event attracts Amish farmers from throughout the Midwest.

Special meetings of persons with unique interests, often called reunions, are on the rise and attract Amish from many states: harnessmakers, cabinetmakers, woodworkers, blacksmiths, businesswomen, teachers, the disabled, and the like. The disabled have gathered annually for a number of years. Among youth, seasonal athletics are common: softball, sledding, skating, hockey, and swimming. Volleyball is a widespread favorite. Fishing and hunting for small game are preferred sports on farms and woodlands. In recent years some Amishmen have purchased hunting cabins in the mountains where they hunt white-tailed deer. Deep-sea fishing trips are common summertime jaunts for men in Pennsylvania. Others prefer camping and canoeing. Pitching quoits is common at family reunions and picnics.
Leisure and pleasure have long been suspect in Amish life. Idleness is viewed as the devil's workshop. But the rise of cottage industries and the availability of ready cash has brought more recreational activities. Amish recreation is group oriented and tilted more toward nature than toward taboo commercial entertainment. The Amish rarely take vacations but they do take trips to other settlements and may stop at scenic sites. Some couples travel to Florida for several weeks in the winter and live in an Amish village in Sarasota populated by winter travelers from settlements in several states. Trips to distant sites in search of special medical care sometimes include scenic tours. Although some Amish travel by train or bus, chartered vans are by far the most popular mode. Traveling together with family, friends, and extended kin these mobile groups bond and build community life.

INTERACTION WITH OTHERS

Amish culture and religion stresses separation from the world. Galvanized by European persecution and sanctioned by scripture, the Amish divide the social world into two pathways: the straight, narrow way to life, and the broad, easy road to destruction. Amish life embodies the narrow way of self-denial. The larger social world symbolizes the broad road of vanity and vice. The term world, in Amish thinking, refers to the outside society and its values, vices, practices, and institutions. Media reports of greed, fraud, scandal, drugs, violence, divorce, and abuse confirm that the world teems with abomination.
The gulf between church and world, imprinted in Amish minds by European persecution, guides practical decisions. Products and practices that might undermine community life, such as high school, cars, cameras, television, and self-propelled farm machinery, are tagged worldly. Not all new products receive this label, only those that threaten community values. Definitions of worldliness vary within and between Amish settlements, yielding a complicated maze of practices. Baffling to outsiders, these lines of faithfulness maintain inter-group boundaries and also preserve the cultural purity of the church.

WEDDINGS

The wedding season is a festive time in Amish life. Coming on the heels of the harvest, weddings are typically held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from late October through early December. The larger communities may have as many as 150 weddings in one season. Fifteen weddings may be scattered across the settlement on the same day. Typically staged in the home of the bride, these joyous events may involve upwards of 350 guests, two meals, singing, snacks, festivities, and a three-hour service. The specific practices vary from settlement to settlement.
Young persons typically marry in their early twenties. A couple may date for one to two years before announcing their engagement. Bishops will only marry members of the church. The church does not arrange marriages but it does place its blessing on the pair through an old ritual. Prior to the wedding, the groom takes a letter signed by church elders to the bride's deacon testifying to the groom's good standing in his home district. The bride's deacon then meets with her to verify the marriage plans.
The wedding day is an enormous undertaking for the bride's family and for the relatives and friends who assist with preparations. Efforts to clean up the property, paint rooms, fix furniture, pull weeds, and pave driveways, among other things, begin weeks in advance. The logistics of preparing meals and snacks for several hundred guests are taxing. According to custom, the day before the wedding the groom decapitates several dozen chickens. The noontime wedding menu includes chicken roast—chicken mixed with bread filling, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed celery, pepper cabbage, and other items. Desserts include pears, peaches, puddings, dozens of pies, and hundreds of cookies and doughnuts.
The three-hour service—without flowers, rings, solos, or instrumental music—is similar to an Amish worship service. The wedding includes congregational singing, prayers, wedding vows, and two sermons. Four single friends serve the bride and groom as attendants: no one is designated maid of honor or best man. Amish brides typically make their own wedding dresses from blue or purple material crafted in traditional styles. In addition to the groom's new but customary black coat and vest, he and his attendants often wear small black bow ties.
Several seatings and games, snacks, and singing follow the noon meal. Young people are paired off somewhat randomly for the singing. Following the evening meal another more lively singing takes place in which couples who are dating pair off— arousing considerable interest because this may be their first public appearance. Festivities may continue until nearly midnight as guests gradually leave. Some guests, invited to several weddings on the same day, may rotate between them.
Newly married couples usually set up housekeeping in the spring after their wedding. Until then the groom may live at the bride's home or continue to live with his parents. Couples do not take a traditional honeymoon, but visit relatives on weekends during the winter months. Several newlywed couples may visit together, sometimes staying overnight at the home of close relatives. During these visits, family and friends present gifts to the newlyweds to add to the bride's dowry, which often consists of furniture. Young men begin growing a beard, the functional equivalent of a wedding ring, soon after their marriage. They are expected to have a "full stand" by the springtime communion.

FUNERALS

With the elderly living at home, the gradual loss of health prepares family members for the final passage. Accompanied by quiet grief, death comes gracefully, the final benediction to a good life and entry into the bliss of eternity. Although funeral practices vary from community to community, the preparations reflect core Amish values, as family and friends yield to eternal verities.
The community springs into action at the word of a death. Family and friends in the local church district assume barn and household chores, freeing the immediate family. Well-established funeral rituals unburden the family from worrisome choices. Three couples are appointed to extend invitations and supervise funeral arrangements: food preparation, seating arrangements, and the coordination of a large number of horses and carriages.
In the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, settlement a non-Amish undertaker moves the body to a funeral home for embalming. The body, without cosmetic improvements, returns to the home in a simple, hardwood coffin within a day. Family members of the same sex dress the body in white. White garments symbolize the final passage into a new and better eternal life. Tailoring the white clothes prior to death helps to prepare the family for the season of grief. Women often wear the white cape and apron worn at their wedding.
Friends and relatives visit the family and view the body in a room on the first floor of the home for two days prior to the funeral. Meanwhile community members dig the grave by hand in a nearby family cemetery as others oversee the daily chores of the bereaved. Several hundred guests attend the funeral in a barn or home typically on the morning of the third day after death. During the simple hour-anda-half-long service, ministers read hymns and scriptures, offer prayers, and preach a sermon. There are no flowers, burial gowns, burial tents, limousines, or sculpted monuments.
The hearse, a large, black carriage pulled by horses, leads a long procession of other carriages to the burial ground on the edge of a farm. After a brief viewing and graveside service, pallbearers lower the coffin and shovel soil into the grave as the bishop reads a hymn. Small, equal-sized tombstones mark the place of the deceased in the community of equality. Close friends and family members then return to the home for a meal prepared by members of the local congregation. Bereaved women, especially close relatives, may signal their mourning by wearing a black dress in public settings for as long as a year. A painful separation laced with grief, death is nevertheless received gracefully as the ultimate surrender to God's higher ways.

