Where Is My Home? Slovak Immigration to North America, 1870–2010 by M. Mark Stolarik (review)

The main title of this book is more indicative of the contents than the subtitle. Before describing and appreciating what this book is actually about, it may be appropriate to first comment on what it is not about.

Contrary to what the subtitle would seem to suggest, this is not a systematic, chronological account of the immigration of thousands of ethnic Slovaks to the United States and Canada. The author does provide a good deal of detailed information on this migration, but not demographic data. For example, Canadian researchers interested in learning more about Slovak migration to western Canada during the early years of settlement will be disappointed. This early settlement is summarized in a scant couple of pages about a third of the way through the book; we are simply told that “a small number of Slovak farmers settled on Canada’s prairies before the Great War” (117). A cursory reference is made to Slovaks being recruited, together with a “much larger group of Magyars” by “Count” Esterhazy in 1885, followed by “a few hundred” who later settled “in other locations.” The only “other locations” mentioned are in central Saskatchewan, where another cpr “land locator” agent, Juraj Zeman, settled “dozens of Slovaks” (115–16) after 1900 in Kenaston (no mention that this was actually an extensive Croatian settlement), Outlook, and Broderick (predominantly Norwegian). Hardly any mention is made of Slovaks settling with Czechs in a variety of specific Czechoslovak settlements, nor is there any discussion of the extent to which Slovaks mixed with Czechs in these settlements and formed common Czechoslovakian organizations. Moreover, both Slovaks and Czechs, being farmers, tended to settle out on the land in rural districts rather than in communities; very few, if any, were actually found in town. This rural prairie settlement has been documented by J. Gellner and J. Smerek, The Czechs and Slovaks in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 1968); E. Jakesova and M.M. Stolarik in the Encyclopedia of Canada’s People (University of Toronto Press, 1999); and most recently by A.B. Anderson in the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan (Canadian Plains Research Center, 2005) and Settling Saskatchewan (University of Regina Press, 2013).

Revealing his penchant for the urbanization of Slovak immigrants – Stolarik is the author of Immigrants and Urbanization: The Slovak Experience, 1870–1918 (ams, 1989) – he chooses to focus on “a larger number” of Slovaks who headed for the coal mines of Crowsnest Pass on the Alberta–British Columbia border, on the early settlers in Port Arthur and Fort William (present-day Thunder Bay), and especially on the later arrivals in Toronto and other southern Ontario cities (117). Much of the book is about Slovaks in the United States, yet it contains significant Canadian content. Of ten chapters, just two focus exclusively on Canada, another five partially, while the conclusion is essentially about Slovak “snowbirds” in Florida. In any case, the author suggests that the international border was rather irrelevant to Slovak immigrants and families, who had many ties, both personal and organizational, on both sides of the border. However, he does point out some interesting differences, such as American and Canadian attitudes toward Marxists.

What, then, is this book really about? To be fair, the author does explain at the outset his conviction about the need for a different sort of history writing. With a lifetime of experience in archival research on Slovak immigration, and recurrent research trips back to Slovakia, Stolarik intentionally sets out to tell the story in a very personal way. The book’s back cover suggests that the life histories of more than two dozen American and Canadian families are incorporated into this account, yet much of the story is autobiographical, focusing particularly on several generations of the Stolarik family. A remarkable amount of personal family detail is provided, along with discussion of political changes in Slovakia and the development and durability (or lack of it) of Slovak organizations in...