Proceedings of the Conference on Carpatho-Ruthenian Immigration

Description

Proceedings of the Conference on Carpatho-Ruthenian Immigration, 8 June 1974.

From the preface by Oscar Handlin:

The people who are the subjects of the papers … were hardly recognized by Americans in the period of arrival. Immigration officials whose categories were set by political boundaries could not take account of the Carpatho-Ruthenians – no such state appeared on the map of Europe. In the census these newcomers were lost among the much large count of speakers of Slavic languages. And the peasants who came to the mines and the mills were themselves more likely to think of their affiliations in terms of their native villages than in terms of any larger unit. To a very considerable extent, the Carpatho-Ruthenians discovered their identity after their arrival in the United States; and they did so through the process of learning in a wider world than that of their ancestral homes, what they shared with others, what was unique to themselves.

Hence the interest of this volume to anyone concerned with the development of American ethnic groups and with their place in the social history of the United States. These thoughtful discussions open up the difficult linguistic, religious, and cultural aspects of a complex problem and should prove a point of departure for further explorations of a subject rich in significance.

Please click here for the full table of contents.