EDUCATION

The Amish supported public education when it revolved around one-room schools in the first half of the twentieth century. Under local control, the one-room rural schools posed little threat to Amish values. The massive consolidation of public schools and growing pressure to attend high school sparked clashes between the Amish and officials in several states in the middle of the twentieth century. Confrontations in several other states led to arrests and brief stints in jail. After legal skirmishes in several states, the U.S. Supreme Court gave its blessing to the eighth-grade Amish school system in 1972, stating that "there can be no assumption that today's majority is 'right' and the Amish and others are 'wrong. "' The court concluded that "a way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different."
Today the Amish operate more than 850 parochial schools for some 24,000 Amish children. Many of the schools have one room with 25 to 35 pupils and one teacher who is responsible for teaching all eight grades. A few Amish children attend rural public schools in some states but the vast majority go to parochial schools operated by the Amish.
A scripture reading and prayer opens each school day, but religion is not formally taught in the school. The curriculum includes reading, arithmetic, spelling, grammar, penmanship, history, and geography. Both English and German are taught. Parents want children to learn German to enhance their ability to read religious writings, many of which are written in formal German. Science and sex education are missing in the curriculum as are the other typical trappings of public schools: sports, dances, cafeterias, clubs, bands, choruses, computers, television, guidance counselors, principals, strikes, and college recruiters.
A local board of three to five fathers organizes the school, hires a teacher, approves curriculum, oversees the budget, and supervises maintenance. Teachers receive about $25 to $35 per day. The cost per child is roughly $250 per year, nearly 16 times lower than many public schools where per pupil costs often top $4,000. Amish parents pay public school taxes and taxes for their own school.
Schools play a critical role in the preservation of Amish culture. They not only reinforce Amish values, but also shield youth from contaminating ideas. Moreover, schools restrict friendships with non-Amish peers and impede the flow of Amish youth into higher education and professional life. Amish schools promote practical skills to prepare their graduates for success in Amish society. Some selective testing indicates that Amish pupils compare favorably with rural peers in public schools on standardized tests of basic skills.
Amish teachers, trained in Amish schools, are not required to be certified in most states. Often the brightest and best of Amish scholars, they return to the classroom in their late teens and early twenties to teach. Amish school directors select them for their ability to teach and their commitment to Amish values. Frequently single women, they typically drop their occupation if wed. Periodic meetings with other teachers, a monthly teachers' magazine, and ample common sense prepare them for the task of teaching 30 students in eight grades. With three or four pupils per grade, teachers often teach two grades at a time. Pupils in other classes ponder assignments or listen to previews of next year's lessons or hear reviews of past work. Classrooms exhibit a distinct sense of order amidst a beehive of activity. Hands raise to ask permission or clarify instructions as the teacher moves from cluster to cluster teaching new material every ten or 15 minutes. Some textbooks are recycled from public schools while others are produced by Amish publishers. Students receive a remarkable amount of personal attention despite the teacher's responsibility for eight grades. The ethos of the classroom accents cooperative activity, obedience, respect, diligence, kindness, and the natural world. Despite the emphasis on order, playful pranks and giggles are commonplace. Schoolyard play in daily recesses often involves softball or other homespun games.
Amish schools exhibit a social continuity rarely found in public education. With many families sending several children to a school, teachers may relate to as few as a dozen households. Teachers know parents personally and special circumstances surrounding each child. In some cases, children have the same teacher for all eight grades. Indeed, all the children from a family may have the same teacher. Amish schools are unquestionably provincial by modern standards. Yet in a humane fashion they ably prepare Amish youth for meaningful lives in Amish society.

Religion

At first glance the Amish appear quite religious. Yet a deeper inspection reveals no church buildings, sacred symbols, or formal religious education even in Amish schools. Unlike most modern religions, religious meanings pervade all aspects of Amish lives. Religion is practiced, not debated. Silent prayers before and after meals embroider each day with reverence. The Amish way of living and being requires neither heady talk nor formal theology.
The Ordnung, a religious blueprint for expected behavior, regulates private, public, and ceremonial behavior. Unwritten in most settlements, the Ordnung is passed on by oral tradition. A body of understandings that defines Amish ways, the Ordnung marks expected Amish behavior: wearing a beard without a mustache; using a buggy; and speaking the dialect. It also specifies taboos: divorce; filing a lawsuit; wearing jewelry; owning a car; and attending college. The understandings evolve over the years and are updated as the church faces new issues: embryo transplants in cattle; using computers and facsimile machines; and working in factories. Core understandings, such as wearing a beard and not owning a car, span all Old Order Amish settlements but the finer points of the Ordnung vary considerably from settlement to settlement.
Although ordained leaders update the Ordnung in periodic meetings, each bishop interprets it for his local congregation. Thus, dress styles and the use of telephones and battery-powered appliances may vary by church district. Once embedded in the Ordnung and established as tradition, the understandings rarely change. As new issues face the church, leaders identify those which may be detrimental to community life. Non-threatening changes such as weed-whackers and instant coffee may be overlooked and gradually slip into Amish life. Battery-powered video cameras, which might lead to other video entanglements with the outside world, would surely be forbidden.
Children learn the ways of the Ordnung by observing adults. The Ordnung defines the way things are in a child's mind. Teenagers, free from the supervision of the church, sometimes flirt with worldly ways and flaunt the Ordnung. At baptism, however, young adults between the ages of 16 and 22 declare their Christian faith and vow to uphold the Ordnung for the rest of their life. Those who break their promise face excommunication and shunning. Those choosing not to be baptized may gradually drift away from the community but are welcome to return to their families without the stigma of shunning.

WORSHIP SERVICES

Worship services held in Amish homes reaffirm the moral order of Amish life. Church districts hold services every other Sunday. A group of 200 or more, including neighbors and relatives who have an "off Sunday," gather for worship. They meet in a farmhouse, the basement of a newer home, or in a shed or barn. A fellowship meal at noon and informal visiting follow the three-hour morning service.
The plain and simple but unwritten liturgy revolves around congregational singing and two sermons. Without the aid of organs, offerings, candles, crosses, robes, or flowers, members yield themselves to God in the spirit of humility. The congregation sings from the Ausbund, a hymnal of German songs without musical notations that date back to the sixteenth-century Anabaptists. The tunes passed across the generations by memory are sung in unison without any musical accompaniment. The slow, chant-like cadence means a single song may stretch over 20 minutes. Extemporaneous sermons, preached in the Pennsylvania German dialect, recount biblical stories as well as lessons from farm life. Preachers exhort members to be obedient to Amish ways.
Communion services, held each autumn and spring, frame the religious year. These ritual high points emphasize self-examination and spiritual rejuvenation. Sins are confessed and members reaffirm their vow to uphold the Ordnung. Communion is held when the congregation is at peace, when all members are in harmony with the Ordnung. The six- to eight-hour communion service includes preaching, a light meal during the service, and the commemoration of Christ's death with bread and wine. Pairs of members wash each others feet as the congregation sings. At the end of the communion service members give an alms offering to the deacon, the only time that offerings are collected in Amish services.

EXCOMMUNICATION

Baptism, worship, and communion are sacred rites that revitalize and preserve the Ordnung. But the Amish, like other human beings, forget, rebel, experiment, and stray into deviance. Major transgressions are confessed publicly in a members meeting following the worship service. Violations of the Ordnung—using a tractor in the field, posing for a television camera, flying on a commercial airline, filing a lawsuit, joining a political organization, or opening a questionable business—are confessed publicly. Public confession of sins diminishes self-will, reminds members of the supreme value of submission, restores the wayward into the community of faith, and underscores the lines of faithfulness which encircle the community.
The headstrong who spurn the advice of elders and refuse to confess their sin face a six-week probation. The next step is the Meidung, or shunning—a cultural equivalent of solitary confinement. Members terminate social interaction and financial transactions with the excommunicated. For the unrepentant, social avoidance becomes a lifetime quarantine. If their stubbornness does not mellow into repentance, they face excommunication.

Employment and Economic Traditions

Amish life is rooted in the soil. Ever since European persecution pushed them into rural areas, the Amish have been farmers. The land has nurtured their common life and robust families. Since the middle of the twentieth century, some of the older and larger Amish settlements in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania have shifted to nonfarm occupations because of the pressure of urbanization. As urbanization devoured prime farmland, prices soared. Land, for example, in the heart of Pennsylvania's Lancaster Amish settlement sold for $300 an acre in 1940. In the 1990s, the same land sold for $8,000 to $10,000 an acre. If sold for development, prices can double or even triple.
The shrinking and expensive farmland in some of the older settlements has forced a crisis in the Amish soul. The Amish have also contributed to the demographic squeeze with their growing population. The community has coped with the crisis in several ways. First, farms have been subdivided into smaller units with intensive cropping and larger concentrations of livestock. Second, some families have migrated to the rural backwaters of other states where farms could be purchased at much lower prices. Third, in some settlements a majority of families no longer farms, but works in small shops, rural factories, or in various trades. But even ex-farmers insist that the farm remains the best place to raise a family.
The rise of cottage industries and small shops marks an historic turn in Amish life. Mushrooming since the 1970s, these new enterprises have reshaped Amish society. By the late 1990s, such small industries employed more than half the Amish adults in Lancaster County. Amish retail shops sell dry goods, furniture, shoes, hardware, and wholesale foods. Church members now work as carpenters, plumbers, painters, and self-trained accountants. Professionals, like lawyers, physicians, and veterinarians, are missing from Amish ranks because of the taboo on high school and college education. The new industries come in three forms. Home-based operations lodged on farms or by newly built homes employ a few family members and neighbors. Bakeshops, craft shops, hardware stores, health food stores, quilt shops, flower shops, and repair shops of all sorts are but a few of the hundreds of home-based operations. Work in these settings revolves around the family. A growing number of these small cottage industries cater to tourists but many serve the needs of Amish and non-Amish neighbors alike.
Larger shops and manufacturing concerns are housed in newly constructed buildings on the edge of farms or on commercial plots. These formal shops with five to ten employees manufacture farm machinery, hydraulic equipment, storage barns, furniture, and cabinetry. Some metal fabrication shops arrange subcontracts with other manufacturers. The larger shops are efficient and profitable. Low overhead, minimal advertising, austere management, modest wages, quality workmanship, and sheer hard work grant many shops a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Mobile work crews constitute a third type of industry. Amish construction groups travel to building sites for commercial and residential construction. The construction crews travel in hired vehicles and in some settlements they are permitted to use electric tools powered by portable generators and on-site electricity.
The rise of cottage industries may, in the long run, disturb the equality of Amish life by encouraging a three-tier society of farmers, entrepreneurs, and day laborers. Parents worry that youth working a 40-hour week with loose cash in their pockets will snub traditional Amish values of simplicity and frugality. The new industries also increase contact with the outside world which will surely prompt even more changes in Amish life. Despite the occupational changes, virtually no Amish are unemployed or receive government unemployment benefits.

