Fraternity-Testvériség, 1958 (36. évfolyam, 1-11. szám)
1958-08-01 / 8. szám
8 FRATERNITY AUGUST J. MOLNÁR: LAND OF CHOICE — The Hungarian in Canada By JOHN KOSA. — Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957. Pp. 104. $3.50. ★ ★ ★ Do you wish to know more about your parents or your grandparents as immigrants — as Hungarian immigrants to North America? Land of Choice, a study of the Hungarian immigrant, is a book for every intelligent and inquiring reader in America. It is a book many have been waiting for. Although the sample of 112 families studied lived in Canada, that fact does not detract the least bit in the value of the book for the reader in the United States. The author, John Kosa, is assistant professor of sociology at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York. Sociologically speaking, the “immigrant” has not passed from the— social scene in North America. Today, with the great mobility of large segments of the population, the “immigrant” and newcomer status is thrust upon people from foreign countries or different American communities. John Kosa in Land of Choice presents a thorough and careful study of the Hungarian immigrant in Canada. It is based upon a sample of 112 family units who came to Canada before 1939 and resided there for a median length of twenty-four years. Therefore, the immigration studied includes the poorer classes who made up the bulk of the emigration from Hungary prior to 1939. They had the typical schooling of the old country, four to eight years of grammar school, but no formal education in Canada. Kosa discusses the motivations for emigrations; the importance of the Hungarian sib system and its determining influence in Canada; the desire for financial success in the New World and the resulting stratification of the Hungarian immigrant society; the clash and compromise of the old country and new country patterns of marriage and family life; changes in the form of life in economic activity; psychological reactions to and social identification with social patterns; changes in the immigrants’ food and clothing; the common roots of the Western Christian system of normative values in Hungarian and Canadian life, but their respective differences under Puritan influence in Canada and under the influence of Josephinism and Biedermeier hedonistic philosophy in Hungarian society. Although the immigrant takes over the Canadian patterns, his normative attitude strongly resists Canadian influence. The external form of life is tied up with succcess and material reward, but the normative system, on the other hand, is not directly connected to success and material reward. The normative system is not influenced by factors similar to advertising. The ethnic churches and associations which could be influential in this field tend to perpetuate old country ideals. However, T
