Itt-Ott, 1973 (6. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)
1973 / 1. szám
be enabled to fulfill the program of American civic, social and cultural activities; to serve as a clearinghouse for Hungarian American life; to make easily available vital information concerning the American political and social system; to follow the legislative activities of the U.S. Congress and States, the various organized and unorganized grouos in the United States and to counteract any attempt at discrimination in the States and legislatures, before courts, in employment, in schools; to defend the interests of the Hungarian-born American citizens as well as the interests of their offspring, wherever, from time to time, as it may be necessary. This particular organization, too, was the result of an upgrowing of similar organizations that came into being in the 1930's. Another, for example, was the Hungarian Educational Association, one among many similar ones that came out of the movement of secondgeneration people born of Hungarian parents in the United States, hoping to explain and share their cultural heritage, not necessarily in the Hungarian language, but in the English language. Also there came into being a little almanac through the Szabadság, an almanac totally in English, in the 1930's, again to share that which is the cultural heritage of the Hungarian people who lived here in America. Another document that comes from our Foundation Library and Archives that I want to show you was printed in 19^-0; it is a document of the Hungarian Reference Library and its Hungarian Academy. It is a list of lectures and courses that were offered in the fall of 19^0 and shows again the kind of cultural interest that was in the fore. With the coming of the Second World War, all of these things were truncated, brought to a standstill almost, because the men of these families, the young men, went off to war. With the end of the war, many of these pieces could not be put together once again, and thus most of the cultural organizations, such as the Hungarian Educational Associations in small towns and small places could not and did not pick up where they had left off. None of these cultural organizations exist today. Because of certain historical exigencies and other factors, each passed away. The Hungarian American Foundation hardly even got off the ground, but the Magyar Egylet and the Hungarian Reference Library, each in its own right, were effective organizations. For our purposes and discussion, I will need to define the effectiveness of a cultural organization as being the effectiveness with and by which it carries out its purposes and aims through its programs, projects and services rendered to its public or community, the circle, extended or limited, within which it operates. As one focuses upon this subject of the effectiveness of our cultural organizations, I feel this ambitious assignment, which in the final analysis requires development of certain standardized tests and questionnaires, still can be approached without the sophisticated apparatus of a sociologist, a psychologist, a pollster or a cultural anthropologist. Allow me to present two "household" assumptions, or assumptions I feel are usable. As I present them I realize that they are straw men and can be knocked down almost immediately. When viewed from the viewpoint of various disciplines, each assumption has its own weaknesses^and contradictions. Nonetheless, I propose first that the effectiveness of any unit is magnified as it approaches the one-32
