Eastern European Americans

Eastern European Americans are Americans of Eastern European ancestry. Eastern European American people can usually trace back full or partial heritage to Belarus, Russia, Moldova, Ukraine and other nations connected to Eastern Europe geographically or culturally.

Background

Eastern European Americans have been considered as a distinct pan-ethnic group which is based on tracing ancestry to one or more of the nations of Eastern Europe, or of a nation bordering with or otherwise ethnoculturally connected to the region.[1] The group can be subdivided into nation-based groupings, such as Moldovan Americans or Russian Americans.[2]

History

In the 1880s and 1890s, many Eastern Europeans settled in places like Cleveland, Ohio, which, along with German Americans, contributing to the population of Cleveland being 75 percent foreign-born by 1900.[3] Between 1900 and the 1965 Hart–Celler Act, the majority of immigration into the US was from Southern and Eastern Europe.[4] After the First World War, Eastern European Americans made up a significant part of the Pittsburg, Kansas mining community, dubbed the "Little Balkans", and cooperated in labor strikes with Swedish Americans, Austrian Americans and other European immigrant groups.[5]

During World War II, the ethnic group were subjected to government measures and restrictions. Speaking in the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2003, Russ Feingold stated how "Eastern European Americans were unfairly arrested, detained, interned, or relocated".[6] In the 1950s, Eastern European Americans, including second or third generation Americans, as well as more recent arrivals, such as those who were exiled or refugees from the Soviet Union, were faced with the conflicting position of needing to demonstrate loyalty to the United States, while advocating for policy which could help their former homelands.[7]

The 1950s marked a social breakthrough for many Eastern European Americans. In a New England Board of Higher Education interview with David Halberstam, the historian proposed how access to white society became possible for the pan-ethnic group, along with Italian Americans by the mid-decade point.[8] Respresenting this social shift, the US Census Bureau found that Eastern European and Southern European Americans, born between 1956 and 1965, had practically converged in education outcomes with British Americans, and were, in fact, slightly outperforming Americans of solely British heritage in the completion of bachelor's degrees.[9]

In the mid-1970s, the Helsinki Accords caused some political tension between the Ford administration and the Americans of Eastern European heritage.[10]

Founded as an Irish American heritage unit, the 69th Infantry Regiment had a significant number of Eastern European Americans serving in 2001.[11] In 2004, the marketing strategy of Czech Airlines targeted Central and Eastern European Americans to encourage tourism.[12]

In 2016, writing for the American Enterprise Institute ahead of the US 2016 election, political appointee Marc Thiessen suggested that Donald Trump's relationship with Vladimir Putin was driving away Eastern European American voters, especially in relation to the Ukrainian crisis.[13] Political scientist Agnia Grigas similarly argued that the GOP nominee was cause for concern for Americans with Eastern European heritage due to the alleged relationship with the Russian president.[14]

In 2019, as a part of the ongoing measles resurgence in the United States, Eastern European Americans were reported to be particularly affected by an outbreak in Washington state.[15]

Discrimination

A Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning course, titled Race and The American Legal System, examines some of the legal injustices faced by the group.[16]

Academic research

A 2008 Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute study tested over five hundred Eastern European American volunteers consecutively in order to identify human leukocyte antigen alleles and contribute towards a hematopoietic stem cell registry.[17]

See also

• Eastern European Australians
• Eastern European Britons
• Eastern European Canadians

