University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for 1986 Review of Struggle and Hope: The Hungarian-Canadian Experience By N. F. Dreisziger with M. L. Kovacs, Paul Body, and Bennett Kovrig Linda Dégh Indiana University - Bloomington Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Dégh, Linda, "Review of Struggle and Hope: The Hungarian-Canadian Experience By N. F. Dreisziger with M. L. Kovacs, Paul Body, and Bennett Kovrig" (1986). Great Plains Quarterly. 975. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/975 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. BOOK REVIEWS Struggle and Hope: The Hungarian-Canadian coming historic survey. The first stage of the Experience. By N. F. Dreisziger with M. L. immigrant process is represented by the estab­ Kovacs, Paul Body, and Bennett Kovrig. lishment of rural settlements in Saskatchewan Toronto, Ontario: McClelland and Stewart (1885-1914). Kovacs describes Hungarian emi­ Ltd., 1982. Photographs, maps, appendix, grant peasant ethnicization in terms of conflict notes, bibliography, index. viii + 245 pp. between continuity and change: institutional $18.95 cloth, $9.95 paper. maintenance of old values-church, school, family, life-cycle ritual-and adjustment by learning new skills and techniques. Chapters This book appears in the government spon­ four to seven present a thematically, structurally, sored series A History of Canada's Peoples, and stylistically balanced sequence, written by F. aiming at the general public's interest in the N. Dreisziger, who describes four subsequent ethnic dimension of Canadian society. "Most waves of emigrants from Hungary: those who Canadians belong to an ethnic group, since to came after World War I, during the Great do so is simply to 'have a sense of identity rooted Depression, the 1940s war years and after World in a common origin ... whether this common War II. Characterizing the diversity of the origin is real or imaginary' ... all have traditions emigrant groups according to their social origin, and values that they cherish and that now are educational level, political commitment, and part of the cultural riches that Canadians causes of emigration, Dreisziger shows the trends share." Despite the reference to such subjective of expansion, dispersal, and shift from rural to concepts as "identity," "tradition," and "values," urban areas, progressing gradually from assimila­ the authors of ethnic extraction were instructed tion to integration into Canadian society. to keep within the confines of immigration and Focusing on the life of Hungarian-Canadians ethnic history. They were to give accounts of the essentially in terms of the degree of their origin, educational and social stratification of participation in ethnic organizations, the conclu­ the immigrants, their settlement patterns, econ­ sion is rather pessimistic. "Hungarians are losing omy, labor and political relations, mobility and their ethnic identity faster than several other the ethnic institutions they create and sustain. groups," observes Dreisziger. "The spectre of The authors indeed followed these guidelines. It assimilation looms large on the horizon" and is only a question whether the chronological this valuable subculture will soon disappear if survey of historic facts will be sufficient to new arrivals do not reinforce its institutions. present the Hungarian-Canadian (or any other This devolutionary prognosis is confronted with ethnic group's) experience, as the title promises. an optimistic but commonplace note that would The book, written by four historians, consis­ fit almost any subculture in any multicultural ts of eight chapters. The first, by Bennett Kovrig, society: "Hungarian-Canadians have helped to is a general sketch of Hungarian history, fit for a diversify Canada's cultural, religious, and social lexicon but distracting from the main issues in life ... their main impact has probably been the the given context. The second, by Paul Body, enrichment of the quality of Canadian exis­ discusses subsequent waves of emigration from tence." Hungary, identifying the socially, economically, Is this a true picture of a century of and politically distinctive groups of arrivals: Hungarian-Canadian life and is there a danger those who came prior to 1914, between the wars, of complete absorption into the mainstream and after 1945, largely following the scheme of society? Migration and acculturation is an Lengyel, Fishman, and other earlier authors. M. universally ongoing process: there is no country L. Kovacs's third chapter introduces the forth- with an ethnically homogeneous population. 137 138 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SPRING 1986 Pressures to unify versus pressures to maintain Europeans with similar historic backgrounds. differences by subgroups seem characteristic of Likewise, the small number of Hungarians any national populations. One is tempted to ask: makes them more vulnerable to integration than if ethnic traditions survive stubbornly over the more numerous Italians, Ukrainians, Mexi­ millennia, can the North American generational cans, or Chinese. The intensity of ethnic life is cycle complete the annihilation of ethnic identi­ not predictable. It fluctuates as social conditions ty features in its relatively brief course? Had the require and what seems weak or latent may authors looked at Hungarians not as a homoge­ enter a new period of blossoming. In our times, neous national minority but as a body of North American ethnicity shows public and regionally, ethnically, subculturally distinct private forms in which participation is the choice groups, adhering to local identity designs of the of the individual. Symbolic ethnicity (as de­ Old Country; had the authors based their scribed by Herbert Gans) is a characteristic evaluation on the transformation from immi­ configuration to be approximated by folklorists, grant to ethnic state-from local Hungarians to oral historians, anthropologists, and sociologists. Hungarian-Canadians in diverse multicultural The authors of this book have assembled settings-in the course of generational change, historical data in a solid frame and prepared the their conclusions would have been different. ground for such a study. The class stratification and religious and political diversions in Hungarian society precon­ LINDA DEGH ditioned the lack of cohesion and even rift Folklore Institute among ethnic Hungarians but this is not Indiana University-Bloomington remarkable compared to other East-Central GH .