Politics and Government

The Amish view government with an ambiguous eye. Although they support and respect civil government, they also keep a healthy distance from it. On the one hand, they follow biblical admonitions to obey and pray for rulers and encourage members to be law-abiding citizens. On the other hand, government epitomizes worldly culture and the use of force. European persecutors of the Anabaptists were often government officials. Modern governments engage in warfare, use capital punishment, and impose their will with raw coercion. Believing that such coercion and violence mock the gentle spirit of Jesus, the Amish reject the use of force, including litigation. Since they regulate many of their own affairs they have less need for outside supervision.
When civil law and religious conscience collide, the Amish are not afraid to take a stand and will obey God rather than man, even if it brings imprisonment. They have clashed with government officials over the use of hard hats, zoning regulations, Workers' Compensation, and building codes for schools. However, as conscientious objectors many have received farm deferments or served in alternative service programs during times of military draft.
The church forbids membership in political organizations and holding public office for several reasons. First, running for office is viewed as arrogant and out of character with esteemed Amish values of humility and modesty. Second, office-holding violates the religious principle of separation from the world. Finally, public officials must be prepared to use legal force if necessary to settle civic disputes. The exercise of legal force mocks the stance of nonresistance. Voting, however, is viewed as a personal matter. Although the church does not prohibit it, few persons vote. Those who do vote are likely to be younger businessmen concerned about local issues. Although voting is considered a personal matter, jury duty is not allowed.
The Amish pay federal and state income taxes, sales taxes, real estate taxes, and personal property taxes. Indeed, they pay school taxes twice, for both public and Amish schools. Following biblical injunctions, the Amish are exempt from Social Security tax. They view Social Security as a national insurance program, not a tax. Congressional legislation, passed in 1965, exempts self-employed Amish persons from Social Security. Amish persons employed in Amish businesses were also exempted by congressional legislation in 1988. Those who do not qualify for the exemption, Amish employees in non-Amish businesses, must pay Social Security without reaping its benefits. Bypassing Social Security not only severs the Amish from old age payments, it also closes the spigot to Medicare and Medicaid.
The Amish object to government aid for several reasons. They contend that the church should assume responsibility for the social welfare of its own members. The aged, infirm, senile, and disabled are cared for, whenever possible, within extended family networks. To turn the care of these people over to the state would abdicate a fundamental tenet of faith: the care of one's brothers and sisters in the church. Furthermore, federal aid in the form of Social Security or Medicare would erode dependency on the church and undercut its programs of mutual aid, which the Amish have organized to assist their members with fire and storm damages and with medical expenses.
Government subsidies, or what the Amish call handouts, have been stridently opposed. Championing self-sufficiency and the separation of church and state, the Amish worry that the hand which feeds them will also control them. Over the years they have stubbornly refused direct subsidies even for agricultural programs designed for farmers in distress. Amish farmers do, however, receive indirect subsidies through agricultural price-support programs.
In 1967 the Amish formed the National Amish Steering Committee in order to speak with a common voice on legal issues related to state, and especially, federal government. The Steering Committee has worked with government officials to resolve disputes related to conscientious objection, zoning, slow-moving vehicle emblems, Social Security, Workers' Compensation, and the wearing of hard hats at construction sites. Informally organized, the Steering Committee is the only Amish organization which is national in scope.

THE FUTURE OF AMISH SOCIETY

The future shape of Amish life escapes prediction. Particular outcomes will be shaped not only by unforeseen external forces, such as market prices, government regulations, and rates of urbanization, but also by internal politics and the sentiments of particular Amish leaders. Without a centralized decision-making process, let alone a strategic planning council, new directions are unpredictable. Migrations will likely continue to new states and to the rural areas of states where the Amish presently live.
The willingness of many Amish to leave their plows for shops and cottage industries in the 1970s and 1980s signalled a dramatic shift in Amish life. Microenterprises will likely blossom and bring change to Amish life as they increase interaction with the outside world. These business endeavors will probably alter the class structure and cultural face of Amish society over the years. But the love of farming runs deep in the Amish heart. Faced with a growing population, many families will likely migrate to more rural areas in search of fertile soil.
The cultural flavor of twenty-first century Amish life may elude forecast, but one pattern is clear. Settlements which are pressed by urbanization are the most progressive in outlook and the most updated in technology. Rural homesteads beyond the tentacles of urban sprawl remain the best place to preserve traditional Amish ways. If the Amish can educate and retain their children, make a living, and restrain interaction with the larger world, they will likely flourish into the twenty-first century. But one thing is certain: diversity between their settlements will surely grow, mocking the staid stereotypes of Amish life.

Media

PRINT

Arthur Graphic Clarion.
Newspaper of the Illinois Amish country.
Contact: Allen Mann, Editor.
Address: P.O. Box 19, Arthur, Illinois 61911.
Telephone: (217) 543-2151.
Fax: (217) 543-2152.


Die Botschaft.
Weekly English newspaper with correspondents from many states that serves Old Order Mennonite and Old Order Amish communities.
Contact: Brookshire Publications, Inc.
Address: 200 Hazel Street, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17608-0807.


The Budget.
Weekly Amish/Mennonite community newspaper.
Contact: George R. Smith, National Editor.
Address: Sugarcreek Budget Publishers, Inc., 134 North Factory Street, P.O. Box 249, Sugarcreek, Ohio 44681-0249.
Telephone: (216) 852-4634.
Fax: (216) 852-4421.


The Diary.
Monthly publication that lists migrations, marriages, births, and deaths. It also carries news and feature articles.
Contact: Pequea Publishers.
Address: P.O. Box 98, Gordonville, Pennsylvania 17529.


The Mennonite: A Magazine to Inform and Challenge the Christian Fellowship in the Mennonite Context.
Contact: J. Lorne Peachey, Editor.
Address: 616 Walnut Avenue, Scottdale, Pennsylvania 15683.
Telephone: (800) 790-2493.
Fax: (724) 887-3111.
E-mail: themennonite@gcmc.org.
Online: http://www2.southwind.net/~gcmc/tm.html .


Mennonite Quarterly Review.
Scholarly journal covering Mennonite, Amish, Hutterian Brethren, Anabaptist, Radical Reformation, and related history and religious thought.
Contact: John D. Roth, Editor.
Address: Mennonite Historical Society, 1700 South Main Street, Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana 46526.
Telephone: (219) 535-7111.
Fax: (219) 535-7438.
E-mail: mqr@goshen.edu.


Pennsylvania Mennonite Heritage.
Founded in January of 1978. Quarterly historical journal covering Mennonite culture and religion.
Contact: David J. Rempel Smucker, Editor.
Address: Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society, 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17602-1499.
Telephone: (717) 393-9745.
Fax: (717) 393-8751.

Organizations and Associations

Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society (LMHS).
Individuals interested in the historical background, theology, culture, and genealogy of Mennonite and Amish related groups originating in Pennsylvania. Collects and preserves archival materials. Publishes the Mirror bimonthly.
Contact: Carolyn C. Wenger, Director.
Address: 2215 Millstream Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17602-1499.
Telephone: (717) 393-9745.
Fax: (717) 393-8751.


