Having spent 48 of my 54 years in the US, I chose to call my blog Americanmagyar. Bernard asked me if I felt more American or more Hungarian. Since I have been here, I have felt my European and Hungarian roots rising to the fore. But it has not always been that way.
I grew up in the US, but I didn’t always feel completely American. We spoke Hungarian at home, celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, had different foods to celebrate the holidays, etc. Obviously may parents and some of my siblings always spoke English with a Hungarian accent (to a greater or less degree depending on the number of glasses of wine). But it extended beyond those elements. My brothers and sisters would never dare speak to our parents the way some of our American friends spoke to theirs. Perhaps our family was more patriarchal–it’s hard to say since it was filled with so much love. But we respected our parents and were taught to defer to our elders. Our parents tended to be more formal than their American counterparts.
One of my strongest and most enduring memories of growing up in the Muranyi household was the bridge and dinner parties…my father and I always had the job of polishing the silver. I remember serving the guests (and cleaning up the kitchen) while my parents and their company sat for hours at the dinner table talking, drinking wine, and sipping espresso. The table always had candles, fresh flowers, and the best china. Over the years, my parents learned to be a little more informal, but they never stinted on the details.
I have carried on the tradition….I love to sit at the candlelit table with friends and family over a good meal. My garden provides flower for the table a good portion of the year. Even when we have a cookout, I think there’s something special about drinking wine from a nice thin crystal glass…it makes sitting outside and enjoying the fresh air somehow better. But I digress.
The point I wanted to make is that it is not always easy growing up bi-cultural. I didn’t always feel completely American, but on the other hand, I was clearly not all Hungarian either. My sense of myself was also complicated by the fact that we moved a lot. When we arrived in the US, we had nothing. I mean that literally. We lived in a boarding house for a few days until my parents found an apartment. Both of them had jobs, and with the first paycheck we went to Salvation Army and found used furniture. It was difficult; my parents sent us to Catholic schools, which were private and obviously more expensive than the public schools. My father also discovered how to survive using the credit card. As their prospects improved, we moved. We are exemplars of upward mobility. I once counted the number of schools I attended between 1st grade and high school graduation: 8 different schools in 11 years. I found it difficult. It was not until I attended Georgetown that I made lasting friendships (and all of those were from my junior year abroad in Switzerland)… I treasure them to this day and look forward to our reunion in Fribourg next month.
All of this history is to make a point. When I had children, I wanted them to have roots and a sense of connectedness…not the uncertainty that I had endured. I wanted for them what I found lacking: stability. So that’s what Bernard and I gave them. We lived in a small town, the kids grew up with the same friends, made their first communion and confirmation together, played sports together, attended the same schools, and never, I don’t think, ever felt that they didn’t belong. I immersed myself in middle America and it was comforting to see familiar faces at the grocery store, the public library, the YMCA, and about town. Except for when I got together with my siblings or parents, I forgot for long stretches of time that I was also Hungarian.
My cousins, my colleagues, and my Hungarian friends all ask me if I taught my children to speak Hungarian. The answer is no. Partly because I never learned to read or write in Hungarian, and it is hard to teach a language without those skills, but partly because I didn’t want to mark them as different. That is the bottom line…it is the opportunity cost of belonging. My kids are coming to visit in a month–I can’t wait to share with them my Hungary.
Now I am in the land of my birth and the Magyar in me is reasserting itself. I am still Americanmagyar, but I am different then when I arrived here. I don’t know if I can ever be the same…and I don’t know if I want to be.
Thanks for tuning in and best regards,
Marcsi
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