Czech-Americans in the 21st century: Questionnaire results – part 2 /Cecho-americane ve 21. stoleti: vysledky ankety (cast 2.)

by Tanja on February 23, 2009

Hi Everyone/Ahoj vsichni,

here is a 2nd part of Ivana Stavarova’s research essay, which describes a current situation of the Czech-American minority in the US. As she said in the first part of this article there is virtually no statistical information on this topic so it is great that she picked something like that for her thesis! Although her sample group is quite small (159 people) you can still get an idea of what we, the Czech-Americans (and partially also Slovak-Americans), are like in these days. Don’t get freaked out by those evil-looking pie charts, they just make it easier for us to see the results. I thought the results to question no. 5 were very surprising and answer no. 7 made me feel a bit like an outsider since I do not belong to any of the official Czech organizations….but wait, I belong to Czechmate diary!!! So I am safe…..

CZ: Nize je uvedena druha cast diplomove prace super ceske studentky Ivany Stavarove. Esej se zabyva soucasnou situaci Cecho-Americanu (a zcasti take Slovako-Americanu) zijicich z USA. Jak jiz Ivana zduraznila v casti prvni, o tomto tematu neexistuji skoro zadne informace, a proto se na nej take vrhla. I kdyz celkovy pocet vyplnenych dotazniku nebyl az tak obrovsky (159 lidi), stale vam to da dobry obecny prehled, jak to s nami vubec vypada. Odpoved k otazce c. 5 me dosti zaskocila a diky odpovedi na c. 7 jsem se citila chvilku trosku menecenne, protoze k zadne oficialni organizaci nepatrim; ale pak jsem si vzpomela na Czechmate Diary a oddychla jsem si :0)) Jo, a nebojte se tech grafu, ty vam zivot jenom ulehci – uvidite!

• The fourth question asked respondents about their contacts in the Czech Republic, particularly relatives with whom they still keep in contact. The majority, 99, answered that they have contacts in Czech Republic and count among them both family and friends living in there, while 60 do not have any.

Fig.4: Contacts in the Czech Republic

• The fifth question in the questionnaire asks about the visits to the Czech Republic before and also after the events in 1989. Surprisingly, not many respondents found the Velvet Revolution in 1989 relevant for their trips to Czech Republic. 40 have visited without further specifying, 77 have visited repeatedly, one lives here in the Czech Republic and 41 have never visited Czech Republic neither before nor after 1989.

Fig. 5: Trips back to the Czech Republic

• The sixth question is trying to find out about the ties among Czechs living in the USA. It asked about respondents’ contacts with other Czechs within the United States. 148 are in contact with other Czechs or Czech descendants living in the USA, only 10 are not, 1 had not answered. Also in this case played a very important role family and friends who most of the respondents mentioned but also undeniable importance is holding their membership in various Czech clubs or organizations which sessions serve as meeting places.

Fig. 6: Contacts with other Czechs

• Connecting question to question number six is the following one where respondents are introducing Czech organizations, clubs and associations that exist in their neighborhood and that they are members of. In this case only 29 out of 159 questioned are not members of any Czech organization, the rest – 130 are members of full scale of them. There are five major organizations in a matter of number of members within this survey. They are: Czechoslovak Society of Arts and Science (SVU) with 19 members, SOKOL with 17 members, Slovanská Podporující Jednota Státu Texas (SPJST) with 13 members, Czech and Slovak American Genealogy Society of Illinois (CSAGSI) 13 members, Czechoslovak Genealogical Society International (CGSI) with 12 members, and Czech Heritage Society of Texas with 11 members withing this survey. All together the 130 respondents are members of 77 Czech organizations.