Oldal 93 [93]
OCR
HUNGARIAN-ÁMERICAN IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES there are only local Hungarian radio stations*“*. However, with the prevalent use of the internet, more Hungarian-Americans have access to Hungarian language media. In spite of the gradually narrowing scope of Hungarian-American communal activities, there are still regular events relating more or less closely to Hungarian culture, such as the annual Hungarian balls in the Kennedy Center in Baltimore every year with the symphonic orchestra of Washington playing Strauss Waltzes, the “Radetzky” Marching song?*. The Los Angeles Hungarian-American community regularly organizes “Szechenyi” tea events to raise money for Hungarians, and they also chant Hungarian poems by Babits, Petőfi, and sing Strauss, Schubert songs regarded to be part of the shared cultural heritage of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy"". When celebrating, Hungarian-Americans like indulging in Hungarian culinary rarities such as Pick salami, Easter ham, beigli, and Tibi chocolate?””. It shows that the most time-resistant Hungarian ethnic core values are the mixture of residual culinary and dance folk traditions, the popular cultural elements ofthe common Austro-Hungarian heritage, as well as some literary traditions. These tendencies seem to reinforce Fej6s’s observation on the present American-Hungarian communities, which can be characterized by “the occasional, situational, and conscious affiliations to their symbolic ethnicity”. In one of the oldest Hungarian settlements, in New Brunswick, New Jersey, though, there is a vigorous intellectual Hungarian community. The Hungarian Institute of Rutgers University has been helping learners of Hungarian and researchers of Hungarian culture since 1991. The American-Hungarian Foundation moved here in 1959, and the Hungarian Heritage Center has been organizing exhibits, and other cultural activities ?*. Despite the prominent case of New Brunswick, it can be concluded that the traditional Hungarian-American ethnic — religious and secular — institutions have been declining in terms of their numbers and in terms of their significance in fostering Hungarian-American cultural traditions and the Hungarian language. According to Smolicz’s Core Values Theory””°, language maintenance efforts are more successful if language is regarded to be a fundamental component of a group’s culture. If Hungarian constitutes a core value in Hungarian culture, 244 Fenyvesi, Hungarian in the USA, 278 245 Amerikai Magyar Értesítő, 2 (1994), 17 246 Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, March (1999), 5 247 Amerikai Magyar Hírlap, March (1999), 6 248 Fejős, Diaszpóra, 21 249 https://www.ahfoundation.org/ 250 Jerzy Smolicz, Core values and cultural identity, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 4 (1981), 75-90 +9] +