National Committee for Amish Religious Freedom (NCARF).
Committee of professors, clergymen, attorneys, and others that provides legal defense for Amish people, since the committee feels the Amish have religious scruples against defending themselves or seeking court action.
Contact: Rev. William C. Lindholm, Chair.
Address: 30650 Six Mile Road, Livonia, Michigan 48152.
Telephone: (734) 427-1414.
Fax: (734) 427-1419.
E-mail: wmlind@flash.net.
Online: http://www.holycrosslivonia.org/amish .

Museums and Research Centers

Mennonite Historical Library.
Address: Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana 46526.
Telephone: (219) 535-7000.


Ohio Amish Library.
Address: 4292 SR39, Millersburg, Ohio 44654.


Pequea Bruderschaft Library.
Address: P.O. Box 25, Gordonville, Pennsylvania 17529.


The Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups.
Address: Elizabethtown College, One Alpha Drive, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania 17022.
Telephone: (717) 361-1470.

Sources for Additional Study

The Amish and the State. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Amish Society, fourth edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
The Amish Wedding and Other Special Occasions of the Old Order Communities. Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 1988.
Hostetler, John A. Amish Life. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald Press, 1983.
Kline, David. Great Possessions: An Amish Farmer's Journal. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990.
Kraybill, Donald B. The Riddle of Amish Culture. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
Kraybill, Donald B., and Marc A. Olshan. The Amish Struggle with Modernity. Hanover, New Hampshire: University Press of New England, 1994.
Nolt, Steven M. A History of the Amish. Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 1992.
The Puzzles of Amish Life. Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 1990.
Scott, Stephen. Why Do They Dress That Way? Intercourse, Pennsylvania: Good Books, 1986.

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Algerian americans

Algeria is an Arab country in Northern Africa that gained independence from France in 1962. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea, between Morocco and Tunisia, Algeria is more than three times the size of Texas. Its name is Arabic for "the islands," and it is believed to be a reference to the 998 kilometers of coastline beside the rocky islands of the Mediterranean. The country is mostly high plateau and desert with some mountains. The Sahara desert covers 80 percent of the entire country. Natural resources include petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, phosphates, uranium, lead, and zinc. Algeria has the fifth-largest reserves of natural gas in the world, is the second largest gas exporter, and ranks fourteenth for oil reserves. Its population of 30 million speaks Arabic, the official language, as well as French and Berber dialects. Algeria's ethnic mix is 99 percent Arab-Berber, with less than one percent European. The term Berber is derived from the Greeks, who used it to refer to the indigenous people of North Africa. Algerian Arabs, or native speakers of Arabic, include descendants of Arab invaders and of native Berbers. Since 1966, however, the Algerian census no longer has a category for Berbers. Algerian Arabs, the major ethnic group of the country, constitute 80 percent of Algeria's people and are culturally and politically dominant. The lifestyle of Arabs varies from region to region. There are nomadic herders in the desert, settled cultivators and gardeners in the Tell, and urban dwellers on the coast. Linguistically, the groups differ little from each other, except that dialects spoken by nomadic and semi-nomadic peoples are thought to be derived from Beduin dialects. The dialects spoken by the urban population of the north are thought to stem from those of early seventh-century invaders. Urban Arabs identify with the Algerian nation, whereas remote rural Arabs are more likely to identify with a tribe.
Islam is the state religion, and 99 percent of Algerians are Sunni Muslim, one of two Islamic sects into which Muslims split 30 years after the death of the religion's founder, the Prophet Mohammed. The remaining one percent of Algerians are Christians and Jews. The national capital is Algiers. The flag is described as two equal vertical bands of green and white with a red, five-pointed star within a red crescent. The crescent, star, and color green are traditional symbols of Islam.

HISTORY

Algeria was populated around 900 B.C. by Berbers, a group from North Africa that was influenced by Carthaginians, Romans, and Byzantines. The Romans urbanized Algeria and maintained a military presence there in the second century. Algeria was ruled next by Vandals, a Germanic tribe, who were in turn conquered by Byzantine Arabs, who brought the Islamic faith to the region. Beginning in the early sixteenth century, Algeria was part of the Ottoman Empire for 300 years, and became a distinct province between Tunisia and Morocco. European nations, and eventually the United States, were required to pay tribute to these countries of North Africa, which ruled the shipping lanes of the Mediterranean until the French invaded Algeria in 1830.

MODERN ERA

In 1834 France annexed Algeria, then a population of three million Muslims, as a colony. France developed Algerian agriculture, mining, and manufacturing, centering the economy around small industry and a highly developed export trade. Algerian and European groups formed two separate subcultures with very little interaction or intermarriage. Many Algerians lost their lands to colonists, traditional leaders were eliminated, and Muslims paid higher taxes than the European settlers. The colonial regime seriously hindered the overall education of Algerian Muslims who, prior to French rule, relied on religious schools to learn reading, writing, and religious studies. The French refused to provide money to maintain mosques and schools, but spent money on the education of Europeans.
After World War I, a generation of Muslim leadership called the Young Algerians emerged. The first group to call for Algerian independence was the Star of North Africa, a group that formed in Paris in 1926. Then in World War II, Algerian Muslims supported the French, and after France's defeat by Germany, stripped Algerian Jews of their French citizenship. The Allies, with a force of 70,000 British and U. S. troops under Lt. Gen. Eisenhower, landed in Algiers and Oran in November 1942, and were joined by Algerian Muslims who fought for their homeland. At the end of the war, Algerians demanded the creation of an independent Algerian state federated with France. Instead, they were granted an Algerian Assembly allowing a small voice in self-government.
Algerians emerged from 132 years of rule by a European culture with the War of Independence (1954–1962). Nearly one million Algerians died during the War of Independence. The Arabization of Algerian society brought about this inevitable break with France. The French government had consistently maintained a tolerant position toward the survival of Arab culture in daily life and local political affairs. Upon independence, approximately one million Europeans, including 140,000 Jews, left Algeria. Most of those departing had French citizenship and did not identify with the Arab culture. In the early 1980s, the total foreign population was estimated at roughly 117,000. Of this number, about 75,000 were Europeans, including about 45,000 French. Many foreigners worked as technicians and teachers. Algeria and France continued many beneficial economic and preferential relationships.
After independence, the resultant one-party, secular government organized public-sector enterprises into state corporations in an economy described as Algerian socialism. But fundamental Islamists who wanted to redefine Algerian identity clashed with the existing political system. The push to become more Arabic was seen as a means of national unity and was used by the national government as a tool to ensure national sovereignty. After gaining independence, Algerian street signs and shop signs were changed to Arabic, despite the fact that 60 percent of the population at that time could not read Arabic. Fundamentalists wanted Algeria to totally eliminate the legacy from its colonial past, but Arabization was, and is, a controversial issue. In 1961 Algeria joined with other Arab nations to establish the Organization of Petroleum exporting Countries (OPEC) to take control of the power of the international oil market. Laws in the 1990s required the Arabization of secondary school and higher education, and made Arabic the only legal language in government and politics.
The pressure to Arabize was resisted by Berber population groups, such as the Kabyles, the Chaouia, the Tuareg, and the Mzabt. The Berbers, who constitute about one-fifth of the Algerian population, had resisted foreign influences since ancient times. They fought against the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Ottoman Turks, and the French after their 1830 occupation of Algeria. In the fighting between 1954 and 1962 against France, Berber men from the Kabylie region participated in larger numbers than their share of the population warranted. Since independence, the Berbers have maintained a strong ethnic consciousness and a determination to preserve their distinctive cultural identity and language.
A new constitution in 1989 dropped the word socialists from the official description of the country and guaranteed freedom of expression, association and meeting, but withdrew the guarantee of women's rights granted in the 1976 constitution. This same year saw the formation of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), an umbrella organization for fundamentalist subgroups that sought to create a single Islamic state in which Islamic law is strictly applied. The FIS was banned by the government in 1992. In April of 1999, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, backed by Algeria's powerful military, won a presidential election in which all six other candidates withdrew to protest fraud. Bouteflika, 63, a former foreign minister, took 73.8 percent of the vote to become Algeria's first civilian president in more than three decades. There is an elected parliament, but the main opposition party, the Islamic Salvation Front, is still banned.

