HIST3749: Central and Eastern European Migrants in Minnesota

In this class, we will use Minnesota, particularly the Twin Cities, as a lens through which to examine the history of Central and Eastern European migration to the United States (U.S.) from the late 19th century to the present. Moving chronologically and from the global to the local, this class will first examine the complex and intertwined reasons that prompted people to settle (either temporally or permanently) in the U.S. in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. We will explore the communalities and differences between the Poles, Ukrainians, Germans, Czechs, Slovaks, Jews, Hungarians, Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs who made up this initial wave of migration, and assess how these migrants shaped the urban and social fabric both in the United States, and in St. Paul and Minneapolis. Second, the class will examine how these communities evolved over the course in the 20th century by a) exploring topics such as ethnic identity maintenance, inter-generational relations, return migration, xenophobia and antisemitism, the relationship between migrants and the host society, and institutions (churches and synagogues, fraternal organizations, learned societies, archives, museums and libraries, etc.) established by migrants in the U.S., and b) assessing the impacts of later migration waves from Europe to the U.S., caused by the Holocaust and the Second World War, the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the 1968 Prague Spring, Soviet emigration policies, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the civil wars in Yugoslavia. Keeping in mind the pressing ethical questions that subtend migration (both historical and contemporary), this class will also ask what it means to be a descendant of Central and Eastern European migrants in present-day Minnesota—not just of those who arrived over a century ago, but also more recent migrants, e.g., Russians, or Muslims from Bosnia-Hercegovina. To this end, we will enrich our classroom by extending it into the metro area with visits to relevant sites and meetings with representatives of some of these communities in order to understand their current lives, work, and challenges. This class will thus draw on numerous local resources: archives, buildings such as religious sites and community centers, museums, etc.

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