The 15th biennial Hungarian Association for American Studies (HAAS) Conference took place at the Károly Esterházy Catholic University in Eger on 28–30 May, 2026. The program included panel discussions on history, literature, culture, movies, and inter-American mobility connected by the theme of the American legacy of the past 250 years.

The official program started on 28 May, Thursday, early afternoon, with opening speeches by Dr. Ilona Tari, Rector of the Károly Esterházy Catholic University Dr. Pajtókné, Counselor for Public Affairs of the Embassy of the U.S. in Hungary Jeff Adler, President of HAAS Ágnes Kovács, and leader of the Conference Organizing Committee Zoltán Peterecz.

The first keynote speaker was Richard M. Gamble, Professor of History at the University of South Carolina. In his presentation titled ‘The Declaration as History and Ideology: A Cold War Debate’, he referred to the American conservative intellectuals who debated the meaning and significance of the Declaration of Independence during the Cold War. At stake was more than the proper interpretation of a historical document: it was used as an epitome for the U.S. as a whole, and for its duty to the world, he claimed. His presentation sought to pinpoint some of the main questions related to the Declaration: whether it was simply an announcement to the world of American independence and the Revolution completed once the war ended in 1783, or was it a statement of universal principles and the Revolution itself, but ‘one part of a perpetual, universal struggle for human emancipation’; whether it was essentially conservative or radical; should it be understood more historically or abstractly; was America’s post WWII foreign policy a fulfillment or betrayal of the Declaration.

The first day’s cultural section titled ‘Episodes of Hungarian Immigrants in the U.S.’ was chaired by Balázs Venkovits, associate professor from the University of Debrecen. Freelance journalist Ildikó Antal-Ferencz presented her latest book, Remaining Hungarian in America, published by Fekete Sas Publishing Co. The audience learned that these life stories are interesting and valuable in their own right, but also provide an authentic Hungarian American chronology of the various waves of immigration. They prove that the survival of the Hungarian diaspora is based on the preservation and cultivation of the Hungarian language, culture, and traditions at the individual, family, and community levels, as well as on close cooperation between various generations and organizations. Recently, 45 of the author’s more than 100 interviews—published in the U.S. in three Hungarian and two English volumes over the past three years—have been compiled in a new volume titled Remaining Hungarian in America for the Hungarian market, including four chapters on diaspora organizations, scout troops, folk groups and cultural complexes, churches and weekend schools, honorary consuls and media representatives.

Réka Bakos presenting at the HAAS conference PHOTO: courtesy of Ildikó Antal-Ferencz

Program Director Réka Bakos of the Hungarian Roots & American Dreams—a book series growing out of a Facebook group—shared the first steps of launching the initiative, aiming to preserve the memory of the hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who emigrated to the U.S.—many of whom eventually returned—and to create a cross-generational, cross-Atlantic community of their descendants. As emphasized, a significant portion of the members of this community (who are the authors of the book series edited by Réka Bakos and associate professor of the University of Szeged Anna Fenyvesi) are (great-)great-grandchildren of early 20th-century Hungarian immigrants who returned home before WWII. Through their project and bilingual book series, they collect and share personal narratives that reveal a little-known dimension of transatlantic migration history: the experiences of those who returned home. These micro-histories include stories of financial success, social reintegration, and cultural resilience—but also of postwar persecution, property confiscation, and decades of silence, explained the lecturer, who explored how family history research can reshape our understanding of the American Hungarian migration by illuminating the legacy of those who returned to the homeland. Drawing from community-sourced materials—including survey data, oral history interviews, and photographs—the lecturer showed how this heritage lives on in the memory, identity, and transnational connections of the next generations. By focusing on these long-overlooked stories, they challenge the dominant narrative of migration as one-way, and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of what the ‘American legacy’ means—on both sides of the ocean, she concluded, sharing one specific story, of Dollártanya, as a lead example.

‘These micro-histories include stories of financial success, social reintegration, and cultural resilience’

Associate professor Éva Forintos of the University of Pannonia, Veszprém, gave a presentation on mixed-language writing in Hungarian diaspora communities in the U.S., investigating the relationship between code choice and identity, through the analysis of written mixed-language discourse—codeswitches found on the Facebook pages produced by members of Hungarian diasporic communities in the U.S. As explained, the mixed code discourse is a variety that contributors to the Facebook pages use intentionally to mark their identity and to highlight their relationship with their heritage within the mainstream language and culture. As explained, a multimodal approach was used during the investigation, which presumes that, in addition to language, there may be other approaches available for making meaning. Writing itself is considered to be multimodal, which means it utilizes a visual medium that can include particular design features—use of color, font, and typeface, choice of a particular script. In her presentation, the lecturer argued that the members of the Hungarian diaspora communities living in the U.S. have developed an identity that can be regarded as fluid, as opposed to a stable phenomenon.