THE FIRST ALGERIANS IN AMERICA

From 1821 until 1830, only 16 immigrants from all of Africa arrived in the United States. From 1841 until 1850, 55 more arrived. In immigration records until 1899 and in census records until 1920, all Arabs were recorded together in a category known as "Turkey in Asia." Until the 1960s, North African Arabs were counted as "other African." Mass migrations of Muslims to the United States did not happen because Muslims feared that they would not be permitted to maintain their traditions. Census records suggest that only a few hundred Muslim men migrated between 1900 and 1914.

SIGNIFICANT IMMIGRATION WAVES

More than 1 million Arabs live in the United States. According to the 1990 U.S. Census, there were approximately 3,215 people of Algerian ancestry living in the United States. Of this group, 2,537 cited Algerian ancestry as their primary ancestry, and 678 people cited Algerian as second ancestry.
Algeria was introduced as an immigrant record category in 1975, and 72 Algerians immigrated that year. Immigrant numbers increased gradually so that by 1984 there were 197 immigrants. Fourteen were relatives of U.S. citizens, and 31 were admitted on the basis of occupational preference. In 1998, 1,378 Algerians were winners of the DV-99 diversity lottery. The diversity lottery is conducted under the terms of Section 203(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.
The U.S. Census is not allowed to categorize by religion so the number of Islamic followers can not be counted. However, the census is permitted to list Arab ancestry. In many cases, Algerian immigrants are listed as "Other Arabs" when statistics are cited. Of the "other Arabs" category in the 1990 U.S. Census, 45 percent were married, 40 percent were female, and 60 percent were male.

SETTLEMENT PATTERNS

Algerian Americans have settled in urban areas such as New York City, Miami, Washington, and Los Angeles. The 1990 U.S. Census lists New York City as the port of entry for 2,038 Algerians, followed by Washington with 357 Algerians, and Los Angeles as entry for 309 Algerians. Of the 48 Algerians who became American citizens in 1984, 12 settled in California, eight in Florida, four in New York, three in Texas, and 24 in other places. Many Algerian Americans came seeking a better education or to flee instability and religious persecution. Employment opportunities for professionals such as scientists, physicians, and academics result in a geographically wide settlement pattern of immigrants, often in communities without other Algerian Americans.
Still, Algerian Americans have created communities in university cities and urban areas such as Dallas, Austin and Houston, Texas, and Boston, Massachusetts, and North California. For example, in the late 1990s, there were an estimated 12,500 African immigrants from many different countries living in the Dallas area. The Algerian Americans often form association such as the Algerian American Association of Houston, a local community sponsoring events, providing an environment to preserve and promote the Algerian heritage within the American fabric. Many of these organizations aim at strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation between the United States and Algeria.

Acculturation and Assimilation

Many Algerian Americans are highly-educated Berbers with professional occupations. Most Algerian American women abandon the hidjab, the head scarf veil worn with a loose gown as a symbol of modest Islamic dress, when they arrive. Generally, they have fewer children, cook fewer meals, and gradually adapt to American social customs. There is no segregation of sexes at social gathering in homes and churches except among the most traditional Muslims. Algerian Americans sometimes have as much difficulty gaining acceptance among American-born African Americans as they do among whites. Algerian Americans who hold to Muslim beliefs purposely resist many aspects of assimilation as an expression of their religious beliefs. However, their children learn English and adapt to the new culture so that by the second and third generations, Algerian Americans are well assimilated and better educated than their parents. A study by Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi of Muslim immigrant communities in the West found that second generation Muslims compete for places at universities with ambitions of becoming doctors and engineers. The younger generation plans to own homes and cars. Between 70 and 80 percent of western Muslims do not feel bad about drinking, dancing, and dating. Most western couples select their own marriage partners, though most Muslim marriages are arranged in Algeria.

TRADITIONS, CUSTOMS, AND BELIEFS

Algerian Americans continue the cultural traditions of Muslims. Umma, the Arabic word for "community," makes no distinction between a citizen of a particular country and the worldwide Muslim community. Thus, the universal Arab society may move from country to country without losing their distinct culture. Muslims pray at a mosque on Friday, and in this way an American city's Arab community comes together for the sharing of culture and identity. Once in a lifetime a devout Muslim makes the pilgrimage to Mecca, called the Hajj. Most Algerian Americans observe Ramadan, a month of fasting.

PROVERBS

Algerian culture is rich in proverbs. Examples include: "If you want the object to be solid, mold it out of your own Clay." "None but a mule denies his origin." "The friend is known in a time of difficulty." "An intelligent enemy is better than an ignorant friend." "The iron is struck while it is hot." "Barber learn on the head of orphans." "He who has been bitten by a snake is afraid of a palmetto cord." "One day is in favor of you and the next is against you." "God brings to all wheat its measure" meaning it is natural to marry a person of one's own class or position. "Ask the experienced one, don't ask the doctor" is the answer a woman gives when she is reproved for speaking ill of another woman. "Eye does not see, heart does not suffer" means to deliberately ignore a family member whose conduct is not good. "The forest is only burnt by its own wood" is the complaint of a parent whose child causes him trouble. "The son of a mouse will only turn out to be a digger" means that children become like their parents. "If your friend is honey, don't eat it all" means that you should not demand too much from your friend. "He who mixes with the grocer smells his perfume" means you should be in the company of people from whom you may learn useful things.

CUISINE

Algerian cuisine has a distinctive flavor, due to its diverse cultural heritage. Algerian Americans enjoy many tasty vegetable soups such as Chorba, a lamb, tomato, and coriander soup served with slices of lemon. A popular Algerian salad is made with sweet red peppers, tomatoes, sliced cucumber, onion, anchovy, boiled eggs, and basil or cilantro seasoned with olive oil and vinegar.
Other favorites include entree variations of couscous, made of Baobab leaves, millet flour and meat. One variety of Algerian couscous is made with onion, zucchini yellow squash, red potatoes, green pepper, garbanzo beans, vegetable stock, tomato paste, whole cloves, cayenne, and turmeric. Favorite meat dishes include Tagine, made with chicken or lamb and flavored with olives or onions, okra or prunes, and the lamb dish L'Ham El HLou which is made with cinnamon, prunes and raisins. Algerian deserts are light and delicate. In keeping with the foods abundant in North Africa, many dishes feature honey and dates, but others, like crepes, reflect the French influence that helped shape Algeria.

TRADITIONAL COSTUMES

Traditional Algerian costume, also worn with minor variations by Berbers, has been replaced for the most part by European dress, except in rural areas. Traditionally, a man wore a loose cotton shirt, usually covered by another reaching to the knees, and an outer garment of white cotton or wool draped so that the right arm remained free below the elbow. On the head was a red fez with a piece of cloth wound around it as a turban. Shepherds wore a muslin turban, loose baggy pants, and a leather girdle around a cloak. The turban was wound so that a loop of material hanging below the chin could be pulled up to cover the face. Women of nomadic tribes did not cover their faces and they wore a shirt and pants less bulky than men's trousers, under one or more belted dresses of printed cotton. Modest Islamic dress for a women was the hidjab, the head scarf worn with a loose gown that allowed nothing but the hands and face to be seen.
Berber men in Kabylia wore a burnous, a full-length cloak worn with a hood, woven out of very fine white or brown wool. The fota, a piece of cloth usually red, yellow and black, was worn at the hips by Kabyle women. Kabyle women wore brightly colored loose dresses with a woolen belt and head scarves. Taureg men, Algerians living in the south, wore a distinctive blue litham, a veil wound around the head to form a hood that covered the mouth and nose, and made a turban behind the head.

DANCES AND SONGS

Chaabi is a very popular brand of traditional Algerian folk music, characteristic of the region of Algiers. Raï (pronounced ra'yy) is a music style mixing modern, western rhythms and synthesizers and electronic magnification technology with a traditional music line. It originated in northwestern Algeria in the 1970s and has become popular throughout the world, spread through locally produced cassettes. The most prominent performers live in France. Raï is an Arabic word meaning "opinion." Raï has provoked the Algerian government, which banned it from being played on the radio until 1985, and militant fundamentalists, who have been responsible for the death of raï singer Cheb Hasni. Another musician, Cheb Khaled, known as the king of raï, left Algeria and lives in Paris.

