Acculturation and Occupation: A Study of the 1956 Hungarian Refugees in the United States

Book excerpt: The plans for this study were formulated between I956 and I958. For some time then, I had been interested in the processes of personal and social accommodation and in the factors that were responsible for resistance to change. While a graduate student at Columbia University at that time, I was also affiliated with a multidisciplinary research group at Cornell University Medical Colleges studying the reactions of people of various cultural and social backgrounds to situations of stress. The Hungarian refugees were one of the groups being studied. I thus decided to undertake a study of the process of acculturation, the Hungarian refugees providing an ideal population. I did not expect to encounter any serious difficulties. Needless to say, the work was beset with every sort of diWculty, financial, conceptual, etc., that usually accompanies research projects. It is only now, more than a decade later, that I am able to present my findings in their final form. I am pleased to have this opportunity to express my in debtedness to the many people who made this study possible. I have been fortunate in having teachers, colleagues, and friends, often all in the same person, who helped me in the formulation of the problem, offered encouragement along every step, and taught me the very skills I was to use.