In the subsequent history section, Balázs Venkovits presented a paper examining the rapid restructuring of Hungarian migration pathways in the second half of the 1920s by situating migrant mobility at the intersection of migration policies in various countries, historical antecedents, mediated perceptions, intermediation, and migrant decision-making. Focusing on Hungarians navigating towards North America after the introduction of U.S. immigration quotas, his presentation demonstrated how migration trajectories were reconfigured through the combined effects of American restrictions, selective Canadian openness, and Hungarian attempts to regulate (and discourage) immigration. Drawing on government documents, contemporary Hungarian-language newspapers, travelers’ and migrant accounts, his paper conceptualized migration as a multi-layered process shaped not only by formal policy regimes, but also by migration infrastructures and informal networks facilitating legal, semi-legal, and unauthorized mobility. By integrating transatlantic and inter-American perspectives, the study highlighted migrant agency in adapting to shifting constraints and shows how Canada emerged simultaneously as a destination with shifting locations and a springboard within a re-routed North American migration system.

Balázs Venkovits presenting at the HAAS conference PHOTO: courtesy of Ildikó Antal-Ferencz

The second day’s keynote speaker was associate professor of City University of Hong Kong Mr. Eric Sandberg, who presented about the 2025 release of the most recent, and likely the last, novel by the legendary American novelist Thomas Pynchon, titled Shadow Ticket. Since Pynchon is now 88, it seems an appropriate moment to reconsider his career as a whole—and given the fact that the new novel is reportedly set in Hungary, the 15th HAAS conference is the perfect place to do that, he argued. In his talk, he examined two main facets of the writer’s career, dealing with his entire body of work, but paying particular attention to his three most recent novels—Inherent Vice, Bleeding Edge, and Shadow Ticket—which can be seen as a late crime fiction or ‘hardboiled trilogy’. First, he argued that it’s becoming increasingly clear that Pynchon’s novels offer a surprisingly coherent and complete counter-history of the American experiment from its inception to the 21st century, a history marked by ‘a profound bifurcation between—if the lack of nuance can be forgiven—good and evil’. This is particularly clear in relation to his trilogy, and may be one reason why Pynchon’s late fiction has leaned so heavily on the crime genre. Second, it’s also becoming clear that Pynchon’s America(s) don’t exist in isolation, but are instead carefully situated within, and entangled with, a broader global history of inequality, oppression, and resistance, he concluded.

The inter-American mobility section on Friday was chaired by Mónika Szente-Varga, professor and vice-dean of the Faculty of Military Science and Officer Training at Ludovika University of Public Service. Andrea Kökény, Senior Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Szeged, provided a lecture on László Újházi, a Hungarian landowner of the lesser nobility, who played an active role in the Hungarian revolution and war of independence of 1848–49. Afterward, he went into exile in the U.S. and founded a Hungarian colony in Iowa, then moved to Texas, becoming a U.S. citizen and a fierce opponent of slavery and secession, and after the Civil War—during which at his request, he served as American consul in Ancona, Italy—he helped found the Republican Party in his county. After the Compromise of 1867 in Hungary and the creation of the Austrian–Hungarian dual monarchy, he was offered amnesty, but he insisted on remaining in exile as long as the Habsburgs ruled Hungary. The presenter showcased how Újházi became a prominent figure in diaspora life in the U.S., while maintaining connections with his homeland, and his large family adapted to the circumstances and changes in Texas before and after the Civil War, while also trying to preserve their Hungarian identity.

Associate professor at the Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Szeged, Katalin Jancsó, gave a presentation on Peruvian Japanese in the U.S. during WWII, focusing on the Crystal City Family Internment Camp, Texas, located about 60 kilometers from the Mexican border. As noted, in the 1930s, most of the population of Crystal City, famous for its spinach production, was immigrant workers of Mexican origin. The migrant labor camp, known as El Campo by Spanish speakers, became part of the Crystal City Family Internment Camp established by the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1942 and operated until 1948, being the last WWII camp to close. Most of its residents were Latin Americans of Japanese, German, and Italian descent, including many Peruvian-Japanese people. As explained, the first Japanese immigrants arrived in Peru in 1899, becoming one of the largest Japanese colonies of the Latin American countries during WWII. The lecturer emphasized that Anti-Japanese sentiment had already flared up in the country before WWII, but it intensified after 1941 as people of Japanese (as well as German and Italian) origin faced suspicion as enemies. Along with several other Latin American countries, Peru was convinced by the U.S. government to allow the extrajudicial rendition of persons of Japanese ancestry. The presenter outlined the steps taken and the attitude adopted by the Peruvian government towards the Peruvian Japanese sent to the camp by processing oral history materials and contemporary documents found in Densho Digital Repository.