HOLIDAYS

Algerian Americans follow the American custom of observing New Year's Day in January. The most important national Algerian holiday celebrated is the anniversary of the revolution on November 1, 1954. Additional Algerian holidays still observed include Labour Day on May 1, Commemoration Day on June 19, and Algerian Independence Day on July 5. Algerians also observe Ramadan, the Islam month of fasting usually in January and Eid Al-Fitr, the Islamic feast that signifies the end of Ramadan, usually in February. Eid Al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, is celebrated on the last day of the haj, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah required of all Muslims at least once in their lifetime in April. Algerians also celebrate Hijriyya, the calendar New Year, usually May and Mawlid An-Nabi (Prophet Mohammed's birthday) on July 29.

HEALTH ISSUES

Many Algerians suffer from tuberculosis, considered their most serious health problem. Second is trachoma, a fly-borne eye infection, which was directly or indirectly responsible for most cases of blindness. Waterborne diseases such as typhoid fever, cholera, dysentery, and hepatitis among all age-groups have also been a problem. These diseases are related to nutritional deficiencies, crowded living conditions, a general shortage of water, and insufficient knowledge of personal sanitation and modern health practices. Only a small part of the Algerian population has been entirely free from trachoma. In contrast, there are no known medical conditions specific to or more frequent among Algerian Americans.

Language

Ethnic communities in Algeria were distinguished primarily by language, where 17 different languages were spoken. The original language of Algeria is Tamazight (Berber). Arabic was a result of the Islamic conquest. French was imposed by colonization, which in Algeria began earlier and ended later than in the other nations of the Maghreb, the term applied to the western part of Arab North Africa. Arabic encroached gradually, spreading through the areas most accessible to migrants and conquerors, but Berber remained the mother tongue in many rural areas. In the late 1990s, 14 percent of Algerians spoke Berber languages.
Arabic, the language of the majority and the official language of the country, is a Semitic tongue related to Hebrew, Aramaic, and Amharic. The dominant language throughout North Africa and the Middle East, Arabic was introduced in the seventh and eighth centuries AD to the coastal regions by the Arab conquerors. Written Arabic is psychologically and sociologically important as the vehicle of Islam and Arab culture and as the link with other Arab countries. Two forms are used, the classical Arabic of the Koran and Algerian dialectical Arabic. Classical Arabic is the essential base of written Arabic and formal speech throughout the Arab world. The religious, scientific, historical, and literary heritage of Arabic people is transmitted in classical Arabic. Arabic scholars or individuals with a good classical education from any country with Arab heritage can converse with one another.
As in other Semitic scripts, in classical Arabic only the consonants are written. Vowel signs and other diacritical marks to aid in pronunciation are used occasionally in printed texts. The script is cursive, often used as decoration. Berber and Arabic have mixed so that many words are swapped. In some Arabic-speaking areas, the words for various flora and fauna are still in Berber, and Berber place-names are numerous throughout the country, some of them borrowed. Examples of Berber place-names are Illizi, Skikda, Tamanrasset, Tipasa, and Tizi Ouzou.
Berber is primarily a spoken language. There is an ancient Berber script called tifinagh that survives among the Tuareg of the Algerian Sahara, where the characters are used more for special purposes than for communication. Several Berber dialect groups are recognized in modern Algeria, but only Kabyle and Chaouia are spoken by any considerable number. The Chaouia dialect, which is distinguishable from but related to Kabyle, bears the mark and influence of Arabic. Separate dialects, however, are spoken by the Tuareg and by the Mzab.

Family and Community Dynamics

Before the War of Independence, the basic Algerian family unit was the extended family, and it consisted of grandparents, their married sons and families, unmarried sons, daughters (if unmarried, divorced or widowed with their children), and occasionally other related adults. The patriarchal structure of the family meant the senior male member made all major decisions affecting family welfare, divided land and work assignments, and represented the family in dealings with outsiders. Within the home, each married couple usually had their own rooms opening onto the family courtyard, and they prepared meals separately. Women spent their lives under male authority, either their father or husband, and devoted themselves entirely to the activities of the home. Children were raised by all members of the group, who passed on to them the concept and value of family solidarity.
In Algeria, women average 3.4 children per family. Because a woman gained status in her husband's home when she produced sons, mothers loved and favored their boys, often nursing them longer than they nursed girls. The relation between a mother and her son remained warm and intimate, whereas the father was a more distant figure. Families expressed solidarity by adhering to a code of honor that obligated members to provide aid to relatives in need and, if moving to a city to find work, to seek out and stay with family members. Among Berber groups, the honor and wealth of the lineage were so important that blood revenge was justified in their defense.
In the early 1990s, Algeria continued to have one of the most conservative legal codes concerning marriage in the Middle East, strictly observing Islamic marriage requirements. The legal age for marriage is twenty-one for men, eighteen for women. Upon marriage the bride usually goes to the household, village, or neighborhood of the bridegroom's family, where she lives under the authority of her mother-in-law. Divorce and polygamy were permitted in the classical Muslim law of marriage. Today, divorce is more frequent than polygamy.
Algerian American families tend to be smaller and better educated. They prefer to live in separate quarters, have fewer children, and run their lives independently. Familial ties of loyalty and respect have loosened, and family relationships have been rearranged with respect to living space and decision making.
Marriage is traditionally a family rather than a personal affair and it is intended to strengthen existing families. An Islamic marriage is a civil contract rather than a sacrament, and consequently, representatives of the bride's interests negotiate a marriage agreement with representatives of the bridegroom. Although the future spouses must, by law, consent to the match, they usually take no part in the arrangements. The contract establishes the terms of the union and outlines appropriate recourse if they are broken.

EDUCATION

For Algerian Americans, education in the United States is an eye-opening experience because subject matter, especially history, is not taught from a pro-Islam perspective. In U.S. schools, religion is separated from course instruction by law, whereas Algerian schools are exactly opposite. When Algeria became independent in 1962, the government inherited an education system focused on European content and conducted in a foreign language by foreign teachers. By the 1990s, teachers were more than 90 percent Algerian at all levels. Algerians redesigned the system to make it more suited to the needs of a developing nation. In the mid-1970s, the primary and middle education levels were reorganized into a nine-year system of compulsory basic education. The reforms of the mid-1970s included abolishing all private education. Since then, on the secondary level, pupils followed one of three tracks—general, technical, or vocational—and then sat for the baccalaureate examination before proceeding to one of the universities, state technical institutes, or vocational training centers, or directly to employment. There are ten universities in Algeria, accommodating over 160,000 students. Aside from the University of Algiers, there are universities and technical colleges in Oran, Constantine, Annaba, Batna, Tizi Ouzou and Tlemcen.
Reorganization was completed in 1989, although in practice the basic system remained divided between the elementary level, with 5.8 million students in grades one to nine, and the high school level, with 839,000 students. Although education has been compulsory for all children aged between 6 and 15 years of age since 1976, by 1989 nearly 40 percent of the entire population over 15 years of age still had no formal education. Despite government support for the technical training programs meant to produce middle- and higher-level technicians for the industrial sector, a critical shortage remained of workers in fields requiring technical skills.
Algerian society in the early 1990s did not encourage women to assume roles outside the home, and female enrollments remained slightly lower than might have been expected from the percentage of girls in the age-group. Many Algerian students also study abroad. Most go to France or other West European countries, various countries of Eastern Europe, and the United States.

