How did stereotyped Finnish drunks, Reds, knife wielders become clean Finns who paid their debts?

Abstract

The article examines indices of Finnishness in the production of second- and third-generation Finnish-American authors. My aim is to analyse some historical events from fi ctional points of view as they are depicted in the central works of chosen authors: namely, Lauri Anderson’s Heikki Heikkinen And Other Stories of Upper Peninsula Finns; Mary Caraker’s Growing Up Soggy and Elina, Mistress of Laukko; Joseph Damrell’s Gift; Lynn Laitala’s Down from Basswood; and Paula Robbins’s Below Rollstone Hill.