Itt-Ott, 1984 (17. évfolyam, 1-3. szám)

1984 / 2. szám

The 8th Tribe Foundation, founded in 1981, in Ligonier, Pennsylvania directs its efforts to those whose most comfortable language is English — who may not know any|or very little | or not enough Hungarian to communicate in it in writing or orally, confidently or comfortably. A major goal of the 8th Tribe Foundation is to publish in English a non-denominational monthly magazine of general interest to American Hungarians.

By one measuring stick, that goal has not been especially successful. Only about 1,000 persons pay $15. a year to subscribe to the monthly magazine. By another standard, it has been successful. For 10 years — every month, since 1974, it has published an English language magazine. That is, about 120 issues. And, if you figure about 20 pages per issue, that represents about 2,400 pages.

Looking at the economics of it — if one gets $15. a year from 1,000 readers, that is $15,000. That's not much money when one considers printing costs, postage, and the journalistic labor that it takes to publish 120 issues. It is not a "get-richquick" scheme for the Bethlen Press or its publisher, Sándor Chomosh.

Rather, it is a labor of love. It is labor for an idea. It is labor in search of an audience of 1. 8 million American Hungarians — to help link us up with others of a common heritage, to keep us in touch with each other, to be better aware of the past and present of Hungarians wherever they may live, to be better informed about Hungarian organizations, activities, and events — whether these groups or interest groups be in education, in business, ecclesiastical in nature, or in some other fields of endeavor.

There is a need for this. There is a need for an English language monthly general interest non-denominational magazine about Hungary and Hungarians — published in North America — representing

the North American perspective.

There are, of course, some other English language publications directed toward specific groups of American Hungarians. These publications also serve an important role for the groups they serve. Some of the publications that I am aware of include:

1. The American Hungarian Foundation Newsletter, which reviews scholarly articles and books, and comes out about three times a year.

2. There is the newsletter of this Association of American Hungarian Educators, which is published three times a year.

3. There is the "Karikázd" — published occasionally by the American Hungarian Folk Dance group in New Jersey.

4. There is: Calvin Synod publication — formerly edited by Reverend Kántor, who is on our panel tonight.

5. There is the William Penn Quarterly, published four times a year by the largest American Hungarian insurance company still in existence. William Penn was founded 98 years ago. It has well over 70,000 members. It is both a business and a social organization for American Hungarians.

6. There is INSIGHTS — published about four times a year in Cleveland by an American Hungarian school group.

There may be other English language publications. But there is only one general interest monthly that tries to reach out and touch the 1. 8 million American Hungarians.

And that is the 8th Tribe Magazine in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, just a little east of Pittsburgh.

There are some other magazines directed toward other American ethnic groups that apparently enjoy a certain amount of success. Two that I am familiar with are: ATTENZIONE for Italian-Americans and Pol-Am for Polish- Americans.

ATTENZIONE is a slick, high quality, magazine — published 11 times a year.

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