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CHAPTER 5 BACKGROUND INFORMATION
the reasons for immigration, Hungarian immigrants can be characterized in
terms of their socio-economic status in the American society as well as by the
success of their integration efforts into American society.
The first wave of Hungarian immigrants worked mostly as semi- or un¬
skilled workers in close-knit immigrant communities close to big American
steel mills and mines, so they had limited access to upward social mobility.
Other socio-cultural and political factors such as a hostile US policy to immi¬
grants during World War I°”, their low qualifications, and their poor English
language competence also hampered their process of integration in the USA.
The following waves of Hungarian-American immigrants left Hungary for
political reasons and had more extensive opportunities for achieving a higher
socio-economic status in the US society. After the fall of the Liberal Revolution
in 1919, mostly highly intellectual liberals fled Hungary, who — primarily
thanks to their high qualifications — could be more successfully integrated in
the US society having more access to upward social mobility.
The following large wave of Hungarians were the DP’s after World War II,
mainly the supporters of the neo-conservative Hungarian regime, and as such,
they had intellectual and social capital reserves that they could rely on when
they came to the USA”". As a result of that, they were less interested in being
integrated into the US society, mainly for their committed loyalty toward
Hungary that they left behind.
The immigrants who came to the USA after the Revolution in 1956 were
welcomed by particularly great sympathy as ‘Freedom Fighters’ against the
Soviets’, and this favorable attitude on the part of the host society as well as
this group’s avid interest in becoming American eased their assimilation”.
As a result of these factors: the adverse political situation in Hungary and
the positive attitude of the host society, especially in the case of the ‘Freedom
Fighters’, and their high socio-cultural statuses in Hungary, these ‘later’
waves of Hungarian-American immigrants could more easily integrate into
American society, and they were more socio-economically mobile than their
‘earlier’ fellows.
Clyne and Fernandez™' claim that immigrant communities can be placed
along a bi-polar continuum — ranging from the two extreme points of
conforming and defiant communities — in terms of how successful are their
efforts aimed at being integrated into the host society. According to Arm¬
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27 Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 8
Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 11
Klara Falk-Bänö, Characteristics of language shift in two American Hungarian bilingual
communities, Papers and Studies in Contrastive Linguistics, 24 (1988), 165
Fishman, Hungarian Language Maintenance in the US, 14
Michael Clyne — Sue Fernandez, Period of residence as a factor in language maintenance:
Hungarian-English bilingualism in Australia as a case study, International Journal of Applied
Linguistics, 150 (2005), 11
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