The Canadian-American Review of Hungarian Studies - Vol. 4 ... - EPA

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confronting Hungarian-Canadians. The nativistic feelings of Englishand French Canadians, their suspicions toward certain immigrants, wasa fact which no Magyar immigrant to this country could escape. Worsestill, these antagonisms were often transmuted into outright discrimination.As has been mentioned, during the First World War immigrantsfrom Central and Eastern Europe were classified as "enemy aliens"andwere denied the right to vote in federal elections. In the 1920's Hungarianswere placed in the "non-preferred" category by immigrationauthorities. While some Hungarians were victims of official discrimination,others were plagued by sheer ignorance about ethnic groups. In1937, for example, an insurance company refused to provide firedamagecoverage to Hungarian farmers. Apparently, the officials of thefirm had confused Hungarians with Doukhobors whose incendiaryhabits were public knowledge. 6Discrimination by governments and private companies may havehurt the immigrant's pride and pocketbook, but it probably did nothave a very damaging effect on his psyche. For many newcomers, theexperience of being mistreated by bureaucrats and employers was notentirely new. Hungarians from the successor states had already beensubjected to similar if not worse treatment. Those directly from Hungarywere often also acquainted with discrimination. As impoverishedpeasants or landless labourers they had been at the bottom of theirformer country's social ladder. What most Hungarian immigrants hadnot tasted before, and what was a new and discouraging experience forthem in Canada, was what might be termed personal discrimination:rejection by co-workers, and neighbours, by people of their own socialrank and educational achievement. Such treatment, however infrequentit might have been, was a bitter pill to swallow for mostHungarian-Canadians.If discrimination was a discouraging experience for the adult immigrant,it was even worse for his children. Born in Canada, these"hyphenated Canadians" grew up assuming that they would be treatedas equals. Their disappointment was all the keener when they discoveredthat, no matter how emphatically they rejected their parents'values and habits, they were not accepted as full-fledged Canadians.The frustrations of a second-generation Hungarian yearning for acceptanceinto Canadian society are skillfully depicted in John Marlyn'snovel Under the Ribs of Death. The novel's hero, Sandor Hunyadi, hasone aim in life: to become "Alex Hunter," an English-Canadian businessman.His rejections no doubt resemble those that many Hungarian-Canadians had experienced in striving for social and economic betterment.
Sociologists have yet to explain satisfactorily the causes of discriminationtoward Hungarians and other Canadian immigrant ethnicgroups. 7 Undoubtedly, fears generated by the influx of masses ofimmigrants with strange mores and customs, the rivalry for materialadvancement, the passions generated by two world wars, have probablybeen the most important ones. But there were, it seems, other factors aswell. These were the beliefs, widely held in Canada during the first halfof this century, that some immigrant groups lacked culture and wereincapable of developing loyalty to Canada.The first of these beliefs, that central and eastern European immigrantswere uncultured, was held by Bourassa who maintained thatnewcomers to the Canadian West were the "scum of all nations." Theability of immigrant-dominated Western Canada to remain loyal toCanadian traditions and ideals was doubted by no less a person than thenoted teacher, writer, and humorist, Stephen Leacock. In his essay"Canada and the Immigration Problem," Leacock expressed the fearthat a Canadian West "of whose inhabitants vast masses stand in nohereditary relation to the history of Canada. . ." may lack the "restraininginfluence experienced by the existence of a common history. . ."tokeep it in Confederation. 8 The belief that immigrants often espousedradical ideologies was publicly endorsed in Section 98 of the CanadianCriminal Code, which provided for the deportation of newcomers suspectedof radical affiliations and activities.Canada's immigrants in general, and Canadian-Hungarians in particular,could do little to dispel the largely erroneous views of nativeCanadians about them. The masses of underprivileged and often poorlyeducated peasants that had flocked to the Canadian West from the1880's to the late 1920's were incapable of generating a cultural life thecalibre of which would have impressed the Canadian public. The fewintellectuals among New Canadians who managed to come to Canadain spite of the government's "farmers only" admission policy were preoccupiedwith eking out a meagre living and, when they had time towrite, they did so in their own language. Their works remained unknownto most Canadians.Immigrants also had difficulty disproving their alleged potentialdisloyalty to Canada. Public declarations of fidelity convinced very fewpeople. Not until the Second World War did Hungarian-Canadiansdemonstrate their "Canadian" patriotism by enlisting in the ArmedForces in large numbers. But even this failed to convince the moresuspicious. Accusations of radicalism were also difficult to refuteespecially since, during the Depression, a number of bitter and frus-
Page 1 and 2: Canadian-American Review of Hungari
Page 9 and 10: the best possible settlers who woul
Page 11: than a decade later they were follo
Page 15: fifteen minutes, and spent the rest
Page 18 and 19: from the "Canadian poetry" of Icela
Page 20 and 21: garian community of Western Canada,
Page 22 and 23: lowed translations from other, more
Page 24 and 25: which took place in the pages of th
Page 27 and 28: from teaching in 1968, Kirkconnell
Page 29 and 30: Magyar poets and writers to the rea
Page 31 and 32: tive of his helpful attitude and un
Page 33: 33. Kirkconnell, A Slice of Canada,
Page 36 and 37: The groaning of the slaves on Egypt
Page 38 and 39: ecause most such lines are imbedded
Page 40 and 41: ;Two spheres contend with one anoth
Page 42 and 43: matched it to this feeble hurdy-gur
Page 44 and 45: NOTES1. The only full-length study
Page 46 and 47: terest in Hungarian literature, has
Page 48 and 49: limitations of Bowring and others:
Page 50 and 51: Jones' Five Hungarian WritersJ 4 Su
Page 53 and 54: REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Poetry in E
Page 55 and 56: ooks written in English. A table of
Page 57 and 58: passive, or into noun phrases in En
Page 59 and 60: REVIEW ARTICLEHungarian Religious P
Page 61 and 62: magas és a mély magánhangzójú
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SPECIAL SECTIONToldiAn Epic Poem (1
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CANTO ONE"He lifted, with one hand,
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"Who should be squire of this whole
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What meant this hubbub in a widow's
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"Lad, here's your share! Don't say
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The heavy stone flies on: where wil
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The homes of moorhen, plover, gull
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Perhaps I'll shed my blood, some no
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CANTO FIVENicholas went wandering a
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Her tongue was like a coulter in th
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Rosemary pots mourned on its window
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Such were her words. No more would
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As if a nest of hornets rose to sti
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Upon an isle, by a Czech's hand the
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REVIEW ARTICLEQuo Vadis Transylvani
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Hungarians in Rumania in terms of t
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down by serious shortcomings in bot
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alanced presentation of the Vienna
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talent enables Wass to depict the s
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Carpathian Federation, and printed
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Now and then, however, this rule de
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temper such an indictment by recogn
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OUR CONTRIBUTORS (continued from pa
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TO THOSE WISHING TO SUBMIT MANUSCRI
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