Hungarian Immigrants To America

Hungarians in America America has always been the choice of land where most of the migrating families will settle into. Immigrants left everything they had and knew behind to come to this new land of opportunity. Whether the reasons were economical, religious or oppression from their respective government, they wanted to be part of the great new world that was being developed west of the pond. A new world where all immigrants were welcome with open arms, where freedom was the common goal and everyone wanted to succeed. Leaving their home lands was just one of the many hardships that immigrants had to deal with. European immigrants had to also deal with the assimilation process to the melting pot that America was becoming. For some European
The first large wave of Hungarian immigrants to America occurred in 1849-1850 when the group known as the "Forty-Niners" fled from retribution by Austrian authorities after the fall of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups by Thernstrom, Stephan, talks about how this first wave was mostly formed of well educated men which a large number of them ended up joining the Union armies during the Civil War. The second wave was mostly uneducated and poor Hungarian immigrants looking for a better life in the new world. As mention in The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History by Van Tassel, David D. “They came because land was scarce in their homeland and cheap labor was plentiful”. The Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America by Vecoli, Rudolph J. states “These immigrants came almost solely for economical reasons, and they represented the lowest and poorest segment of the population”. The third large wave happened during the 1956 refugee migration as stated by Van
Many of the Hungarians that came during the first wave already had the mindset of going back to their homelands with enough money to start a business. Such way of thinking embedded in their brains led them to not want to congregate with other ethnicities “The majorities were single men or men who had left their families behind, because they initially intended to return home with enough savings to purchase land. They lived in boarding houses, run by the few women who had immigrated with their husbands” (Van Tassel). This segregation also included the frown upon Catholic religion that Hungarians practice as suppose to the Anglo-Saxon America Protestant religion. Hungarians started their own Catholic churches to worship at like the “largest Hungarian Catholic church and parish in the United States, St. Elizabeth of Cleveland (founded in 1892)” (Vecoli). Following their religion made it very difficult not just for the first immigrants but also for their American born children as well “A significant Hungarian community developed, with churches, fraternal societies, and other ethnic groups. However, the children of Hungarian immigrants assimilated quickly and rejected the worlds of their parents. Still, they were viewed as outsiders by American society” (Papp). Hungarians, who didn’t know