Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the MakingOrth, Samuel Peter
History
Our Foreigners: A Chronicle of Americans in the Making
Orth, Samuel Peter
Immigrants -- United States; United States -- Emigration and immigration
The Pole, however, is more independent and progressive than the
Slovak, his brother from the northeastern corner of Hungary. For many
generations this segment of the Slav race has been pitifully crushed.
Turks, Magyars, and Huns have taken delight in oppressing him. An
early, sporadic migration of Slovaks to America received a sudden
impulse in 1882. About 200,000 have come since then, and perhaps twice
that number of persons of Slovak blood now dwell in the mining and
industrial centers of the United States. Many of them, however, return
to their native villages. They keep aloof from things American and
only too often prefer to live in squalor and ignorance. Their social
life is centered in the church, the saloon, and the lodge. It is
asserted that their numerous organizations have a membership of over
100,000, and that there were almost as many Slovak newspapers in
America as in Hungary.[38]
Little Russia, the seat of turmoil, is the home of the Ruthenians, or
Ukranians. They are also found in southeastern Galicia, northern
Hungary, and in the province of Bukowina. They have migrated from all
these provinces and about 350,000, it is estimated, now reside in the
United States. They, too, are birds of passage, working in the mines
and steel mills for the coveted wages that shall free them from debt
at home and insure their independence. Such respite as they take from
their labors is spent in the saloon, in the club rooms over the
saloon, or in church, where they hear no English speech and learn
nothing of American ways.
It is impossible to estimate the total number of Russian Slavs in the
United States, as the census figures until recently included as
"Russian" all nationalities that came from Russia. They form the
smallest of the Slavic groups that have migrated to America. From 1898
to 1909 only 66,282 arrived, about half of whom settled in
Pennsylvania and New York. It is surprising to note, however, that
every State in the Union except Utah and every island possession
except the Philippines has received a few of these immigrants. The
Director of Emigration at St. Petersburg in 1907 characterized these
people as "hardy and industrious," and "though illiterate they are
intelligent and unbigoted."[39]
So much in brief for the North Slavs. Of the South Slavs, the
Bulgarians possess racial characteristics which point to an
intermixture in the remote past with some Asiatic strain, perhaps a
Magyar blend. Very few Bulgarian immigrants, who come largely from
Macedonia, arrived before the revolution of 1904, when many villages
in Monastir were destroyed. For some years they made Granite City,
near St. Louis, the center of their activities but, like the Serbians,
they are now well scattered throughout the country. In Seattle, Butte,
Chicago, and Indianapolis they form considerable colonies. Many of
them return yearly to their native hills, and it is too early to
determine how fully they desire to adapt themselves to American ways.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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