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Carpatho-Rusyn Americans

Carpatho-Rusyn Americans are Americans whose ancestors called Carpathian Rus their homeland. Carpathian Rus is not a sovereign nation but a region in the Carpathian Mountains near Ukraine, Slovakia, and Poland. Although they are a distinct people, because they are stateless in a region in which borders change frequently, Carpatho-Rusyns have found themselves a minority in many different countries.

Immigration and History

As people without their own country, Carpatho-Rusyns have faced an ongoing battle for recognition and self-rule that was variably successful, depending on the larger political scene around them. They have called themselves “Rusyns” or “Rusnaks” traditionally, but the different ruling states they have lived under have called them many other names. This variability has also meant it is nearly impossible to know how many Carpatho-Rusyns there actually are in Europe with any accuracy, but best estimates indicate that there are probably 800,000 to one million.

Carpatho-Rusyn immigration to the United States started in the late 1870s and 1880s, and by the start of World War I, around 225,000 had arrived. This first wave of immigration was the largest influx of Carpatho-Rusyn and only approximately 30,000 have come since that time. It is difficult to ascertain their numbers because upon immigrating to the United States, Carpatho-Rusyn Americans tended to identify with whatever host country their family group came from rather than as Carpatho-Rusyn Americans.

At the time most Carpatho-Rusyn came to America, they were coming from small mountain villages and were used to engaging in agriculture, grazing livestock, and seasonal labor for other, more dominant groups. This was difficult to duplicate in the United States, however, and most Carpatho-Rusyn immigrants settled in the northeastern and north central coal-mining areas, as well as urban areas in that region. In 1920, almost 80 percent of Carpatho-Rusyn Americans lived in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, and this trend mostly stayed in place. Carpatho-Rusyn Americans never faced discrimination specific to their actual ethnic identity, although they were initially combined with laborers of eastern European origin. In essence this makes them an unrecognized ethnic minority.

Acculturation and Assimilation

Carpatho-Rusyn Americans assimilated into American society in three phases. Between 1880 and 1925 Carpatho-Rusyn Americans were culturally, socially, and linguistically isolated in the United States. Of course, they lacked proficiency in English, and when they immigrated, they were Byzantine Rite Catholics, also known as Greek Catholics (a church that didn't exist in the United States at that time). Greek Catholicism was extremely important in the day-to-day lives of Carpatho-Rusyns so this was a major loss for Carpatho-Rusyn Americans. Therefore, Carpatho-Rusyn Americans began their own churches and social/fraternal organizations to help provide financial and other support to community members. These organizations provided services that included schooling in the Carpatho-Rusyn language. So, as a result, in this first phase of acculturation the major trend was preservation of the traditional ways as much as circumstances allowed.

The next phase spanned 1925 to 1975 and during this time second-generation Carpatho-Rusyn Americans rejected traditional customs more and more. Youth groups that used English were started in the Carpatho-Rusyn American community and sports clubs that were most popular in the community were devoted to American sports. By the 1950s community media were nearly all English-language. Carpatho-Rusyn Americans made active efforts to assimilate and even the Byzantine Rite Catholic churches in the community rejected rituals that differed from the Roman Catholic Church. This was further supported by the European situation; the Iron Curtain effectively prevented much contact or travel between Carpatho-Rusyn Americans and Carpatho-Rusyns.

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