THE ROLE OF WOMEN

In Algeria women are traditionally regarded as weaker than men in mind, body, and spirit. The honor of the family depends largely on the conduct of its women. Consequently, women are expected to be decorous, modest, and discreet. The slightest implication of impropriety, especially if publicly acknowledged, can damage the family's honor. Female virginity before marriage and fidelity afterward are considered essential to the maintenance of family honor. If they discover a transgression, men are traditionally bound to punish the offending woman. Girls are brought up to believe that they are inferior to men and must cater to them and boys are taught to believe that they are entitled to that care.
In the traditional system, there was considerable variation in the treatment of women. In Arab tribes, women could inherit property, but in Berber tribes they could not. In Berber society, Kabyle women seem to have been the most restricted. A husband could not only divorce his wife by repudiation, but he could also forbid her remarriage. In contrast, Chaouia women could choose their own husbands.
The Algerian women's movement has made few gains since independence, and women in Algeria have fewer rights compared with women in neighboring countries of Tunisia and Morocco. Once the War of Independence was over, women who played a significant part in the war were expected to return to the home and their traditional roles by both the government and larger society. Despite this emphasis on women's customary roles, the government created the National Union of Algerian Women (Union Nationale des Femmes Algériennes—UNFA) in 1962, as part of its program to mobilize various sectors of society in support of the socialism. About 6,000 women participated in the first march to celebrate International Women's Day. But the union failed to gain the support of feminists, and it did not attract membership among rural workers who were probably the most vulnerable to patriarchal traditions.
Another major gain was the Khemisti Law. Drafted by Fatima Khemisti, wife of a former foreign minister, the resolution raised the minimum age of marriage. Whereas girls were still expected to marry earlier than boys, the minimum age was raised to 16 years for girls and 18 years for boys. This change greatly facilitated women's pursuit of further education, although it fell short of the 19 year minimum specified in the original proposal. In 1964 the creation of Al Qiyam (values), a mass organization that promoted traditional Islamic values, diminished women's rights. The resurgence of the Islamic tradition was a backlash against the former French efforts to "liberate" Algerian women by pushing for better education and eliminating the veil.
Women's access to higher education has improved, even though rights to employment, political power, and autonomy are limited. Typically, women return to the home after schooling. Overall enrollment at all levels of schooling, from primary education through university or technical training, has risen sharply, and women represent more than 40 percent of students.
The National People's Assembly (APN) provided one of the few public forums available to women. But, in 1965 Boumediene suspended the APN. No female members were elected to the APN under Ben Bella, but women were allowed to propose resolutions before the assembly. In the 1950s and 1960s, no women sat on any of the key decisionmaking bodies, but nine women were elected to the APN when it was reinstated in 1976. However, women at local and regional levels did participate. By the late 1980s, the number of women in provincial and local assemblies had risen to almost 300.
The 1976 National Charter recognized women's right to education and referred to their role in the social, cultural, and economic facets of Algerian life. But in the early 1990s, the number of women employed outside the home remained well below that of Tunisia and Morocco. In 1981 a new family code backed by conservative Islamists curtailed provisions for divorce initiated by women and limited the restrictions on polygyny, but increased the minimum marriage age for both women and men to 18 and 21 years, respectively.
New women's groups emerged in the early 1980s, including the Committee for the Legal Equality of Men and Women and the Algerian Association for the Emancipation of Women. In 1984 the first woman cabinet minister was appointed. Since then, the government has promised the creation of several hundred thousand new jobs for women, although a difficult economic crisis made achievement of this goal unlikely. In the mid-1950s, about 7,000 women were registered as wage earners. By 1977, a total of 138,234 women, or 6 percent of the active work force, were engaged in full-time employment. Corresponding figures for the mid-1980s were about 250,000, or 7 percent of the labor force. Many women were employed in the state sector as teachers, nurses, physicians, and technicians. Although by 1989 the number of women in the work force had increased to 316,626, women still constituted only a little over 7 percent of the total work force. When the APN was dissolved in January 1992, few female deputies sat in it, and no women, in any capacity, were affiliated with the body that ruled Algeria in 1993. The resurgence of traditional Islamic groups threatened to further restrict the women's movement.
Feminist leader Khalida Messaoudi has written of the terrible reality of life in Algeria. Women have been betrayed and stripped of their rights as people by the government under the Family Code and then enslaved, terrorized, and murdered by the enemies of that same government. The extent of fundamentalist control over the roles of women is seen in the nation's response to world-class track champion Hassiba Boulmerka. After she won the 1,500-meter championship in 1991, fundamentalists in Algeria issued a kofr , a public disavowal because she bared her legs in the race. When she won Olympic gold in Barcelona, the majority of Algerians congratulated her, but she remains a target of terrorism by fundamentalists. Hassiba Boulmerka makes public appearances to encourage young Algerian women to follow her example.

WEDDINGS

Only after a couple is engaged may they visit each other's homes and date. The wedding party and consummation occur later. The guests at the traditional wedding party expect to remain until the bride and groom retire to a room nearby and consummate the marriage. Then the bride's undergarments or bedclothes stained with hymenal blood are publicly displayed. Many couples opt to undertake only the legal engagement phase of the wedding ceremony, and forego the traditional family celebration.

FUNERALS

Muslim life is noted for the great respect shown to the dead. Burial takes place as quickly as possible, often within hours of death. The deceased is washed, wrapped in a shroud, and carried to a cemetery. A coffin may or may not be used. The body is placed in the grave with the face oriented toward Mecca. Either at the deathbed or at the grave, the shahada, the witness to God's oneness, is whispered in the ear of the deceased. A memorial service is held 40 days after the death, and friends and family gather to mourn. Cemeteries often include other buildings such as hostels, libraries, hospitals and kitchens for feeding the poor. Muslims hold festivals, gather for meetings, and even picnic in the great cemeteries of the cities.

INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER ETHNIC GROUPS

Berbers represent one-fifth of the Algerian population and have worked to maintain a strong ethnic consciousness and preserve their cultural identity. The encroaching Islamic movement has resulted in conflicts. But generally Algerian Americans, even those of Berber descent, have no bitter rivalries with other ethnic groups.

Religion

Islam is the state religion, and 99 percent of Algerians are Sunni Muslim, the broader, more tolerant form of Islam. Generally, Algerian Americans are less strict Muslims. Some do not belong to any Islamic Center or mosque. A study of Muslim communities in the West showed the gradual loss of specifically Islamic values with each succeeding generation. Because there are around one million Muslims living in the United States, there are mosques in many communities. Immigrants can join the community of Arabs by attending Friday prayers. The rise of the Muslim ethnic identity in the 1960s in the United States provided an identity with the American public. But, there is a continuing bias against some Arabs in the United States, often directed at particular countries such as Iran, Iraq, and Libya.
A key belief of Muslims is the concept of balance and moderation, signified by the religious concept of sirat al-muataquin , or keeping to the straight path of the Koran. Islam forbids eating pork, drinking alcohol, gambling, or lending money with excessive interest. Hisba, to promote what is right and prevent what is wrong, is the primary duty of every Muslim. A person converts to Islam at a local mosque by making a declaration of faith, followed by efforts to learn about and cultivate other aspects of Muslim life given by the Koran, the written message from God. This call to Islam, called dawah , comes through evangelical, enthusiastic converts who challenge others to accept Muslim beliefs.

Employment and Economic Traditions

Of the 197 Algerian immigrants in 1984, 116 were professionals and 81 had no occupation. Of this same group, 133 were spouses of Algerian Americans. Many Algerian Americans are employed as physicians, academics, and engineers. Overall, they have more education than the average Algerian.
In the Algerian labor force of 7.8 million, percentages by occupation are: government 29.5 percent, agriculture 22 percent, construction and public works 16.2 percent, industry 13.6 percent, commerce and services 13.5 percent, transportation and communication 5.2 percent. The unemployment rate in 1997 was 28 percent. Algeria's rapidly growing labor force of about 5.5 million unskilled agricultural laborers and semiskilled workers in the early 1990s accurately reflected the high rate of population growth. More than 50 percent of the labor force was between 15 and 34 years old. Almost 40 percent of the labor force either had no formal education or had not finished primary school and 20 percent of the labor force had completed secondary school or beyond. Women officially constituted only about seven percent of the labor force, but that figure did not take into account women working in agriculture. Unskilled laborers constituted 39 percent of the total active work force, but nonprofessional skilled workers, such as carpenters, electricians, and plumbers, were in short supply because most tended to migrate. Algerian workers lacked the right to form multiple autonomous labor unions until the Law on Trade Union Activity was passed by the National Assembly in June of 1990.
Algerian American workers receive higher salaries and have more opportunities for advancement. In the United States, especially for women, the marketplace is more receptive to entrepreneurs. Back home in Algeria the entrepreneurial sector of society began to emerge as late as 1993. For most of Algeria's political history, the socialist orientation of the state precluded the development of a class of small business owners and resulted in strong public anti-capitalist sentiment. Economic liberalization under Benjedid transformed many state-owned enterprises into private entities and fostered the growth of an active and cohesive group of professional associations of small business owners, or patronat. The patronat has strongly supported government reforms, and has persisted in its lobbying efforts. The patronat consists of well over 10,000 members and is growing. Some of its member associations include the Algerian Confederation of Employers, the General Confederation of Algerian Economic Operators, and the General Union of Algerian Merchants and Artisans.