Katalin Jancsó presenting at the HAAS conference PHOTO: courtesy of Ildikó Antal-Ferencz

Alex Berczeli-Nemcsényi, PhD candidate of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Modern History and Mediterranean Studies, University of Szeged, shared the story of a German noble who became a Texan citizen. As explained, in the first half of the 19th century, socio-economic transformations brought about by the Industrial Revolution, along with political conflicts, prompted several thousand immigrants to cross the Atlantic Ocean; many of them settled in the independent Republic of Texas (which existed between 1836 and 1845). Recognizing the growing popularity of the region, a group of German nobles founded the Society for the Protection of German Immigrants in Texas in 1842, aiming to facilitate the settlement of German immigrants and, through its colonies, to establish economic relations between Texas and the German territories. In 1845, the organization appointed its second commissioner general, Baron Ottofried Hans Freiherr von Meusebach, who ‘departed for Texas as a nobleman, but arrived as a private citizen’, having primary responsibility to secure the conditions for the arrival and settlement of several thousand German immigrants. Among his achievements were the founding of the Society’s second colony, Fredericksburg, in 1846, as well as the conclusion of a peace treaty with the Comanche Indians. In his presentation, the lecturer seeks to address how this German nobleman related to the North American continent and to Texas in particular; what challenges he faced in his role as commissioner general; how he became a citizen of his new homeland, and what career he pursued following the Society’s bankruptcy in 1847.

Alex Berczeli-Nemecsényi presenting at the HAAS conference PHOTO: courtesy of Ildikó Antal-Ferencz

The presentation of Irén Annus, Associate Professor of the University of Szeged, contributed to academic discussions on the collaborative work of documentary photographer Dorothea Lange and agricultural economist Paul S. Taylor, on Mexican migrant laborers in California during the Great Depression. Through a close reading of their images, texts, and research methods, the lecture analyzed the specific documentary strategies they employed in their project to provide a detailed and credible record of labor conditions in agriculture. The presentation argued that Lange’s and Taylor’s commitment to ethical and faithful documentation enabled them to challenge dominant stereotypes and prevailing public narratives about Mexicans, thus contesting ‘exclusionary immigration policies, mass deportation, racialized labor regimes and systemic exploitation’.

In the history section titled ‘Cold War Anxieties’, Nóra Deák, international relations officer at the Secretariat of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, gave a presentation on the 56er Colonel Pál Maléter. As is known, after the arrest in Hungary of her husband, Colonel Pál Maléter, on 3 November 1956, his ex-wife, Mária Maléter (née Pausz), and two of their children fled Hungary and sought refuge in Vienna, Austria. (The third child joined them a month later.) The family of four went to Montreal, Canada, first, and were invited by the International Rescue Committee to address the UN in New York on behalf of her husband and the other captured Hungarian government officials. On the double occasion of the 70th anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution and War of Independence and the 250th anniversary of the United States, the lecture aimed to present, on the one hand, the role of the United Nations—and in particular that of Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld—in the cases of Prime Minister Imre Nagy and Pál Maléter in Hungary; and, on the other hand, the contribution of the Maléter family in the United States after receiving permanent residency shortly following Maléter’s execution in 1958. The research was based on oral history interviews with Pál Maléter II, his recollections published in 56 Stories, online newspaper databases, and FRUS documents.

In the inter-American mobility section on Saturday, chaired by Irén Annus, the presentation of Mónika Szente-Varga on Munkácsy in Latin America concentrated ‘rather on the movement of images and ideas than of people, although they are inevitably interconnected’, focusing on the artwork of Mihály Munkácsy and its influence in the Americas. The lecturer first listed some well-known details—Munkácsy’s trip to the U.S., and the sales of his art to U.S. collectors—then presented the articles about his paintings by the Cuban revolutionary, José Martí, a great admirer of Munkácsy, published in various Latin American newspapers. The presenter explained that from the 1970s, it became evident that there had been more ties between Munkácsy’s artistic creations and Mexico. Her research—relying principally on Hungarian articles from the 1970s and 1980s—presented two threads of connections: one related to a church in Mérida, Yucatán, the other to the musician József Smilovits, who immigrated to Mexico in the 1940s.

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