I remember that at big holiday parties, my grandparents and their friends would always have Latvian-style rye bread - dense and sour, but not as dark as pumpernickel (also, no caraway). They would also use commercial pumpernickel for canapes. But at home on a daily basis, my grandparents ate lots of American sandwich breads, too.

I grew up in Grand Rapids, MI, which had a big enough Latvian community to field its own folk choir. I sang in it for a few years in high school (back in the 1980's) and went to one of the big international folk song festivals, in Toronto. I've only been to Latvia once, in 1991 right after they broke free from the Soviet Union, and I remember at that time that choirs and choir directors were covered in the local news almost like sports teams.