Politics and Government

A foreign policy lobbying organization of the Arab-American community, called the National Association of Arab-Americans, was founded in 1972 to the formulate and implement a nonpartisan U.S. policy agenda in the Middle East and Arab nations. The formation of the American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee (ADC) in 1980 gave Algerian Americans an opportunity for political activity at a national level. The ADC is a non-sectarian, nonpartisan civil rights organization committed to defending the rights of people of Arab descent and promoting their rich cultural heritage. The ADC, which is the largest Arab-American grassroots organization in the United States, was founded by former Senator James Abourezk and has chapters nationwide. The ADC is at the forefront combating defamation and negative stereotyping of Arab Americans in the media and wherever else it is practiced. In doing so, it acts as an organized framework through which Arab Americans can channel their efforts toward unified, collective and effective advocacy. It also promotes a more balanced U.S. Middle East policy and serves as a reliable source for the news media and educators. By promoting cultural events and participating in community activities, the ADC has made great strides in correcting anti-Arab stereotypes and humanizing the image of the Arab people. In all of these efforts, the ADC coordinates closely with other civil rights and human rights organizations on issues of common concern.

RELATIONS WITH ALGERIA

The United States and Algeria have endured a rocky relationship, starting at the beginning of U.S. history. European maritime powers paid the tribute demanded by the rulers of the privateering states of North Africa (Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Morocco) to prevent attacks on their shipping by corsairs. No longer covered by British tribute payments after the American Revolution, U.S. merchant ships were seized and sailors enslaved. In 1794 the U.S. Congress appropriated funds for the construction of warships to deal with the privateering threat, but three years later it concluded a treaty with the ruler of Algiers, guaranteeing payment of tribute amounting to $10 million over a 12 year period. Payments in ransom and tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of U.S. government annual revenues in 1800. In March of 1815, the U.S. Congress authorized naval action against the Barbary States and the then-independent Muslim states of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. Commodore Stephen Decatur threatened Algiers with his guns and concluded a favorable treaty that the ruler repudiated shortly after.
The United States and Algeria continued to have competing foreign policy objectives. Algeria's commitment to strict socialism and the Islamists' commitment to a global revolution against Western capitalism and imperialism antagonized relations with the United States. The United States maintained good relations with France instead of Algeria following the War of Independence. Algeria broke diplomatic relations with the United States in 1967, following the June 1967 war with Israel, and U.S. relations remained hostile throughout the 1970s. A number of incidents aggravated the tenuous relationship between the two countries. These included the American intervention in Vietnam and other developing countries, Algerian sponsorship of guerrilla and radical revolutionary groups, American sympathies for Morocco in the Western Sahara, and continued support for Israel by the United States. Algeria's policy of allowing aid and landing clearance at Algerian airports for hijackers angered the United States.
In the 1980s, increased U.S. demands for energy and a growing Algerian need for capital and technical assistance resulted in increased interaction with the United States. In 1980 the United States imported more than $2.8 billion worth of oil from Algeria and was Algeria's largest export market. Algeria's role as intermediary in the release of the 52 U.S. hostages from Iran in January 1981 and its retreat from a militant role in the developing world also encouraged better relations with the United States. In 1990 Algeria received $25.8 million in financial assistance and bought $1.0 billion in imports from the United States, indicating that the United States had become an important international partner. On January 13, 1992, following the military coup that upset Algeria's burgeoning democratic system, the United States issued a formal but low-key statement condemning the military takeover. The next day Department of State spokesmen retracted the statement, calling for a peaceful resolution, but offering no condemnation of the coup. Since then, the United States has accepted a military dictatorship in Algeria. The military government has opened the country to foreign trade.

Individual and Group Contributions

Thelma Schoonmaker (1940– ) is a filmmaker, born in Algiers, who edited Taxi Driver (1976) and The Age of Innocence (1993).

Media

PRINT

The Amazigh Voice.
A newsletter published quarterly since 1992, it informs members and other interested persons about Amazigh (Berber) language and culture and acts as a medium for the exchange of ideas and information. It is distributed worldwide and is also available on the world wide web.
Address: The Newsletter of the Amazigh Cultural Association in America, P. O. Box 1763, Bloomington, Illinois 61702.


The News Circle/Arab-American Magazine.
The oldest independent Arab-American magazine in the United States. Founded in Los Angeles in 1972.
Address: P.O. Box 3684, Glendale, California 91221-0684.
Fax: (818) 246-1936.

TELEVISION

ARABESCO-TV.
Created by News Circle Publishing, Arabesco is a TV program aimed at disseminating Arab culture and tradition to America. It was founded in Los Angeles in 1995. It is a series of 29-minute episodes narrated in English and viewed mainly on Cable TV.
Address: P.O. Box 3684, Glendale, California 91221-0684.
Fax: (818) 246-1936.

Organizations and Associations

Algerian-American Association of New England (AAANE).
This is a relief organization that facilitates the adaptation of Algerian-Americans to the American community, while maintaining and fostering their unique heritage. It hosts an Annual Algerian-American Business Conference. It utilizes educational programs and other appropriate means to foster greater awareness, understanding, and appreciation of the Algerian cultural and ethnic heritage.
Address: P.O. Box 380165, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238-0165.
Telephone: 617-284-9349.
E-mail: aaane@hotmail.com.


Algerian American Association of Northern California.
A non-profit organization established in 1992 to develop and strengthen ties between Algerian-Americans and their friends in Northern California in particular, and the nation in general. It serves to create and nurture a positive sense of cultural identity among Algerian-Americans and to preserve Algerian culture.
Address: P.O. Box 2213, Cupertino, California 95015.


Algerian American National Association.
This was the first cultural non-profit corporation with the goals of preserving the Algerian heritage. It serves as a platform of support for the new American citizens and promotes relations between the two countries with educational and cultural programs. It was established in 1987 as a non-sectarian association open to everyone.
Address: P. O. Box 19, Gracie Station, New York, New York 10028.
Telephone: (212) 309-3316.
Fax: (212) 348-8195.


Algerian Embassy.
Ambassador Ramtane Lamamra, Diplomatic representation in the United States
Address: 2118 Kalorama Road NW, Washington, DC 20008.
Telephone: (202) 265-2800.


Algerian Mission to the United Nations.
Address: 750 Third Ave., 14th Floor, New York, New York 10012.
Telephone: (212) 986-0595.


The Amazigh Cultural Association in America (ACAA), Inc.
This is a non-profit organization registered in the state of New Jersey. It is organized and operated exclusively for cultural, educational, and scientific purposes to contribute to saving, promoting, and enriching the Amazigh (Berber) language and culture.
Address: 442 Route 206 North, Suite 163, Bedminster, New Jersey 07921.
Telephone: (215) 592-7492.


American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee.
This is a civil rights organization committed to defending the rights of people of Arab descent and promoting their rich cultural heritage.
Address: 4201 Connecticut Ave, N.W, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20008.
Telephone: (202) 244-2990.


National Association of Arab-Americans (NAAA).
This is a premier foreign policy lobbying organization of the Arab-American community, which was founded in 1972. NAAA is dedicated to the formulation and implementation of an evenhanded and nonpartisan U.S. policy agenda in the Middle East.
Address: 1212 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 230, Washington, DC 20005.
Telephone: (202) 842-1840.


World Algerian Action Coalition, Inc.
This organization is dedicated to presenting a balanced and politically non-biased portrayal of the political, social, and economic conditions in Algeria.
Address: P.O. Box 34093, Washington, DC 20043.
Online: http://www.waac.org .

Museums and Research Centers

The Historical Text Archive, Mississippi State University.
This archive holds historical documents and maps.
Address: Mississippi State University, Starkville, Mississippi 39762.
Telephone: (662) 325-3060.


Middle East & Islamic Studies Collection, Cornell University Library.
This collection contains political documents, studies, maps, and other printed artifacts on Algerian culture and history.
Contact: Ali Houissa, Middle East & Islamic Studies Bibliographer .
Address: Collection Development Department, 504 Olin Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853.
Telephone: (607) 255-5752.
Online: http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast .

Sources for Additional Study

Entelis, John P., and Phillip C. Naylor. State And Society in Algeria. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1992.
Metz, Helen Chapin. Algeria: A Country Study. Washington, D.C.: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1984.
Messaoudi, Khalida. Translated by Anne C. Vila. Unbowed: An Algerian Woman Confronts Islamic Fundamentalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998.

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