Latvian school - cultural preservation in exile

A defining part of Pēters' childhood was attending Latvian "Sunday" school every weekend during the regular school year. In his case, kindergarten through eight grades of elementary school held Saturdays as the church space in at the basement of the then Svenska Ev. Lutherska Bethlehem-Kyrkan at 490 Pacific Street, Brooklyn, New York was rented. While religious instruction was included — typically a 15 to 20 minute class, the true focus was a week's worth of regular school instruction crammed into a single day: history, geography, literature, grammar, even penmanship — everything one would normally study in school other than math and science.

Extracurricular activities included Latvian folk dance and song, music, and scouting.

Swedish Ev. Lut. Church, corner of Pacific Street and Third Avenue (from an old postcard)

Origins

As WWII was coming to a close and the Red Army reoccupied Latvia, more than 180,000 fled the returning Red terror, the vast majority winding up in Displaced Persons (DP) camps in Germany and Austria. As if to thumb their noses at their uncertain future, at their scant resources, and at the Bolsheviks occupying their homeland, Latvians immediately began to establish kindergartens and schools. Teachers resumed their professions, working from and reproducing whatever materials they were able to bring with them or had originally been printed in Germany and survived the war. In the absence of resources, courses were taught from memory. Instruction was conducted in Latvian in accordance with pre-war education practices.

By the spring of 1946, there were 122 active Latvian primary schools in Germany with 7,000 students, 67 gymnasiums↗ (highest form of secondary school) with 2,500 students, and 45 kindergartens with 1,700 children. These counts declined dramatically as the Latvian DP population resettled in the United States, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and other countries. By 1952, the number of Latvian refugees in Germany had contracted from 110,000 to 16,000, with some 40,000 emigrating to the USA, 9,000 to Canada.

Schooling in the DP camps had been focused on starting over, that is, practical schooling, including trade schools for adults. The circumstances of living in a new, foreign land changed that mission. Latvian schooling switched from general education to Latvian-oriented subjects. The new objective in exile was to introduce children to Latvian books and periodicals, Latvian song and dance, to form Latvian friendships and join Latvian society, in short, to raise children to be Latvians, all the while reminding them that language is culture. Latvian schools were seen as the last bastion against Russification of their Latvian homeland, already positioned as such in 1947 in the widely circulated "The state of Latvians in exile" and codified in the 1965 "Program Against Assimilation." Many exiled Latvians lived in the mistaken certainty they would someday be able to return home, amplifying the impetus to preserve language and culture for Latvia's rebirth.

Growing up Latvian in Brooklyn

The first Latvian school opened in exile was the one Peters attended, in Brooklyn, New York, opening its doors in 1947, only two years after the end of WWII. 1949 marked the opening the Latvian school in Hamilton, Canada. By the mid-1950's, more than 85 Latvian schools had been established and were active, in 1956: 67 in the USA, with 2,200 students. A decade later the number of schools had decreased but number of students slightly increased. A number of Latvians high schools were also established, focused on deepening and broadening language skills and preparing Latvian youth to raise the next generation of Latvians.

Empirically, from personal observation, those who embraced their heritage passed it on while those intent on becoming "American" lost it.

Pēters attended the "flagship" Brooklyn Latvian grammar school, but his "American" school hours conflicted with Latvian high school, held once a week during the school/work week — thus his Latvian education was ultimately cut short.