The ethnic superlative, tested comparatively: no "second-largest" here — and the paired counts measure different cities doing different things

1968–2026 · Dyngus Day in Buffalo, in South Bend, and (not) in Granger

The claim form, and where it actually lives: The checklist's pattern is the ethnic superlative repeated until it hardens — "the second-largest Dyngus Day in America" is the regional form of it. Tested comparatively, the claim attaches nowhere in the record reached for this ground or its county seat. The superlative that does exist belongs to Buffalo, New York, which bills itself the Dyngus Day Capital of the World and supports the billing with a street parade: a police estimate of 75,000 in the organizers' own mailing, attendance "over 100,000" claimed by organizers for 2019, and a fiftieth-anniversary crowd likewise reported over 100,000. Those are Buffalo's numbers, at Buffalo's strength — organizer-carried, as festival numbers usually are.

South Bend's count, at its own strength — a different instrument: South Bend's Dyngus Day is real, old and famous, but it is a political institution rather than a parade: the West Side Democratic Club's day, the opening of the local campaign season in Polish South Bend. Its counted moments are hall crowds, not street crowds — Robert Kennedy's 1968 visit is the type specimen, with some 5,000 inside Stepan Center and over 1,000 more outside, 6,000 and more at the courthouse speech, and 1,500 and more inside the club itself. Set beside Buffalo's figures, those numbers do not make South Bend "second" at anything: a police parade estimate and a set of rally attendances measure different events in different cities with different instruments, and printing them as a ranking would be the paired-count error this checklist item exists to catch. No carrier reached — not the Tribune record, not the club tradition as published — claims a "second-largest" title for South Bend. The superlative is a story told about the region by people summarizing it, not a claim the region's own record makes.

And on this ground: Granger seats no Dyngus Day celebration at all, in any source reached. The ground's Polish fact is demographic — 2,096 residents of Polish ancestry in the ACS count, printed in the Population leg — and its parish feast is St. Pius X's, a parish celebration of a different kind, carried in the Arts and Culture leg at its own strength. Ancestry is not a festival, and a feast is not a Dyngus Day; the superlative test closes negative on this ground twice over — no celebration, and no claim — with the comparative counts above printed so the next teller can see what the numbers on either side of the state line actually measure.

Sources:

1. Buffalo Dyngus Day organizers' and press record — the "Dyngus Day Capital of the World" billing; the 75,000 police estimate carried in the organizers' mailing; the "over 100,000" attendance claims for 2019 and the fiftieth anniversary.
2. South Bend Tribune record and WCMU's account of Dyngus Day and the 1968 Kennedy visit — the West Side Democratic Club institution; Stepan Center (about 5,000 inside, 1,000-plus outside), the courthouse speech (6,000-plus), and the club (1,500-plus) figures.
3. Arts and Culture and Population legs of this build (banked) — the St. Pius parish feast at its own strength; Polish ancestry at 2,096 (ACS 2020–2024); no Dyngus celebration seated on this ground in the record swept.