Division between small ethnic groups

I find it very interesting how isolated ethnic groups remained from each other in this time period. Usually when I think of race or ethnic relations in American society I think of the civil rights movement, or Ellis Island or the Chinese exclusion act. What I don’t think of is how the German farming community considers itself different that the Norwegian community 10 miles away. Although now that I think about it we did see that in My Antonia when they were trying to find a place to bury Mr. Shimerda, and also with the St. Olaf student Katie mentioned; the student who considered her groups of friends to be ethnically diverse because some are of non-Scandinavian, but still European, origins. Maybe it was inherently Norwegian at the time to consider what we would see today small differences between communities, as being large. After all many Norwegian communities were developed in isolation, with very limited worldly interaction, as a result of Norway’s geography. Still, in the context of believing European nationalities to be very distinctive, the divides between Norwegian/Lutherans and Asian and African cultures must have been perceived as cavernous. Perhaps I can explore this more in my essay. . .