References

1. "Eastern European Americans". Library of Congress. 2015.
2. Gail Garfinkle Weiss (2009). Americans from Russia and Eastern Europe (New Americans). Benchmark Books. p. 8. ISBN 978-0761443100. Including people whose parents, grandparents, or other ancestors were born in Russia and Eastern Europe, the total number of Eastern European Americans is much higher.
3. "Historic Ethnic Groups in Ohio". State Library of Ohio. Cleveland, Ohio, likewise, saw many Eastern Europeans choosing its city as their new home. While thousands of Germans often chose rural areas throughout Ohio as their new residence, they also settled in Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland. In fact, at the beginning of the 20th century, at least 50 percent of Cleveland residents were German. Over 75 percent of Cleveland’s population was foreign born by 1900.
4. Irmo Marini (2009). "Counseling White Americans". The Professional Counselor's Desk Reference. Springer Publishing. p. 249. ISBN 978-0826171818. Southern and Eastern European Americans. After 1900, and prior to the 1965 Immigration Act, most immigrants to the United States came from southern and eastern European countries.
5. "Amazon Army". Kansas Historical Society. February 1, 2011. These local families were immigrants from many European nations who had brought their mining skills to southeast Kansas. Called "Little Balkans," this region was home to French, Italian, Swedish, Austrian, German, British, and Eastern European Americans who spoke many different languages.
6. "Statement of The Honorable Russ Feingold" (PDF). Senate Judiciary Committee. October 16, 2003. Thousands of German Americans, Italian Americans, and Eastern European Americans were unfairly arrested, detained, interned, or relocated. Our government confiscated the personal property of many European Americans and restricted their travel rights.
7. Jonathan H. L'Homedieu (2009). "Journal of American Ethnic History". Baltic Exiles and the U.S. Congress: Investigations and Legacies of the House Select Committee, 1953-1955 (Volume 31 ed.). University of Illinois Press. p. 41. Politically motivated Eastern European Americans rejected the postwar political settlement in their former homelands. They were caught between promoting unrealistic foreign policy prescriptions in the American political spectrum, such as advocating the use of military force to roll back Communism in Eastern Europe, and having to demonstrate their loyaltly to the United States.
8. "Fall 2005 Connection: 50 Years of New England Higher Education and Economic Development". New England Board of Higher Education. September 26, 2013. But in retrospect, it was narrower than we thought. We perceived ourselves in the ‘50s as a white society, and the breakthrough was mostly limited to people who were descendents of Italian-Americans, Eastern European Americans, children of Jewish immigrants.”
9. Dominic J. Pulera (2006). "A Nation of 100 Million". Sharing the Dream: White Males in a Multicultural America. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 30. ISBN 978-0826418296. The Census Bureau found that 55.9% of white men born between 1956 and 1965 had attended college and 25.5% of them had completed bachelor's degrees. However, the percentages had virtually converged for two groups in this cohort: men of solely British ancestry (66.3% and 31.8%, respectively) and Southern and Eastern European men (66.4% and 33.8%, respectively). Interestingly, these trends were reflected in the data for women too. While the Southern and Eastern European Americans began to prosper in America, African Americans continued to suffer from discrimination and diminished life chances
10. Sarah B. Snyder (2010). "Through the Looking Glass: The Helsinki Final Act and the 1976 Election for President". Diplomacy & Statecraft. pp. 86–106. Helsinki Final Act became a point of contention between the White House and Eastern European Americans during Ford's election campaign
11. Sean Michael Flynn (2007). The Fighting 69th: One Remarkable National Guard Unit's Journey from Ground Zero to Baghdad. Viking Adult. ISBN 978-1616802868. Most of its soldiers were immigrant kids with no military experience and no intention of serving their country very long. Once an all-Irish outfit, the 69th was now a mix of Latinos, African Americans, Eastern European Americans, Asian Americans, and a few token Irish Americans.
12. "People and Accounts of Note". The New York Times. June 29, 2004. Czech Airlines, Prague, named Global Advertising Strategies, New York, to create two campaigns for its United States account, which is handled internally and on a project basis. One campaign will be focused on Central and Eastern European-Americans and the other will be aimed at encouraging American business travelers to visit Central and Eastern Europe.
13. "Trump's Putin bromance is driving away Eastern European-American voters". American Enterprise Institute. August 23, 2016. Similarly out of the mainstream were those central and eastern European Canadians, now condescendingly called "ethnics." Of those who served with SOE , most were Yugoslavs who had immigrated to Canada in the 1920s and 1930s.
14. "Will GOP-leaning foreign policy voters pass on Trump?". The Hill. April 11, 2016. History might repeat itself, because just like 71 years ago when a great number of Americans of Eastern European descent felt betrayed by the Democrats over their dovish stance vis-a-vis Moscow, now they might feel similarly about the current GOP nominee.
15. "America's Measles Crisis Will Get Worse Before It Gets Better". Pacific Standard. April 29, 2019. For many months, the virus also circulated among Eastern European Americans in southern Washington State, where vaccine skepticism is unusually widespread, Vox reports. Washington's outbreak was officially declared over last week, Messonnier said.
16. "Race and The American Legal System". Fromm Institute for Lifelong Learning. This course will examine the way in which the legal system, through court decisions, treaties and legislation, systematically discriminated against Native Americans, African Americans, Latin Americans, Asian Americans and certain Eastern European Americans.
17. S. J. Mack (2008), HLA-A, -B, -C, and -DRB1 allele and haplotype frequencies distinguish Eastern European Americans from the general European American population., Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, Sequence-based typing was used to identify human leukocyte antigen (HLA)-A, -B, -C, and -DRB1 alleles from 558 consecutively recruited US volunteers with Eastern European ancestry for an unrelated hematopoietic stem cell registry.