Chapter 8- Eastern Europeans-Poles, Jews, and Hungarians

Eastern Europeans-Poles, Jews, and Hungarians.

Daniels states “It’s seems to me, many of them came to understand the real nature of America much better than did most of who despised them” (Daniels 214). Most immigrants that came to America had intensions, in my perspective most of the immigrants that come and be the most illiterate of them all, but coming here shows them a sense of learning the languages, customs, standards of living, and most of all adapting to the way individuals are living in this country different than how they were living when they were back home. The Polish that had come to America shared a sense of speaking Polish as their mother tongue and religion wise they were Roman Catholics. This had showed in the census that most groups were associated with the mother tongues they spoke. Most Poles worked in industries, they didn’t work in hostile unions, but they were enthusiastic about the trade unionist. The two main reasons Eastern Europeans migrated was because they wanted to improve their standard of living along with religious reasons. Most of the European Jewish immigrants settled in New York City. Most of these individuals were working in poor and dusty conditions. Later in 1911, there was a huge industrial tragedy which was the Triangle Waist Fire of 1911, where more than 140 most women workers were burned to death, where horrified crowds were in scene, this had happened in Jewish shops.  Eastern European Jews were religious and secular during the time. The Jewish community was relatively high. They had a sense of pride and leadership. The section has a lot of dates along with importance of Pols and Eastern European Jews.

The Hungarian-Magyar Americans was also a group that emigrated from Eastern Europe. Small, but important presence of them had come as early as the American Revolution. There were many Hungarians that had served in the Union Army which took place in the Civil war. My best friend is from Hungary, she tells me when her parents first came to the US, they lived in California, Fremont- there is a relatively higher population of Hungarian families that live there compared to any other part of CA. I found this very surprising, because I didn’t really know that Hungarians were a separate group of people, I thought they were of either Armenia or the Middle- East, but she told me what exactly their identity is. Hungarians were more involved in during the civil rights, WWI, and US Army during WWII.