National day participation among immigrants in the Netherlands: the role of familiarity with commemorating and celebrating

Abstract

This study explores to what extent varying levels of host national day participation among immigrants can be explained by previous participatory experiences related to their country of origin, in addition to socio-cultural factors related to the current country of residence. Utilising data from a large online immigrant panel, we concentrate on two prominent national days in the Netherlands: Remembrance Day and Liberation Day. On these days, Dutch society commemorates victims of the Second World War and celebrates freedom, respectively. Our results indicate that Dutch national day participation among immigrants is determined largely by previous familiarity with commemorating and celebrating through participation in holidays specific to immigrants’ country of origin. These findings highlight the need to place more emphasis on the role of previous participatory experiences when examining immigrants’ current patterns of participation in the host society.