Damian subscribed to this blog for two reasons: 1/ he has a Czech heritage and 2/ he received an assignment at school to write en essay about ethnic group discrimination. Hence his decision on what particular topic to write about couldn’t be easier: discrimination (or no discrimination?) of Czechs. Enjoy.
Ethnic Groups and Discrimination: Czechs
My family’s origin is the region of Central Europe now known as The Czech Republic and Slovakia; however, from 1920 to 1992 these two countries were joined together as one nation called Czechoslovakia. Before then, the region underwent several changes in name as the result of wars and empirical conquests left the region under the rule of Austria, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire, to name a few. However the main regions historically are Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia (Czechoslovak, 2008 p.1.) To avoid confusion, most individuals with genealogical ties to the region can claim Czech heritage, but might chose to further identify with any of the three regions for more clarification, with the best way to do this by finding out what town or geographical part of the region ancestors come from.
In terms of people from this region immigrating to America, it is difficult to finalize a total as census records before 1920 when census and government records of Czech immigrant origins and birth places included Austria, Austria-Hungary or Bohemia, with Slovakia and Moravia rarely found on such records (Kukral, 2004.) [click to continue…]
The communist era in the Czech Republic ended almost 20 years ago, yet the country seems still quite unsettled about this issue. Many political groups keep “acting out” for the public to pay more attention to this unresolved issue. A lot of people are angry because the individuals who went over to the “dark side” and joined the party during communism had much easier life back then: they could travel, had better jobs, their kids were allowed to attend universities….. [click to continue…]
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